Chapter Text
The sky fragmented and a huge hole formed at the top. Lights of all colors struck out as thunderbolts and illuminated the barren rooftops just like in a storm. But it wasn't a storm. Of course not.
Those colors bringed something, something back to its origin, something that never had to come back to begin with.
Earth 4218 was special.
One of a kind, a disastrous and sad wonder for the one who watched over them all.
A catastrophe.
An anomaly.
Earth 4218 was the only one on the entire radar of Miguel O'Hara that did not have a Spider-Man. All the canonical events were planned and calculated, all the villains were present, the friends and the lovers, everything was set for the Spider-Man from Earth 4218.
There was only one small detail missing:
There was no Spider-Man.
The spider bit someone else and that caused Earth 1618 to have two Spider-Men.
And everything that followed, you already know it, so let's do this one more time.
From the newly open portal in 4218, fell Miles Morales (1618 Spider-Man, the anomaly) and Hamato Michelangelo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle). After an incredibly crazy chase, Miles and Mikey were ready to go home. To save Jefferson and hug their families.
But when things had gone right for these two?
Even with advanced superhuman biology on their side, they couldn't save themselves from falling face-first into a rooftop. The portal closed, trapping them to their fate.
Mikey recovered first, but that didn't mean he was in good condition. He could hear a ringing in his ears along with his heart beating so fast that at some point it would jump out of his chest. His breathing was exactly the same, his lungs barely registering the air that was coming in.
No, it's fine.
Mikey, control yourself, you must control yourself. The concrete under his feet was rough and hard. The rain was cold. His arms ached. His bandana was loose. His eyes burned. Yeah, good, you're doing great Mike.
He opened his eyes. The city was cloaked in darkness. The bandages on his arms were loose. He looked up and saw a red eye.
A giant light that blinded him and despite being pure machinery, Mikey could feel it. The hatred. The cruelty. The terror.
He could hear the laughter now.
The metal every time it moved.
He could hear Leo. His bones. His shell.
He could hear his brothers crying.
No no, Mikey calm down.
Good, calm down. You are no longer there.
He was home again, after a horrible day filled with multi-dimensional travel and chases. With images he never wanted to see, things he didn't wanted to know. He was with Miles. Everything would be alright. They wouldn't end up like Miguel O'Hara had prophesized.
Yes, they were safe.
But not by much and not forever.
"Miles?" Mikey called in a low voice. He looked for the boy and found him, laying next to Mikey and curling on himself.
"Miles?" he asked louder.
With trembling legs, he approached him, kneeling down next to his boyfriend. The boy was no better than Mikey. His suit was torn and Mikey didn't need to be Leo to recognize that he surely had sustained a lot of injuries.
"Hey, Miles. We have to go." the turtle tried again, this time getting an answer.
"We did it.", said Miles in a breath, "We are home."
Miles raised his head, eyes meeting. Brown with gold. Autumn and the sun. And now, it seemed that Miles was coming back to him.
"You're right," he said ragged, "We need to go. Who knows how much time we have ahead."
Miles shot up and Mikey had to catch him to keep him from falling again. He could feel him trembling under his hands and Mikey wondered if this was a good idea. They were finally home, after a day in which they had to run all the time, they could ask their family for help and they could rest a little. But he also knew that an entire society of Spiders were after them. That fate itself was after them.
They didn't have time.
"I'll try to contact my brothers when we arrive at your appartement." Mikey said once Miles was standing steadily enough.
"Good idea. We definitely need that help.", Spider-Man (because Miles was Spider-Man to Mikey, no matter what the others said) approached the edge of the building, a fairly tall one, to look at the dark city. He took a deep breath. "We'll save my father."
"We can't always save everyone, Miles."
"Miguel is wrong." said the boy, "It's our duty to save people. It's the reason we fight. I won't sit by and watch someone die, not when I know I can save them."
Mikey's heart skipped a beat.
Being Spider-Man was not just a title, it was not just a mask or a suit. It was the actions. The stubbornness to save people, to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, to be an enemy of the law because sometimes they didn't understand what justice was, to stay in the shadows and get beaten up to save someone. To sacrifice for others.
