Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Grito de la Noche is the best anti-fine dining experience to have in Nueva York.

It’s got a lot of things going for it: the genuine Mexican cuisine in futuristic style, the secret unlabeled drive-thru, nocturnal open hours, and employees that never question the appearance of their costumed customers. Miles loves going there the most, enough to overlook how terrifying Downtown’s neighborhood is.

Dropping by in Miguel's car, it’s not so bad. What villain is gonna jump Miles while getting scolded by the city’s very own giant, neon-suited Spider-Man?

“—I don’t want to see another blank anomaly report from you. If you don’t send them, there’s a delay, and when there’s a delay, a dozen different Peter Parkers start repeating the same damn joke at me.”

“Yeah, reporting. Whatever, whatever,” Miles says, not listening at all.

Miguel stops eating his soft taco. If the fire-daggers shooting out of his eyes were real, they would be scratching the side of Miles' head. 

“'Whatever'?”

“I just mean I get it already, man! Yeah, reporting's important...for...multiversal hole tracking, and...uh, other stuff. You’ve said it like a million times!”

“And yet I have to repeat myself, every time, because either you don’t do it, or,” Miguel flicks a loose piece of lettuce out through the open car window, “you do a half-assed job of it.”

Fair criticism. One problem: Miles hates filling those out. And he's not going to pretend otherwise. So what if the fate of the Spider-verse might hang on neatly-organized anomaly reports? Writing them is so, painfully, boring. Even if it adds data to Lyla's prediction and prep-work database, what more is there to say? Miles really doesn't want to do cross-universal homework on top of his normal homework.

So, like a true teenager with an honorary degree in loophole-argumentation, Miles asks, “Why can’t Lyla do it? She can pull my watch feed and transcribe an hour of footage in under a minute. I've seen her do it for you.”

“No."

"Why not? It'd be more efficient. Wouldn't you prefer efficiency?"

The fire-daggers come back. Miguel looks like he's about to accidentally smush the taco al pastor in his hand. "Miles, it’s a matter of personal responsibility and learning to take accountability.”

“Sounds like more work,” Miles whispers. He doesn’t miss the grumbled, “Dios, dame paciencia,” from the driver’s side.

“We’ll,” Miguel exhales next, “talk about this later. Again. Take a napkin, you’re going to get grease all over my car and it’s new and furbished.”

They eat in silence after calling it quits on the report stuff, staring out to the underbelly of the city. Miles goes at a slower pace. He’s watching the hovercars, locked onto ground level, move over halogen lit roads. There’s a false roof way above their heads, paved by topside roads and buildings that dome the sky. It makes Miles wonder if that wasn’t designed on purpose. 

Downtown is scary and patently dangerous, but it’s also vibrant and full of life. Its roads tell of familiar names and unchanged street corners, and Miles is sure that he knows this parking lot they are eating in. He’s probably perched on it, or someplace similar, back in his Brooklyn.

Spider-People may live across vastly different universes, but some things stay the same.

Miles spies a hoverbike zooming through the streets. Red-and-blue lights flash from its back. Curiosity has him ask, “Do you have cops here?” He hasn't seen any vehicle boasting the NYPD logo yet, and he's used to cop cars like his dad's rolling by on patrol duty.

Miguel looks at him funny. "Cops?"

The bike with the red-and-blue lights whizzes by, so Miles points at it with a grease-shiny finger.

“Ah. Not exactly. Those are Public Eye flyboys. Same law-enforcement duties, worse vindication.”

"What you mean by vindication?"

"They serve megacorp interests, like a private army. You'd be surprised to know I've had to fight them more often than street ruffs."

That pulls a sympathetic, "Yeesh," from Miles. Having to fight paid cops on top of local trouble on top of supervillains sounds like a headache and a half. 

"They're not nearly as bad now as they were before the Society's creation," Miguel adds with a simple shrug that refrains from explaining more. It begs the question, how bad was it before?

“You know, I hadn’t thought about it, because you hardly ever leave HQ, but do you have supervillains in Nueva York?”

Miguel doesn’t immediately answer, which gives Miles the impression that he’s asked the wrong question. So instead he tries, “Is there anyone we should be looking out for? You’re double-tasked with keeping the multiverse and the city safe and—”

“You don’t have to concern yourself with that. I’m Nueva York’s Spider-Man, you let me worry about my city’s problems.”

“Sure,” Miles nods. He gets it. He really does. Plenty of older Spider-People have taken one look at him and expressed their concern over how young he is to be Spider-Man. The coddling can get on his nerves sometimes. “But, is there anyone we should be looking out for? When I visit Gwen or Hobie’s worlds, they let me know what bad guy is rolling through the city that week. And, I mean, you’re a tough Spider-Man. I bet your villains are tougher than some.”

Miguel laughs at that. A short, airy thing, like it snuck out against his will. “In a way. But I’ve been Spider-Man for more years than you, Gwen and Spider-Punk combined. My villains have had time to mature, to become more ruthless. You should steer clear of them.”

That’s no skin off Miles’ back. “Hey, I inherited my Peter Parker’s older rogues!” 

“You did,” Miguel says, quieter.

His Peter Parker’s villains are no joke. Not just Fisk, who’s rotting in jail, but Doctor Octavius, Scorpion, Tombstone. Those that come and go like Rhino and Lizard aren’t as bad, but they’re big, and they pack a mean punch, and Miles has a handle on them already.

A few of them, too, have passed on before Miles became Spider-Man. There was Green Goblin, who fell alongside his world’s Peter. 

And the Prowler.

Every Spider-Man has villains. Some more deadly than others. Some are beyond one Spider-Man, and those, they fight—have fought—together. Like Spot. Like the anomalies.

Miguel says his villains have matured to ruthlessness. It sounds honest, but it also doesn’t feel completely true. Is he trying to shield him from someone? Miles huffs to himself. He’s not a kid. He’s beaten terrible odds, always surprising everyone around him, in-world and out.

His breath trembles with the memory of a fist clenched on the collar of his first super-suit, and a clawed gauntlet pulling his mask back down, over his face. He remembers a gunshot that still rings in his nightmares. A big, callused hand clasped in his, before it slips away forever.

Just keep going.

“Miguel, do you have…a Prowler? Should I steer clear because of that? I’ve seen a couple of them, you know, I’m not gonna freeze up.”

Miles has met enough Prowlers stranded from their dimensions now to know that it’s possible. It always stings behind his eyes, always winds him. Seeing his colors and hearing that name. But he knows they’re not his Uncle Aaron.

When Miguel shakes his head, relief unfurls in Miles’ chest. But then he turns his red eyes to Miles and it’s like the walls of an anomaly cage closing around Miles’ head. 

“In the multiversal path-tracking system, we have something classified under the name Precursor Villain.” Miguel fruitlessly holds an empty hand in the air between them. He shakes his head again. “Prowlers…Green Goblins… They’re Precursors. Everyone has one woven into their life.”

“So, you have one too.” Miles picks up his meaning. The warning in it.

“He’s not your Prowler, Miles. No one can be. No dejes que te afecte.” 

"I won't let it get to me, I know.” 

“Bien.” Miguel points down at the half-eaten food container on Miles’ lap. “Then finish your carne asada, it doesn’t taste the same cold.”

Downtown is breathtaking when it’s just humming with ordinary traffic problems. Miles is happy to open a portal from up here after munching. He watches the colors of the city get trippier around the edges of it.

Before he jumps back home, Miguel’s watch beeps. But it’s not an anomaly ping. 

The local radio sparks to life.

“—Fight outbreak on—downtown residents advised to avoid—”

“Sounds like a job for Spider-Man?” Miles jokes, putting his mask on.

“Oh, no. You go home.” It is much quicker and easier for Miguel's holo-suit to wrap over and flatten his civvies under. There's no button that he clicks, it just, comes on, however it is that it works. “My city, my problem.”

Miles makes a show of rolling his eyes even from behind the mask.

Once he activates auto-drive on the car, Miguel is vaulting the roof and swinging out between buildings. He obviously expects Miles to do as he’s told. The portal shrinks steadily behind Miles.

His city, his problems, he says. Well, nothing about following in invisible silence in that.

He’s focused on the best way to stay hidden while checking out the radio in destination. His web-swinging has to be timed to when Miguel is past a corner. It slows him significantly. Still, pretty hard to miss the laser shots and screaming. 

It’s not Miles’ style to stay on the sidelines, but he so rarely gets to watch another Spider fight solo. Things flow at a different pace against a crowd of cyber-enhanced people. Someone steals the show by swooping in on metal wings with a cackle. Nueva York’s Vulture, self-announced.

There’s about a half a dozen moments where Miles second-guesses standing by. For one, it’s an unfair fight, ten thugs to one. Seeing Miguel body them in less than a minute kindly wipes away the idea. The Vulture is worse, flying around Downtown streets, causing a terrible wreck. The flyboys try to shoot them down, too, but their shots just put dents on Vulture's freaky skin-grafted armor. The flyboys also try to shoot nosy civilians, more frequently than not. Their stormtrooper aim is an atrocious blessing.

“How many times are we going to have this talk, PE?” Miguel webs two hoverbike-riding cops together against a wall. “Not everybody's a part of the freakers! Stop shooting!”

A megaphone speaker cracks out, “You’re lucky we’re not shooting you too, Spider-Man.”

“Oh, I’m lucky,” he says, webbing another two. “Upstanding law service means I’m just lucky.”

The Vulture crashes back to the scene in true spiteful fashion. It becomes a free for all. That’s another moment when Miles considers just uncloaking and helping Miguel out, despite the promise of even more scolding, possibly a mission demotion.

But then he hears it. A metal, rhythmic twang, getting closer.

His Spider-sense shouts for him to move, so he moves away from the lip of the rooftop. Someone jumps over the fire escape he’d just been at and throws tiny, flickering discs that stick like magnets to the flyboy hoverbikes. They flash brightly once, and the hoverbikes shudder, engines failing.

The shadow of a big dude lands on the Vulture’s back, after Miguel finishes webbing the villain’s metal wings to the sides of the buildings. The new guy straightens up—

Purple mask, high-tech boots, deadly clawed gauntlets—

Not his Prowler, Miles reminds himself, when his heart pounds in his ears. No one can be.

The color scheme is wrong, anyway. He’s wearing a teal-green jacket with shoulder pads, and a darker shade of padded athletic pants. The mask is too rounded, more like a biker’s visor with a centered, digitized faceplate. 

And the claws. They retract over knuckles when he pokes the back of Vulture’s head.

Vulture spits out an angry, filthy curse, so ugly that Miles gags after processing it. Is this guy joking, or is cannibalism a normal threat around these parts?

“Get off me, Goblin!”

The new guy—Goblin?—stays perfectly balanced where he is. At a violent jostle of the Vulture's shoulders, his high-tech boots give off a faint hum, keeping him stable. They must use electrostatic adhesion, similar to how most Spider-people crawl up walls, only mechanically replicated. Just looking at the boots in action, Miles bets he could stay glued onto Vulture's metal back while flying. An outdated cityscape like Downtown's needs quick, strong climbing gear.

The Vulture tries breaking free again. The webs remains strong, to the Goblin's tested approval. He then jumps to one of the webbed up building facades, opposite from where Miles is hiding. The gauntlet claws extend back out to leave a gouge on the wall. 

“Hogging all the fun, Spider-Man?”

Miguel crouches on his own perch, tense. “Goblin.”

“You’re under arrest!”

More flyboys ride into the scene. They get immediately counter-shot by an armed gang of groundlocked people. At least, Miles thinks they’re a gang. They’re all wearing the same hand-styled jacket that spells ‘Throwbacks’ over the shoulder blades. And then the cyber-enhanced disputers holler back into the street.

Now it’s a free for all.

Miguel offers an annoyed, “Don’t need you here,” to the Goblin guy.

“Ajá.”

“I’ve got this handled,” as a laser whizzes by his head and melts a lamppost.

“Pues claro que sí.”

“Shut up.”

“Downtown is my grounds.” The Goblin flips the air and activates something on his left gauntlet. In the next instant, the backpack-like thing on his back opens up to its own holo-purple metal wings. They look more intricate than the Vulture’s, more expensive. He soars low on the ground with them, throwing containment nets that Miguel avoids with his own web-flips. 

Stray bullet fire peppers the street. Miles is about to give himself away and shout, there’s innocent people still on the sidewalks—

The Goblin snatches them from the ground and flies them to safety further down the road. 

Miles’ eyes widen in disbelief. No bombs. No brutality. Just a rescue sweep.

On the Goblin’s next approaching flight, Miguel hops on his back.

“Hey! No piggybacking!” 

He changes course to ride parallel up a skyscraper, and Miles scrambles out of his stupor and maintains the chase. His concentration slips. The black lines of his suit flicker into sight. He manages to regain invisibility before anyone—good, bad, or sketchy-undefined—notices.

He stops unseen at a new tall perch, when Goblin successfully nets Miguel—in the same breath, Miguel webs his wings up. 

They’re both plummeting out of the sky. 

Goblin shouts, “Let me go, you idiot!”

“You first!”

“I’d rather die!”

“Fine! Then we’re both dying!”

“Fine!”

Miles can’t believe he’s hearing Miguel soundly argue like a toddler. He’s about to freak out about them spitefully going to splat on the street, when Goblin releases his net and Miguel can fling himself off to a roof.

“Go back Uptown,” the Goblin snaps, static cutting into the mask’s voice filter, and Miles makes himself even smaller over the lip of a streetlight. Holo-purple wings spread over the street to catch his falling. The metal clicking against itself sounds like steel-toed boots chasing after Miles. Like running through Brooklyn, running from the first Collider malfunction that killed his world’s Peter, with a killer on his heels.

Miles barely catches Miguel’s barbed, “Downtown’s mine to protect, too.”

The digital expression reflected on the Goblin’s mask pixelates to show anger.

They’re both knocking down the various armed thugs in turns, their fists much more indifferent to drawing blood or breaking a bone. The original radio distress is dealt with before another row of flyboys arrives, as the people of the Throwbacks gang strip back into the shadows of the alleys. 

The first of the flyboys comes in hot, guns firing. He’s going straight for the Goblin.

Red webs catch on the hoverbike and stick it against the Vulture’s airborne web trap.

Someone from below throws a laser gun up to the Goblin, a second's adjustment. He has it aimed at the futuristic-cop, now dangling upside down from a balcony. Spider webs keep him immobilized.

“I had that handled,” Goblin tells the Spider-Man scaling a tall pillar. 

“That was your one Ass-Saving Pass. Next time, you get yourself out of trouble.”

Miles watches the Goblin’s mask flicker into another upset expression, but he doesn’t answer Miguel’s taunt. They don’t have time to anymore, with the rain of flashing reds-and-blues coming into the scene.

Miguel climbs higher out of Downtown, with the Vulture and the trigger-happy gang taken care of. At the same time, the Goblin prowls to lower ground, intending to run through streets too thin and narrow for the flyboys to follow after.

This is the part when Miles calls it a day of sneaking around and playing danger-curiosity. He should. He has a split-second to decide whether to follow in Miguel’s example and find higher ground, or do something super, totally inadvisable. 

It’s just that Miles has never seen a Green Goblin—a Precursor, as Miguel called it—save people before.