To be a hero.
Spider-Man was about being a hero. Just like Raph always said.
And Mikey couldn't help but admire that.
Mikey took his boyfriend's hand and gave it a squeeze. "We'll make it, Miles. We're two stubborn, super-powered teenagers. There's nothing we can't do."
Miles smiled at him, grabbed Mikey's cheeks and left a kiss on his boyfriend's forehead.
"Can you follow me, Angie?"
And Miles jumped.
Mikey followed him without wasting time. He wouldn't leave him alone again for that long.
Miles started throwing his webs and just seconds later, Mikey's chains appeared, illuminating the strangely dull city with a beautiful golden glow.
Mikey could tell that Miles was distracted while swinging, lost in his own mind.
Mikey could understand, even though he didn't really know Gwen, Peter or Peni, he knew that their words mattered a lot to Miles and seeing them just standing by and watching while Miguel attacked Miles... Mikey felt angry on Miles' behalf. The Spider society should have been a place where Miles could feel accepted, understood, and instead they told him to let all his loved ones die, told Miles that he didn'tbelonged. Yeah, they all had booked an appointment with Doctor Rude.
Miles almost missed shooting another string of web.
If it wasn't for his boyfriend's Spidey-sense, he probably would have crashed into something by now.
Mikey kept up with him, trying as hard as he could to call his brothers. He'd already tried with the comms, tried to connect to Shelldon's network with his phone, but nothing was working.
Even their ninpō didn't seem right.
Something was off.
He sent signals, messages, something, but he got anything. It felt strange. As if someone had cut off every possible connecting line. A message that didn't got send. Or receivers who received nothing. If it wasn't for his chains, he'd say something similar to the Krang had happened.
Something must have blocked his ninpō. But it was impossible, because he was using it right now.
However, Mikey was stubborn, and every time he swung from building to building after Miles, he sent a new signal. He decided to put more focus on it, on feeling his ninpō and the connection with his siblings.
But he felt nothing.
It wasn't normal. It was like a room that was always empty. No. It was different. A void. A void that shouldn't be. A room that once was full and now there was nothing. Like they pulled something out and left a hole in it.
Out of nowhere, his vision began to turn more yellowish, as if a veil was cast over his eyes and everything around him.
He thought he saw something, but that couldn't be.
He felt something getting ripped from his chest.
Leo! Leo! His brother–
And then, an impact on his side so strong that for a second, it seemed to have stopped all of his functions.
His mind darkened and whatever he had felt, it was gone. His body was thrown into the air seconds before his shell collided with something, possibly a building. Mikey heard a crack and an unbearable pain began to spread quickly.
Then, he fell to the ground.
"Mikey!" he heard Miles' voice in despair. He tried to do something, but he couldn't. He barely felt if he had moved.
"Miles" he whispered. He couldn't do more.
This is a pain he've never experienced before. Something reaching deep and doing terrible damage. His whole shell was aching and burning, he could hardly move, and by sheer instinct, he tried to get into his shell. But as soon as he tried, the pain became even more intense. He could feel it everywhere. From his toes to his head.
His eyes filled with tears and without making a sound, he began to cry. For two completely different types of pain. One made it feel like when Leo was in the Prison Dimesion. And the other one was from a cracked shell.
Miles came to his side. "For God's sake, Mikey, that truck threw you like two blocks away. Are you alright?"
No. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
"Miles..." Mikey whispered again. His brain was cloudy, he couldn't even think straight.
The boy tried to help by picking Mikey up; however, the turtle screamed and Miles let go.
Miles quickly started looking for what was going on. Clearly the truck and hitting a goddamn building were part of the problem.
Mikey was breathing hard as he tried to calm down, remembering that Leo once told him that panic made medical emergencies worse, and he definitely didn't want to make things worse.
"I think I broke my shell." Mikey said, his voice drowned by the pain.
Deep inside it screamed in him, he didn't want to do this. He didn't want to be here, he didn't want to go through this, he just wanted to be with his brothers. He wanted Raph and Donnie and Leo.