Something in Miles’ Spider-sense itches for him to keep an eye on the Goblin, so he does. He dives soundlessly around an alley, wall-sprinting after the Goblin’s own speedy disengagement, and feels like a real spider hunting a fly. Only, this fly is six-feet-four and could seriously do him some damage.

His heart beats loud in his ears when they finally reach a stop: more cramped apartment buildings that remind Miles of back home. These are taller, but still brick and mortar. He watches the Goblin shoot a grapple line from an odd-shaped gun and climb up to the roof. 

Miles is way too concentrated on his cloak to notice the Goblin come to a dead stop and turn around with his gauntlets primed with claws. 

He’s looking right at him.

Miles doesn’t breathe. The mask has changed into a lighter, pinker shade, angled down to his height. It’s a high-tech visor. He hadn’t considered that it could adjust light frequencies to see in these darker corners of Nueva York. Few villains and heroes were equipped with something that could see him cloaked.

Prowler’s mask once could.

Goblin’s digital expression narrows its eyes, a raised emoticon brow appearing out of nowhere. “Is the invisible child going to explain himself?”

“I’m not a kid,” Miles says, and sheds his cloaking aura. 

Revealing himself has an immediate effect on the Goblin’s menacing stride. It stutters to a halt, the man behind the mask stunned to silence. Miles looks down at himself to see if there’s an embarrassing new tear in his suit. There isn’t.

“Uh...Green Goblin?”

“Just Goblin, Spidey,” the Goblin blurts as if by reflex. “Well, you’re not my Spidey.”

Oh, his suit. The Spider logo must have caught him by surprise.

“Yeah I get that a lot.” All the Spiders have gotten used to the whole dimension-chronisms, but villains keep bringing it up. In the next second, Miles squares his shoulders. “Are you going to chase me down and try to kill me now? It’s the status quo with Goblins.”

The raised gauntleted hands click to retract their claws. “I’m not gonna hurt you, little man. Just wondering who you’re supposed to be. Spider-Man’s new protege?” At a much lower tone, the Goblin says more to himself, “I didn’t realize he had the patience for one.”

“I’m not, and he doesn’t.”

The digital mask peering down at him changes to amused, triangle eyes. In a weird way, it reminds Miles of Lyla's own self-made mecha-avatar, and how it emotes.

The familiarity helps make Miles more daring, more funny.

“Sorry if it looked like I was stalking you.”

“You tripped my proximity sensor,” is all Goblin explains. “No one with good intentions steps foot on this roof.”

“Sorry,” Miles says again. Then, shrugs with nothing else to add.

“Are you...lost? If you’re looking for your not-mentor, Uptown’s the way to go.” There lifts a finger at the city-covered sky. “Just keep going up until you find pristine buildings.”

“Yeah, I know where to go.”

The Goblin slowly, tentatively lowers his hand until it's limp against his side. He stares.

Miles, true teenager that he is, stares back. It’s an impromptu staring contest and the first to blink loses.

The Goblin breaks first. 

“‘Kay. What do I call you?”

“Spider-Man.”

“Can’t be two Spider-Men.”

“Can, too.”

“I’m not going to deign that with a childish reply,” Goblin says. Quite hypocritically, he’d just done a round of Sky-chicken with Miguel.

“‘Kay, and what do I call you,” Miles echoes.

“If you’re looking for a name, you’re not getting one.”

The Goblin then drops from the edge roof he’d been carefully creeping up on during their circular conversation. Miles takes two big steps after him in a hurry, but he sees Goblin’s high-tech boots keeping him sturdy against the wall, and one clawed gauntlet hand piercing the wall. He’s obviously all tech, no powers. The suit mimics some impressive Spider wall-crawling.

“Show off,” Miles says. Then, shows off himself, by walking upright vertically on the wall, right after him.

Miles doesn’t know why he follows, but he does, and carefully. This side of Downtown is unknown to him, and a thirst for curiosity makes him linger around all the rooftop edges. The Goblin isn’t purposely trying to lose him, either. He’s not running at breakneck speeds or activating his wings to get away. Just, turning around every now and then, as if expecting Miles to get himself into a life-threatening gunfight.

“I don’t need looking after. I can handle myself.”

“Sure,” the Goblin says. The thing is, he sounds like he believes him, even through the voice filter.

They pass by an old, huge church. One of its sidewalls is graffitied up to the roof. Miles stares up at it in awe. He recognizes the stylized lettering that means to spell 'Throwbacks' for what it is: a territorial mark.

He gestures at the wall. “This yours?”

The Goblin pivots his head between him and the new object of Miles’ attention. “Not exactly. I’ve dropped a few paint splatters here and there, but the locals have more time to cover wall space themselves.”

Miles grins. He touches the wall and feels the stone of it with care. It’s cold against his suited fingers, but the passion in these paints warms him fast.

“Cool.”

His smile falters when he spots the Goblin watching him with crossed arms.

He takes his fingers away quick, rubs them clean on his legs. He’s about to apologize, maybe overstepping some unspoken street rule, but the Goblin just says, “You sure you’re Spider-Man? You don’t act like one.”

“No, I’m just not like M—like the one you know.” Miles mentally kicks himself for almost spilling Miguel’s secret identity. That would really be overstepping. He doesn’t know everything about how Spider-Man works in Nueva York. If people know who he is. If it’s a big deal to say it, and he’s not going to risk it.

The Goblin stepping closer on a stomp startles Miles into disappearing on the spot.

“Alright, that’s a pretty neat party trick,” Goblin calls to the false-empty space, “even if I can still see you.”

Miles shouldn’t be here.

The thought comes to him like a barreling train. He shouldn’t be here, messing things up in Nueva York. There’s people starting to fill the streets, in lazy, cautious strides, and the first thing they’ll notice is the Goblin and a strange Spider-Man chatting it up in front of a gang mural. He should be heading out to his own world already, climbing to the topside, opening a portal and forgetting he ever came down here without Miguel to point out what’s okay to do. He should also finish his anomaly mission report, just to prove to Miguel that he’s capable of personal responsibility and accountability.

But then the Goblin—the Precursor, not Prowler, no one could ever be his Prowler—grapples to a broken attic window of the church, and waits at the windowsill, waiting on Miles, and suddenly, it's like Miles can’t bear to leave this strange-yet-familiar Goblin alone.

So, Miles webs up to the attic hole and is greeted by a wall of lights.

It’s a lair of gadgets and monitors. Low budget, cables and radios glued together with duct tape. Electricity and holo-tech hums from their charging ports. Miles can feel it charge in the air.

“Woah,” he gasps, immediately going to the box of spray cans and half-painted helmets. Work he can appreciate. “Dude! You gotta show me your signature.”

“I actually don’t practice sprays that much but, if you’re Spider-Man, and Bigger Spider-Man isn’t your mentor, you’re allowed to sneak some cans out and paint your own.”

Miles looks up at him with his biggest, puppiest of eyes. It has absolutely zero effect with his mask on, so he does the only viable thing in a world that can’t ever take advantage of his identity, and pulls up his mask up to his hair.

The Goblin’s digi-expression falls neutral. "Little man, you shouldn't—"

“Hey, it’s chill, dude. I swear. Besides,” Miles juggles three primary color spray cans in his hands, his exposed face all pleasant smiles, “what’s a face without a name?”

Goblin hums something unreadable. He’s doing that arm-crossing thing again. It’s very Miguel-like, feels like Miles is going to be in a world of trouble. Come to think of it, the whole holo-mask, holo-wing-suit thing is very Miguel-like, too, but it’s Nueva York. Could be like a world-gimmick. Though, the retractable claw-gauntlets feel purposely inspired.