He wanted his brothers.
He didn't want this pain. He didn't want to know all the ways his alternate selves died. He didn't want his life to end in tradgedy! He didn't want Miles to suffer because of him.
He just wanted it to be over now. Why couldn't all of this just be a dream?
"Your shell?" Miles' voice trembled, "Aren't those things supposed to be tough? Sorry, that was a stupid question."
With the new information, Miles began to look for some kind of wound in Mikey's shell, scanning for little cracks in the unnaturally strong keratin.
It didn't take long before he found it what he was looking for. On his left side, shortly before reaching the edge to the shell's yellow markings, a bleeding crack spread. Mikey could feel Miles' warm fingers tracing the cracks. It kind of felt like a spider's web... heh, kind of fitting, right?
"I found it, Angie." Miles said nervously. "What do I do? You're bleeding. Oh, Mikey, what do I do?"
"Ahh." seriously, Mikey hated every second of this, "How... much blood is there?" Leo would know better what to do.
"Uh, not too much. But I'm pretty sure the blood belongs inside." a new wave of pain went through Mikey when Miles accidentally pressed harder than he could bear and hissed.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!", he heard Miles, "Concentrate." and then something like a slap, he couldn't see well. "We need to go to my house as soon as possible, my mom will know what to do."
"I don't think I can move too much, Miles."
"Time to put my superhuman strength to good use." unmasked, Miles knelt in front of him. His face expressing everything he felt at the time, "I know it'll hurt, but my house is closer than yours, so I'll carry you there. I'll be super careful."
Yeah, Mikey didn't like that idea at all. But what choice did he have?
"Okay." the turtle accepted, "You better be a good driver, or I... won't give you any star."
Fuck, that joke was awful. Maybe now he understood why Leo made jokes at the worst opportune times. They weren't meant to annoy, they were just to make the pain go away without doing any more damage.
"Oh, don't worry, Your Highness. There's no one like me." Miles played along, but the nervous smile told him everything.
He wasn't sure about this either.
"Well, Mikey, I need you to hold me."
Mikey did just as he was told. He hung his arms around Miles' neck, hugging him, ignoring the pain as much as he could. It would be past soon.
Miles' mom was a great nurse. (Only he wasn't a human exactly) (Oh, he didn't want his in-laws to find out about the whole situation this way).
Miles began to secure it with his webs by making a kind of belt that would keep Mikey safe and at best, lessen the pain as they arrived. Once secure in his restraints, Miles stood up carefully, one arm under his little boyfriend, holding him.
"This is a bad idea." said Mikey before Miles began the journey.
"I know. Bad ideas are kind of my thing. But, hey, more than half of them worked fine"
"I don't think that's the right percentage."
「🕷」
A thundering sound came from Miles' room. A very particular sound. The broken glass of a window.
Rio Morales was a cautious woman and knew what kind of city she lived in, so before anything else, she looked for the metal bat Aaron had bought her and forced herself to take it. She was hoping she wouldn't have to use it tonight, it had already been a tough shift at the hospital.
She held it tightly in her hands and walked towards the door of her son's bedroom. From outside, she could hear quiet voices saying something, although she could not understand it. Well, whoever to decided to rob this appartment tonight, they picked the worst one.
She slammed the door open and without looking, she swung the bat to hit someone. The bat crashed into the wall with great force and two screams were heard.
"Get out of my home, thieves!" shouted Rio.
"Mami! Mami!", Miles shouted, "I'm not a thief, it's me, Miles!"
Rio stopped and turned on the light. Yeah, there was her son, Miles. But he looked... different. (Why did he take his braids out?) "Miles?" Just to be sure.
"Yes, Mami. Soy yo" he said with his hands in the air.
Until that moment and with the lights on, Rio could get a look on her son. He wore some kind of weird costume, all ripped and bloody. Blood?
"Mijo, but what happened to you?"
Miles sighed. "I swear I'll explain everything to you, Mami, but I need your help." All right? "But first I need you to promise that you won't go crazy."