“I could give you my name, too, actually,” Miles teases next. In an attempt to de-stress the room, he starts testing the spray on the available, dirty cardboard already half-paint stained. It’s very metallic-shiny. “But, I can’t show you mine if you don’t show me yours first!”

“That’s not—that isn’t how that expression works, shock…”

Miles knows it isn’t, he’s just living in the moment now. His Spider-sense hasn’t alerted him once to danger. Just, a sense of familiarity. Precursors, Goblins, Prowlers. There’s something to it. In a way, since knowing what Earth-42 is like, who Miles is there, it feels like he slots right home here, even if he’s no longer shaped for it. Like a jigsaw piece that’s migrated from another half-finished puzzle.

If that makes sense.

The Goblin’s mask makes a show of rolling its digital eyes at him, and Miles doesn’t hide his widening grin. 

"What you're doing is risky," the Goblin tries scolding.

"It really isn't. I'm no one. Think it'd be easier to go out and spray as a civvy anyway," Miles says, gesturing at the clothes he's wearing over his suit. There's a drying meat stain on the end of one sleeve. "Spider-Man would attract attention."

"That's because Spider-Man doesn't belong in Downtown. Goblin does."

"Wouldn't Goblin also attract unwanted attention to himself?" Miles asks, ever the loophole-argument doer. "Everyone's got enemies. Ah, promise I won't add myself to the list."

The sprays are Miles' to claim, and claim he does. He itches to try them out outside. The Goblin seems to realize the predicament he's fallen into, with a Spider-Man that isn't his own. Either he lets the Spider loose in town to paint over everything, or he joins him on the best wall tours. 

When Miles hops to his feet again, he's met with a solemn, nodding Goblin. 

“That’s how we’re playing it, alright. Alright, fine it is.”

The click of the gauntlets being taken off sounds loud in Miles' ears. It shouldn't be scary. It's the opposite of them getting ready for a fight. Miles stills his breathing anyway, and waits for them to be put aside. 

Monitor light shines off a pair of ordinary hands. They pat down Goblin's waist, before coming up. He's taking off his mask, for real, and Miles exhales in a rush as a very familiar face comes into view. The softer cheekbones and redder hair trick him with deja vu. There's no other way to explain the impossible, uncanny likeness staring at him. No way.

Except there is.

“I’m Gabriel O’Hara," the Goblin greets. "There. Your turn.”

Chapter Text

The tiny Spider-Man drops the spray cans to a clatter. 

One cap pops off, skids around the floor and sprays a blob of metallic yellow in a broad arc. It stains the workshop desk and his boots, and the corner of an LED screen showcasing a gadget blueprint. 

His visitor scrambles to pick them up again, apologies stuttering out as he wipes down some of the mess. Gabriel, unfazed, tells him, “It’s alright. The cans can take a beating,” and his workshop is in desperate need of a clean up. One more spray stain hardly bothers his flow. 

They stare at each other for another beat, one wide-eyed, clutching his coloring cans close to his chest; and the other, Gabriel, with a lopsided squint, holding back a snort.

“Well?” he prompts, after the tiny Spider-Man continues his bout of surprise silence.

That seems to shake him out of it. “Uh. I’m Miles. Morales.”

“Morales, ¿eh? ¿Y hablas español?”

“Un poco, pero...”

“Don’t worry, if you’re more comfortable in English we can stick with it.”

Whoever Miles Morales is, he’s a strange kid. Not that Gabriel has much room to talk. He’s the weirdo with a church attic lair of vigilante gadgetry, after all.

Gabriel grabs his high-tech goggles and takes his time strapping them over his head to release some of the awkward tension suddenly born between them. He was right to think this a bad idea. There’s a lot of assumptions being made between them, the greatest of which is encouraging them to get cozy sharing names. 

“Listen, little man, I think we need to clear up some things—”

A commotion outside stops his speech dead. Sounds of shouting and a gun going off.

Before he has the chance to react, Miles is already hopping out the window.

“Hey, kid, hold on—!”

Muscle memory has Gabriel rappelling down with his grapple in quick seconds. It’s a move he’s done thousands of times, the ledge on the window well worn and remodeled to withstand the abuse. And still Miles manages to reach the tussle before him. 

Three metal-armed thugs are attempting to rob the Father of the church. Attempt being key—Miles has taken over their focus with a kick up two guys’ chin. Strong kicks, too, but not enough to floor a cyber-enhanced body. The hostile trio round their attention on the scrappy newcomer, ugly jeers and guns aimed straight at Miles.

Without a mask to protect his identity, Gabriel sticks to using the taser on his belt. It’s a must-have in Downtown, no one would bat an eye at it. The voltage shorts out cyber-enhancements for a few seconds, giving him the time to leg-sweep, kick, and tie up one of the thugs. 

The takedown takes too much time for Gabriel’s liking. Glancing to where Miles is, his heart almost leaps out of his throat with a shout, at the shot ringing out—

Miles reacts before it goes off, his smaller body flipping in the air to kick the gun-holder in the face. It’s a good kick, too, knocking them hard onto the asphalt. 

The third thug crumbles to the ground with a garbled sound. The Father of the church had been standing behind them, now frowning at the twitching, passed out thug.

“Huh,” Gabriel says at that, “Impressive.”

“Thank you, Gabriel, for the help, but you know I would’ve had the Freakers handled,” the Father says, showing his own heavy-duty stun gun. It’s a mean one. The battery attachment looks like a classic Throwback mod. They do love their personal touch to have an extra kick.

“Wow,” Miles pipes in. He jogs in place for a second, like he’s got a little excess energy from the fight. “Uh. Nice to meet you?”

The Father nods, impassive to the new face or their business getting into other people’s fights, just happy to know another kind soul has found itself on the church premises, willing to lend a hand where they can. It’s a brief introduction, cut short as the Father has a midnight mass to prepare for, and three tied up thugs to call the authorities on.

“I’ll see you around, Father.”

“Come by later for worship, if you have the time, son.”

Gabriel and Miles walk off, this time climbing up a building’s fire escape and avoiding the more dangerous street corners. It's habit on Gabriel’s part. Getting the best viewpoint of the street while he wanders.

“You pulled some smooth moves back there, little man,” Gabriel appraises. “Where did you learn to fight like that? It’s like you knew what they were going to do a split-second before it happened.”

Miles pretends to think it over with a pondering hand on his chin. “Eh, well. That’s classified Spider-Man stuff. Can’t go around sharing all my secrets.”

Gabriel’s voice takes on an amused lilt. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. And what about you? Do you build all your tech solo? Or is the Father your guy-in-the-chair? Do you have a sidekick?”

Gabriel chuckles over the last fire escape rungs that lead to the highest rooftop point. “Yeah, that’s classified Goblin stuff.”

Up on the roof, a big brick wall shields them from the light of an ad billboard. It’s tagged with different Downtown gang names: some familiar, some new, some long disbanded. There’s very few creative pieces, buried behind territorial warnings. 

(Gabriel even spots a Thorite prayer in big bold yellow letters, spelling Thor Shall Rise Again. Reads like a threat, in Gabriel’s mind. First time Thor rose, he took out a floating city over their heads. Last time, Atlantis came to Nueva York, water and all. 

He’d like a break from Thor prophecies. They bring nothing but horrendous disasters.)

For the most part, it’s a good wall. Lots of creating space left in it. Gabriel whistles for Miles to stop leaning over the ledge and gawking at the street sights. “You didn’t forget those cans, did you? Or did one of the Freakers knock it out of your pockets?”

“Freakers?” Miles asks, as he pulls a blue paint can out of his hoodie. 

“Cyber-enhanced gangsters. Like Vulture. They usually scope out territories, but they’re supposed to know not to come ‘round here.”

“Because of you?”

“Because of the Throwbacks. They take care of the church and the people of this neighborhood. Sometimes they help out in other parts of Downtown, but they know they can signal me if it’s too dangerous or out of their reach. Here, there’s this scribble on the wall,” Gabriel points to next, guiding Miles over to the Thorite tag, “do whatever you want over it.”

Miles starts spraying a big blue framework for his idea. It covers a few of the other gang tags, to his obvious hesitation. “Can I really?”

“Go wild, little man. No one’s watching.”

Paint drips down in thin streaks where Miles leaves a heavy coat of blue. He’s standing tall for most of it, until the blue needs to spread too high for his arm’s reach, and he compensates by climbing the wall vertically. No claws or tech boots to help, he just sticks to the wall like a literal spider.

“Doesn’t that give you a headache?” Gabriel asks, after Miles stays dangling upside down for more than ten minutes, mixing red over the blue for a fading glaze of purple and neon red.

“I’m cool, I’ve been doing this for years.”

Years, he says. “And how long have you been Spider-Manning, out of those years?”

Gabriel is mindful to hide his smirk behind a sleeve. The tumbling explanations contradict only once or twice, to Miles’ credit. He’s really trying to keep his story straight. Not that Gabriel needs to know. It’s plain old curiosity on his part.

The spray comes to life with spots of yellow, painted over with the blue and red. Great cursive letters pop out as Miles outlines the red drippy stains in the yellow. Leap of Faith, with a crackling border around the bottom of Faith, like shattering glass. 

“That’s really good,” Gabriel admires. He can tell the kid practices graffiti a lot. He’s incorporated some of the brick texture to the effect of his art, letting it outline parts of letters and the background blue patterns.

Miles drops down with a flip, not even breaking a sweat from the minutes spent upside down or straining at the cans. “Thanks. Do you wanna try next?”

“Oh, no no,” Gabriel immediately shakes his hands at the offered red paint. “I’m really not that practiced. I color my gear and my gadgets, and keep some half-used cans for the Throwback kids. It’s not for me.”

“Why not give it a try? Por favor?”

It wouldn't do any harm. It’s just hard, because the last time he went out of his way to do some partner graffiti, his partner was still alive. 

Goblin doesn’t have any sidekicks. He doesn’t do duos. There’s only ever been one Goblin. One, and him, Gabriel O’Hara. Their guy in the chair. Happy to do the tech work. 

But things have changed. People change, they leave. They die. They move on.

Spider-Man doesn’t have sidekicks either. He doesn’t do duos. And there’s only ever been one Spider-Man. 

Miles Morales looks up at him with doe-blinking eyes. 

Before Gabriel can grab the can from him, the cyber-system installed into his goggles beeps. 

“Oh, shock.” He slips them over his eyes to check over the alert signal. 

“What’s that?”

“Got somewhere to be. Need a minute to hook into Cyberspace.”

“Cyberspace?”

The question throws Gabriel off his rhythm. “Cyberspace, you know? The electronic data web frontier?”

Miles’ continuing confusion sparks Gabriel’s gears to start turning. He lets them roll even as Miles gives a shaky, “I’m a bit of a sheltered guy, my parents never let me use that kinda stuff. What do you have to do?” 

Gabriel shoots a grapple line, rightfully assuming that Miles will follow after. “I have to go back to the workshop and wire in. There’s a report of other cyber-denizens glitching out of the ‘space, which is never something good.”

“You’re going to connect to the web? How do you do that? That sounds crazy.”

“It is,” he jokes, boots landing on the churchtop. He taps his goggles for Miles to think over. “A virtual reality headpiece helps.”

He doesn’t say that hooking into Cyberspace can be dangerous. Incidents have happened before where viruses lock people out of body access, or they get addicted to the freefall of the web and wither away for days in real life. For the most part, traversing the ‘space is safe. Most cyber-denizens stick to their routines and creature comforts. Only people like Gabriel—programmers wired in so deep that they can process and navigate the data like a toddler’s toy—can cross past code boundaries and gain access to things far out of public eyes.

That there’s people glitching out of the ‘space means there’s someone with his skill out there interrupting web connections. The next step after that is to trojan-hop into their personal systems. Steal their lives, lock them inside the VR.

His workshop is equipped with the wire link and the backup to jump him out if he’s ever in danger of getting invaded by someone else. He can safely connect from there and surf for the renegade.

“Are you going to need help with that?”

Gabriel almost forgets to account for Miles trailing after him as he prepares the cyber connection.

“I’m going in to IP lock out a cocky dirtbag before they hurt people.”

“I’m up for a round of butt-kicking,” Miles says, confident and strong.

“Do you have a headpiece?”

“Uh...”

“Or an archetype programmed to travel the web?”

Miles’ puffed up chest wanes down to a hunch, as he realizes he has no idea what Gabriel is talking about. Without an archetype program, Miles can’t even connect with a projected body and interact with other people’s archetypes, so no butt-kicking for him.

Gabriel puts on his headpiece calmly. To Miles, he says, “This part’s exclusive Goblin access. Sorry. You can wait up, or you can take this as the end of tonight’s outing.”

Just before he activates his headpiece, he notices Miles narrow his stubborn brown eyes in a way that telegraphs a deja-vu memory. Well, that can’t be good, zones out of Gabriel’s thoughts as he whirls into the Cyberspace tunnel.

He remembers to put on an hour timer just in case surfing the ‘space gets away from him. 

The web stretches out before him in an infinite array of polygons and symbols. Textcode made physical. His own archetype—similar in body and form to him, but dressed in reds and blacks, a digital holo-scarf the length of his body flying behind him while he rides his program-car ride.

Here, Goblin doesn't exist. There are no Spider-Men to tame these wildlands.

There is Firelight. 

Firelight follows the line of reporting down a symbol lane, fire trail left behind his tires. Style matters more than practicality in Cyberspace. It’s made him a bit of a legend, among other star guests who ride horses and fly around in hover surfboards. Style he respects, too. 

What he doesn’t respect is the man-shaped glitch array eating away at a web net connection.

The person responsible has already gone somewhere else, it’s their hack imprint doing bit-breaking work in their wake. It takes Firelight time to piece it back together with his wire holo-console. He’s a bit too focused to notice the glitch take his involvement as imminent threat, and retaliate.

His periphery alarm goes off just in time to break away from the holo-console. The thing unwinds like string, wrapping around his leg to yank him off and into the air.

He lands a dozen feet away with an “oof,” not from his own lips. 

“What—?” He stumbles to a stand, and the second person joining his efforts shakes off the landing. They’re wearing an old prototype archetype of Firelight’s, tall and broad-shouldered and built for someone else’s use. “Miles,” Firelight starts, “what are you doing here?!”

Even with the mask-slash-visor covering his face, Miles manages to emanate an admonished expression. “I waited ten minutes! It took me ten more to find you!”

Right, Firelight forgets time moves a little differently here, with so many stimuli and lagging processes between mind and web. “How did you even find me?”

“I asked for directions! People here are really nice.”

Right, Firelight also forgets most cyber-denizens are an interconnected community of I-know-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy, and everyone knows a guy like Firelight.

The glitch figure throws a cyberblock of text at their reunion, reminding them of the priority. He points a stern finger at Miles. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Miles telegraphs the roll of his eyes fantastically. “Okay, tío.”

The stumble of Firelight’s holo-boots is from the pixelated cracks left over by the block, he insists, in the privacy of his mind. No need to say it outloud. He knows how ridiculous it’ll sound.

A second holo-console pops up between Firelight’s hands. He tells Miles, “Can you be a good distraction while I deactivate this thing?” and initiates a connection with the program. 

“On it!”