"Pero tu de que hablas, papi?" asked Rio, upset.
"Mami, promise me. Please."
And Rio decided to trust her son. In spite of everything that had happened and everything that he surely kept secret from her. She had no reason not to trust him. He was her son, and Rio still knew him. "I promise, Miles. But you're gonna have to tell me absolutely everything you've been doing this whole time."
"Mikey needs your help, he was hurt on the way here and he's really, really in a lot of pain." Miles walked to the broken window, to finish smashing it, and he extended his hand for someone to take it. "I'm sorry about the window, but for some reason it was closed."
A three-fingered green hand took Miles' hand and soon, a giant turtle was in his son's room. Clearly in pain.
"Mikey?" she asked in amazement and fear. Was he...? But wasn't he? How? Mikey shouldn't be here–
"Yes, ma. Mikey, MJ, Angie, Angel.", Miles said.
"Is he a mutant?" Rio was doing his best not to scream. A mutant. In her home.
And it was Mikey. Had he always been a mutant? But that didn't explain why her son's boyfriend was standing in front of her when he shouldn't be able to.
"Mami, please, you promised. Mikey needs your help.", Miles looked at her with desperation in his eyes.
"It's... a pleasure... Mrs. Morales.", the mutant was putting most of his weight on Miles, and besides the clear wounds on his face, Rio didn't have a hard time seeing a trail of blood that was already reaching the floor. "This was definitely not... how I wanted... this to happen."
Rio counted to ten to not to scream. "Well, Miles, why don't you take MJ to the living room? I think we'll all be more comfortable there."
Without saying anything else, Rio left the room and quickly took out her phone. She needed to tell Aaron. She needed to know what the hell was going on and why MJ, the sweet and kind MJ, was a mutant. And more importantly, alive apparently.
Soon, she had a wounded mutant turtle in her house, and well, Rio was a great nurse but not a veterinarian. How did you have to treat a cracked shell?
The first thing she did was to disinfect the area and clean up all the blood (her heart ached just imagining what could have happened for both of them to end up hurt like that.The streets were not safe). She gave him some pain meds and as soon as she saw the fracture, she didn't know what the hell to do.
"I don't know how to deal with any of this.", Rio admitted.
Mikey, seeming a little drowsy thanks to the medicine responded. "You have a drill and wire?"
"A drill?" asked the two humans, one more upset than the other.
"You'll have to bury some screws in me to secure everything, and the wire is to join the separate parts together.", Mikey explained.
"You want me to put screws on your already broken shell?", asked Rio, shocked.
"What the hell, MJ? That's just going to hurt you more."
"No, I'll tell you how deep to drill."
Seconds passed, but in the end Rio got up and went to his kitchen. Mikey probably knew what was best for him. He probably had been dealing with his... condition for a while now. From the bottom of one of the drawers, she took out Jefferson's tools which were no longer in use. She returned to the living room and, as she mentally prepared for the strangest operation of her entire life, she paid attention to the clothes Miles was wearing. Or what was left of it.
"What about the suit? I didn't know you did cosplay." (That was the name, wasn't it?)
"I'm Spider-Man, Mom."
Rio looked at him without a reaction, "Who?"
"Spider-Man, the spider vigilante?" it suddenly became uncomfortable, more than it was before.
Rio thought it was funny. "But what are you talking about, Miles? Who is this Spider-Man?"
Miles looked at her like she went crazy for not knowing who this Spider-Guy was? Why?
There was something wrong. Something that didn't fit.
There was a mistake.
Suddenly, Miles' breathing stopped, his whole body convulsing in pain. Her son fell to the ground and she could see his body literally spliting into parts and colours. It was only seconds. But each felt eternal and oh so painful. Was her son dying?
"Miles!", she screamed in terror. What had happened?
Mikey's and Miles' eyes met. Gold and brown. And there was a sudden, horrifying realization dawning on them.
"We're in the wrong universe.", Miles said in a monotone that seemed so detached from reality.
Wrong universe? That didn't make sense-
The door opened.
And then, chaos started to break loose for real.