The firewall is top-notch work. He’s impressed by the craftsmanship behind it, if it weren’t being used for nefarious purposes. Like a guard dog, doing its master’s bidding. It protects its assigned space and eats away at the bits of the broader connectivity, sinking tooth and claw into public connectivity. He doesn’t have time to analyze if there’s more to the code. There certainly might be, with this level of programming. Firelight just needs to deactivate it, and with Miles’ bouncing, slippery moves—seriously, the kid is like a wet noodle, even using an archetype not his own—he shuts the glitch down with minimal damage. 

Just as it freezes, code flies out from its body into bit-pieces before a copy of its code could be generated.

“Self-destruct, huh,” Firelight mutters. Someone’s very paranoid.

“That was weirdly fun,” Miles says over his shoulder. 

“Alright, do you know how to disconnect?”

Waking from Cyberspace always takes monumental effort.

His eyes blink groggily over his dim-lit workspace. The hour alert finally dings, and his shaky fingers press it off. It had taken an hour to do all of that. It still took a lot out of him. It’s what happens when you connect to something so much bigger than yourself, even for just an hour. Packs a punch.

Miles is feeling it, too.

“Ugh, why do I feel so grimy?”

“Welcome to Cyberspace,” Gabriel, back inside his own brain, mutters a little unkindly. No one’s happy after leaving their archetype behind. It almost feels like losing his true body, and this meatsack is a poor replacement for the rush and the unstoppable freedom inside the web—

Don’t go down that hole again, Gabriel reminds himself harshly. There’s a reason he needs to put real-world timers on for himself. 

“Still kind of cool,” Miles says between yawns. 

“Tired?”

“Nah, I’m good to go. I could take on another one of those hacks.”

The droop of his eyes says otherwise. Gabriel doesn’t call him out on it. The midnight mass is rumbling below the floorboards, and it’s a nice, comforting lull to the night. He’s spent a lot of nights rocked to sleep by it, when sleep catches him by surprise.

Miles interrupts his train of thought with a curious, “Hey, aren’t you going to see the Father now?”

He’s not a practicing Catholic, though the Father is welcoming to all souls of the neighborhood in need of refuge, regardless of what they believe or don’t believe in. It’s really not in Gabriel’s habit to be seen for midnight mass, preferring the quiet corners or the hidden attic of his workshop. But, something about having Miles for company makes him want to try and show some community. Make an effort to see some of the faces that know him by another name, and ask how they are doing.

So they both climb out the window, second time that night. The entrance of the church is cracked open for anyone too shy or sullen to come in themselves, to listen from a distance. The prayer sums up a Bible verse, something about new opportunities, the prodigal son and his father’s forgiveness. 

The story of resentful brothers, is how Gabriel remembers it.

He slows down his usual fast pace walk for Miles, who stares up at the stained glass art with wonder and appreciation. The crowd is small, but heavy in worship. It’s serene. When Miles finally looks over at him, Gabriel signals for him to stay close. 

They stop at a wooden row scale filled with candles. Some are lit. A few incense burners soften the smell of wax. 

Gabriel takes one of the lighting sticks and burns three candles. It’s been years since he prayed, but the Father says intent matters more than words. So he lights his candles and hopes the peaceful walls of the church accept him for tonight.

His curious partner very quietly asks, “What are you doing?” Miles is shuffling on his feet, doing his best to not do something insulting. 

The corners of Gabriel’s lips tug upwards. “I’m burning a candle for my lost ones. It’s good to grant them remembrance.”

Miles stands a moment longer to the side, as Gabriel gently lays the burning stick down and kneels for three seconds, bowing very briefly. When he gets up again, he sees Miles take the burning stick up to burn a single candle, and try to mirror the same respect.

“Miss you, unc’,” Gabriel catches in Miles’ whisper. Anything else Miles says is between him and his ghosts.

Outside, the streets are black with night. Downtown is far darker than aboveground, but it’s never been scary for Gabriel. This is his home now. His neighborhood. He’s the watcher of the night, making it safer. He spares a moment to perch over a rooftop, Miles imitating a bit of his broody look with the help of his Spider-Man mask back over his face. 

This is the part where Gabriel says goodbye. He should. He has a few seconds to contemplate this kid, this amazing, stubborn, goodhearted kid, and accept that he’ll never see him again. Because Downtown is his to protect, not Spider-Man’s.

“You know the other Spider-Man,” Gabriel says to Miles instead, “and you know who he is.”

It’s not an accusation. Just, an observation. The familiarity, the ease, the confidence Miles gave him with no prior knowledge.

“Yeah, I do,” Miles confesses with a careful, lowered tone. He’s less conscious about springing Gabriel with the follow-up, “So, what’s your beef with tío?”

Gabriel blinks. He processes.

“You mean...my brother? Oh my shocking god, you call him tío? And he lets you? He’s really changed since last I spoke to him.”

Miles cringes with his whole body, arms crossed behind his head in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Aand when was that?”

“Some years. Don’t know,” Gabriel shrugs, “I haven’t kept track.”

“It’s been years? Dude.”

“If you know him in any extent, you know he’s impossible. Busy with his multiversal Spider-madness and so am I, protecting Downtown and Cyberspace. Someone has to.”

“Yeah, but still, that’s a long—wait, what did you just say?”

There’s a lot that he just said. Gabriel lapses back the seconds to think on his words. “‘Someone has to’?”

“No, the other part.”

“‘Protecting Downtown and Cyberspace’?”

“Okay, now you’re just playing me—”

Gabriel laughs and takes pity on the Spider. “I know what Miguel gets up to in that building Uptown, where, I’m sure, you’re supposed to be limited to.” That Miles is here, and Gabriel’s brother isn’t immediately cracking through Downtown on a missing Spider tells him a lot. It’s the gears turning in his head, connecting the cogs. Miles came down here with Miguel, and the kid somehow slipped through his notice without warranting concern. Which, attestable. There’s more to Miles than meets the eye. 

Miles gives him a onceover. He’s probably reexamining a lot of their shared time, wondering how much he gave away of himself, and what parts were Gabriel messing around with him. 

“...You still haven’t told me what your beef with Spider-Man is.”

“It’s a long story. Too long and too personal to chat over a Gothic roof spout.”

“Can you give me something to make assumptions from?”

It’s not simple, wringing the past out. Miles has to understand that, even if he does have good intentions.

“Let’s just say we both did and said real terrible stuff to each other. We didn’t just burn that metaphorical bridge down. We burned it literally. Well, actually, we drowned it. People died. People we both cared about.”

“Shoot man. That sounds rough.”

“It was. Is.” Things are getting away from him. He turns on Miles with a suspicious look. “Stop making me vent.”

“The Spider-therapist in HQ recommends we try to talk about what’s bothering us to people who can be good listeners, it helps declutter ugly thoughts and reexamine them from a new perspective.”

“You try telling Miggy that.”

“I do! He’s not a venter. He’s a, uh, ignore-the-problem-until-it-breaks-something kind of guy.”

“…So that hasn’t changed.”

Somehow, the thought is comforting. 

The street lights flicker as churchgoers start returning to their homes. Their warm hugs and friendly words are distant, part of a life not meant for Gabriel. Not anymore.

“You should go back to your world, Miles. Leave Downtown to me. My city, my problem.”

“Funny you say that,” Miles says, just before a soft, “See you around, G.”

He’s about to cut in with not wishing worse on the future, but a crackle in space the color of amber blinds him shortly. He only sees the shape of Miles fade into it, two steps, and the bright array over the rooftop is gone. Miguel’s tech, he recognizes. He loves those hexagons and their stability matrixes.

Gabriel stays on the roof a while longer. The night progresses. Public Eye bikes round the corner down the street. Busy night for them. Nothing he needs to get involved in.

As he grapples across the neighborhood to his flat, he wonders how things could have changed so drastically in the life of Nueva York's Spider-Man to welcome someone like Miles in, or if it’s only false hope talking.

O'Hara's luck has never been the best.

Well, nothing wrong with hoping for change to last.

Chapter Text

Gabriel O’Hara wakes up before dawn.

As the time is announced from billboards and LED panels, he gets ready for a civilian walk. On the way, he checks up on St. Patrick Church’s food bank. Helping out the volunteers for an hour clears his morning brain fog. 

Unfamiliar faces tell him about the increasing unrest with the local clique gangs. It worries everyone. They don’t give too many details, why they know what they know. Gabriel doesn’t ask either. A few of them must be part of the cliques, just young people who have little other life choices in Downtown. 

Those that do know him are more comfortable talking about their week, work stories, home troubles. He doesn’t share anything about himself. He never does, so no one asks.

After the Father shows up, he quickly takes his leave for the attic workshop. The best, quiet hour happens right after the morning mass, when everyone leaves to work. 

His workshop needs some cleaning up, so, Gabriel starts on that. He rearranges the wall array of monitor cables to its neater, fixes a loose attachment on his belt, repaints some of the broken gadgets from last week’s tussle. There aren’t any flyboys reporting from his radio. Quiet day, in Downtown. He can take it easy.

Too soon, static fizzles out of his communications setup. Gabriel sighs—jinxed it—and listens in on an incident report. 

He dons his suit. 

The Goblin takes to the underground sky.

Flying around town for a quick arrival takes up a good chunk of his battery. He takes the fight with fists, his gauntlets, beats up the robbers. 

“You're not the only hotshot in town, Goblin,” one of the buff, bulked up criminals spits. They’re getting back up, pipes and taser guns up in arms.

The taser clip shoots and lands on his shoulder. Ten-thousand volts spark across his suited chest. A glitch runs through his mask, shutting off in a blink.

Goblin takes a step forward. The clip clatters on the ground. 

With his wings up and his mask devoid of holo-light, he is the demon of downtown. 

“You don’t wanna make me mad,” he warns.

Fear is a tool he learned from the bigger game. Like Vulture. Like Electro. Stand strong, let them create their own mental picture. Even if it stings like hell under the impact shock, be more than human.

Goblin snaps his wings open. An ominous hum whirs in their gears. 

The robbers drop their weapons to run.

Alone, he rubs his shoulder from the ache. To an ordinary, unprotected person, that much voltage could have been enough to kill him. The Goblin’s suit insulates the shock, but his mask is going to need a slap or two. Classic manual reset.

His wing battery needs a recharge. It needs to be replaced for a more optimal method. For now, he shuts off the fly mechanic, retracts the wings into their safety-backpack form, and zips to the rooftops for traversal instead. 

Another alert radios in, three blocks down. Two cliques are meeting for a one-to-one chat, reported shots fired. 

Goblin makes sure to grapple down from the cracked roof of their warehouse rodeo. They don’t notice him until he turns—fixes—his mask’s holo-expression back on.

“Shocking hell,” someone shouts. “Is that—the Goblin?”

Another voice, injured on the ground already, “What are you doing here!? Get out of our business!”

Goblin drops from his upside-down dangling. A circle forms immediately around him. “Just reminding you to think twice before you start another turf war. Anyone got a problem?”

They think they got him trapped. Confident, snide faces, all around. A bat swings at him, and he raises his gauntlet arm to catch the hit, crack its metal in half. 

Their confidence slips. 

“Shoot him! Put him on the ground, for shock’s sake!”

The suit’s wings aren’t just for flying—they extend out to wrap around his body at the first flinch of gunshots. They spread outwards, too, with incredible flexibility, being connected to the receptors on his palms. The longest parts clash against the closest thugs. From his belt, he tosses a flash grenade. Another disc-like gadget frisbees the air and sticks onto the biggest guy there. It pops open with a magnetic net.

One of the clique leaders is smart enough to call it quits at the sight of his gauntlet claws grabbing a gun point blank and snapping it in two. They order their people out, leave a few of their own behind tied up or knocked out. 

Goblin is about to grapple out back the way he came, his job done, when something cracks hard across his helmet. It hits him with so much force that he actually falls to the floor, head first. 

In a fight, he doesn’t have the luxury of stopping. He rolls back to his feet, ignores the visual glitch over his visor, and punches the remaining daredevils until they either give up or pass out. And he doesn’t hold back. Downtown is life or death, him or them—he just makes sure to aim center, and pray. 

Standing over a dozen floored, groaning street fighters, the last one left on his feet, the Goblin survives another day. 

Gabriel, however, is the one to pick up the pieces and take himself home. He’s the one who bruised his skull, who has to put on an ice pack, fix the visor, and resupply his gadgets. No one else is going to check the groceries for him. 

The fridge needs restocking. His calendar for tomorrow is empty, maybe he can do it then.

Sleep catches him late, neither tired nor planned. It just, catches him. 

Gabriel wakes up before dawn.

Today, he dons his suit early. After the warehouse meeting went awry, Goblin must continue the pressure on the clique heads. His shadow seen over the town is enough, most times. A few neighbors even wave, on their way to mass. 

Since the old Goblin’s days, people have respected the name. Goblin kept them safe, where the Public Eye failed. The Throwbacks do what they can in their streets, but when the going gets tough? They leave it to their wings in the rooftops: the Goblin.

Which is why, when he gets a message from a trusted Throwback that there’s cyberthugs outside St. Patrick’s, he flies there blind, no questions needed.

He arrives to a three-armed man threatening to burn the church and the Father down.

“Where’s God to spare you, Father? Caught in traffic?”

The Father struggles to speak through the metal hand on his cassock’s neck. “It’s...not God...you should be watching...for.”

“Brave words for a—”

The thug doesn’t get to finish. A purple-green disc magnetizes onto his arm and in an instant, the cyber-enhancements shut down with a screech. Safety locking mechanisms spasm to life. It releases the Father, who collapses with a cough.

One full-bodied kick to the thug’s shoulder sends him flying onto a lightpost.

The Goblin scuffs his boot on the gravel. He stares down the four other goons causing a ruckus. “You have a lot of nerve coming here again.”

The cut of his voice filter is rough. One of the thugs raises their knife-hand in nervous wariness. 

It’s not a fight he’s proud of. Four armed cyberthugs means they tank inhuman blows. He’s generous with his taser, grapple-shooting arms and legs together, hooking the claws of his gauntlets into metal prosthetics. Even dazed from voltage shocks, they get back up. Rip their metal forearms, and they use it to stab his side. 

That one, the Goblin feels through his suit. Pain and heat flares over his hip bone. With one attacker left, he pushes through the stinging discomfort and kicks a snarling face square in the jaw, on pavement.

Before they can get back up for another round, Goblin heaps them in a groaning pile and tosses a net trap at them. It won’t hold forever, but it should keep them tied up until the flyboys come and fetch them. By then, any sign of the Goblin needs to disappear.

“Father, are you okay?” He slows to help the Father back on his feet.

“As good as I’ll ever be, son. What about you? I reckon you shouldn’t walk on that.”

At his pointing gesture, Goblin looks down to his shredded side. Trails of blood are starting to seep out. It’s bad—the sharp pain when he breathes too deep.

“I can stitch myself up, Father. I’ve lived through worse.”

“If you need a steady hand—”

Gabriel’s mother raised him to respect his elders, especially a man of the cloth. Listen to counsel. Be a good man. But he’s not Gabriel in the suit. 

The Goblin’s eyes narrow on the holo-visor. He drops his palm from the fresh injury and says, “If you receive a nameless fund to fix the broken windows, accept it,” and rappels away.

Getting to his flat is an agony of adrenaline. Worse, when he has to practically peel off the top suit and first-aid-sew himself with superficial anesthetic, it’s like reactivating every pain receptor in his body. The last stitch leaves him exhausted.

He’s gotten used to patching himself roughly, even if the wounds still take a while to heal and they bleed when he flies around. The Goblin can’t afford to rest. Gabriel, still, checks his calls—two missed messages from the Throwbacks, one earlier in the day from the Father. No one else rung. 

Chinese takeout arrives right before he gives up and lays on his bed. He stains the sheets with soy sauce. Something to clean up later. And then, painkillers finally numb the edge, enough that he falls asleep despite the soreness.

Gabriel wakes up before dawn.

He can’t don his suit so early, while it still burns bending down to get his socks. So, he plugs into the Wire of Cyberspace and helps hack the week’s reported public viruses and bit-instigators. 

Firelight doesn’t have a body to feel pain with. Neural cyber-jumping will telegraph the sensation of wrongness into his brain, but it’s not real. It would take a dedicated program or hack to hurt him here, and he’s handled those before. Surfing through Cyberspace is a much-needed relief. A false break, as his archetype is constantly stimulated with the flow of information. But, a break from his meatsack and its unpleasantness.

Gabriel plugs in on Saturday morning. He’s tired when he does. Not at his best. He forgets to set an alarm for himself.

He unplugs on Sunday night.

It’s a harrowing chore to get up and find his bandaged side has bled through, dried, and rebled. At least it aches less, by a considerable sense. Right until he pries the bandage free.

“Shock—fuck all—”

The shower helps, just as much as it stings. He manages to clean up, disinfect, and bandage the wound again. All while starving. And when he remembers to put something in his stomach, it’s with a shaky jive, over to his fridge—empty safe for an instant Meat Lover’s pizza—and calls for a Mexican delivery instead. Fifteen minutes, they say.

He has a splitting headache, to match the hunger pangs. Popping some painkillers helps. 

Gabriel lies down on the un-soy sauced patch of his bed. “Apollo, open message log, for Emergency-one.”

A hologram blinks to life at the center of the room: male, softly blue-lit, dressed in one of those old-Gen cowboy ponchos. “Opening message log for: Miguel.”

“Uh,” he dithers, before starting the way he always does. “Hey, Miggy. It’s...me. Again. If you’re hearing this, I guess I passed out before I could cancel this message in time. Probably a shitty way to learn that I’m not doing okay, but, shock, that’s not the point. How’s that eyesore of a building doing? You...should paint it, honestly. Ask Lyla for some redecorating tips.” He takes a long pause, at a loss for how to finish, and right there, the car delivering his food pings in arrival. “Apollo, cancel send.”

“Okay, Gabriel.”

He turns off Apollo to eat. He feels better afterwards, too, though pain throbs dully behind his temples.

Sleep catches him late.

Gabriel wakes up a little after dawn. 

His side still hurts from the healing scar, so he takes it slow today. The cliques are quiet. They’re talking in whispers about the Goblin, an ever-present shadow around alley corners and rooftop flashes. Fear does its duty. 

Seeing the brick wall Miles painted over gives him pause. Leap of Faith, with a new, small Throwback tag under the TH. 

On a whim, Goblin flies up to the highest Downtown building and watches the Spider HQ building from afar. Though donning the suit for all to see, it’s not Goblin who opens his personal message log.

“Hey, Miggy. It’s me. Again.” 

The building glimmers like metal in the sun’s light, so far away, yet a half-hour’s drive on the sky’s speedway. He takes a long time, a long silence, just watching the building. It could use some warm tones, to make it stand out more against the blueness of the sky. Does anyone else think the same thing? To make it more friendly? Less like the mega-corpos that plague Uptown, and more like home?

Home. For who? In his mind, that’s where his brother lives, but its pointed, endless skyscraper has never screamed ‘home’ to Gabriel. Maybe, because it’s not meant for him. Spider-Man—Miguel—should be happy wherever he is in there. Look at what he’s made. A Babylon tower of Spider-people belongs to their own. 

Knowing his brother, it’s probably not enough.

But who is he to know anymore?

Gabriel sighs. “Cancel send.” 

He goes home, to his dark flat and the instant Meat Lover's pizza in the fridge. Goblin isn’t needed to visit St. Patrick’s, as Gabriel O’Hara, donor, helping hand of the food bank. People filter in, familiar faces, and new ones, too. He makes sure to give everyone a good portion, should it be their only meal of the day.

Noon turns into afternoon, which turns into late-noon-early-evening. When he sits down on a bench, he feels the protest clamoring up his calves and sharpening to a stab on his stitches. 

A hand lightly rests on his shoulder.

“Gabriel,” the Father greets, “care to take a bowl of food for yourself?”

He joins the Father at the chapel, hands clasped respectfully over his lap. Food isn’t allowed here, but as the Father breaks some bread and offers him half for the soup, Gabriel dares to set his bowl on the pew to eat what’s probably going to be his dinner for today. At some point before midnight, he really should get a bag of groceries for his fridge, for next week.

He pauses mid-bite upon hearing, “You remember the late Father, Jennifer D’Angelo?”

“Yes. We were...” Gabriel looks to the chapel altar, the candlelit portrait of Mary Weeping Over St. Patrick looming over them both. “She was a good friend. Her sister, too.”

“Yes. Beautiful, kind souls, the D'Angelos. Always there for the people they loved.” 

Gave too much and burned out like the wicks of thin candles, Gabriel doesn’t say. One for a town that was hard to love. The other, for a love that was easy to suffer. 

“At some point, however,” the Father continues in the reverend silence, “love costs us greatly to give. Indeed, love is why God gave his only son for us, to die on the cross. It makes martyrs of all mortals. There is an admirable lesson in that, which we can admire well from our late Father D’Angelo. But, martyrs cannot protect their people, once they die. Don’t you agree, Gabriel?”

Anger swells in the pit in his stomach. He doesn’t want to reminisce about mistakes, if that’s what this is.

“That might be so. If I could live up to an inch of what they did, I would be satisfied,” Gabriel says vaguely, hoping the Father will chalk it up to the reason why he works himself hard for the food bank, and not the increasingly obvious crumbs he’s leaving of his Goblin’s affect for the church. 

Jennifer D’Angelo—the late Father, the late friend, the late Goblin—was better at separating her lives. 

Gabriel tries, but parts keep bleeding through. 

“Thanks, for the food,” Gabriel says with a tired edge. On standing up, he winces with a limp. If the Father notices it, he doesn’t mention it. It comes with living in Downtown. People don’t ask questions to what they don’t need to know. Good way to avoid unpleasant business.

Back in the stale air of his apartment, it’s quiet. Messy. He’s doing okay for himself, renting in a nice—or what counts as nice—place in Downtown. Honestly, the apartment is nicer than how he lives, and better than he deserves. 

It’s not home. He hasn’t had a home in years.

Tonight, the bed is naked of sheets. Soy-sauced stains are doing the soaped spin-cycle in the washer downstairs. He sets an alarm for that, just in case sleep catches him by surprise, again. As it’s done for days, and weeks, and through the fogginess of yestermonth.

Gabriel sighs, calling Apollo for another message he’s not going to send.

‘See you around, G.’

“Actually, Apollo, open a new comms link instead. Connect to 01-99-1225.”

“Of course. Connecting...”

The graffitied wall comes to him, in the bramble of thoughts. He stares at the ceiling, cursing because he never asked the little stubborn Spider for his number-code. Talking to his brother will be like ripping new stitches. With Jennifer D’Angelo so freshly dug out of his mind’s grave, it’s not a good idea.

No, tonight, he’ll take a different leap of faith.

“Hey, Lyla, can you do me a favor?”