Work Text:
Amongst all the variants, all the identities behind the persona of spiderman, you’ve never found one that was a variation of you specifically. Where most worked directly in big cities as scientists or reporters, in your universe you had chosen to intern for Alchemax at 19 years-old in human resources. At first, you thought it’d be exciting to leave your country to work abroad. When the recruitment had been first offered to your class, you jumped at the opportunity - convinced that your grades and accolades would land you this job. The working hours counted as credits for the degree and you were going to be paid, a dream come true!
You were right, as you usually are, you got the job.
Only you wouldn’t be working in a city, you found out they were going to relocate you to a secluded forest.
‘Of course,’ you thought to yourself, annoyed. ‘I should’ve known there would be a catch.’
Like many other variants, the story remained somewhat similar. You worked there, you did a good job, and you made friends. One Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, Alchemax’s trio of interns. In time you three discovered that the chemical plant you’d been interning in was dumping toxic waste in the rivers. It was killing the forest and the three of you, disillusioned by your youth, sought to try and change things. But it never works out, does it?
Peter and Gwen died when a chemical explosion went off on the other side of the building, you’re sure it’s because they’d been suspected for almost reporting the illegal chemical dumping. For whatever reason, you were never identified as the third possible person to be in on it. Perhaps it was because you were in HR and Alchemax’s HR were as loyal as dogs to the company, that’s what you thought at least.
You were right, as you usually are, and you were offered a permanent job offer after graduation.
“Our best intern,” your supervisor had smiled dazzlingly at you. “Why wouldn’t we want to keep you?”
Any sane person would have refused the offer. This company killed your friends, was killing that forest, and would probably kill you if you stepped out of line.
You thought back on spiders, a constant companion of yours in that forest. You remembered seeing one of the managers get bit by one once and were rushed into the nearest hospital a week later - which was miles away. The doctors had told them they were very lucky, they were close to death. A rare spider had bit them, apparently.
An omen, perhaps.
“Their venom takes a while to settle in the system,” your supervisor explained to you during your onboarding as an official employee now, “Unless you have a very sensitive immune system, you will not be able to detect it until it’s too late. This is why if you ever see bite marks on your skin, even if it’s small, you must alert either me or the closest colleague, understand?”
You smiled reassuringly in your seat across from them, your new lanyard hanging off your neck. “Of course.”
They didn’t know that when you investigated Peter and Gwen’s deaths, in the rubble of that destroyed building, one of their spider-experiments had bit you. It didn’t kill you, though, instead it turned you into one of its own. You realized this looked like the spider that had nearly killed your manager.
You watched as the chemical substance in it passed to you as it bit you. You did not flinch, knowing that the explosion that killed your friends also killed theirs. If anything, you had nothing but sympathy for this small thing.
So you brought the spider back into the wild. Whispering to it that it was free now, you’d finish the job for them.
Alchemax was strong and this chemical plant was the center of its strength. Their headquarters in New York could bark all they wanted, but no bite would come if the plant couldn’t deliver.
Being part of HR, you were expected to be as loyal as the rest were, since you were privy to most of their secrets. You recruited the best people, you conducted the best training, given the best interventions, and solved all their problems. You were so good at what you did, you were the only one who could fix almost all of Wild-Spider’s meddling.
“A freak,” your supervisor huffed as you ate lunch together. “Some masked weirdo sabotaging everything for our research team - ”
“I know,” you interjected, feigning a tired sigh as you rubbed your eyes. “I’ve been swamped with trying to recruit new people, then there’s all this onboarding documents I need to write. I feel exhausted , it’s like whatever I do they know.”
You never told anyone you were exhausted because you were up late at night in a masked suit, destroying documents, messing with machinery, and outrunning the hired security.
“All of us see your hard work,” your supervisor offered a reassuring smile, “You’ll be rewarded during the year’s performance review.”
In another world, if Alchemax had a single ethical bone in its putrid, decaying, and rat-infested body, you would have loved working for your supervisor longer. It was a shame, however, that they were next on your proverbial chopping block. You held no affection for anyone working in Alchemax, but when they were on their way out? You made sure they had letters of recommendation, contacted your network of other recruiters in similar industries - in more ethical companies - and made sure they had at least 1-2 job offers lined up.
You were so good at your job, which is why Miguel scouted you.
He knew science, physics, chemistry, and what it took to be on the battlefield. But for the life of him, he despised anything on the corporate side of things. He knew that, in the future, the society would grow into some mutated form of a company. They’d need human resources, public relations, and a legal team if Nueva York ever threatened to shut them down in its infancy.
That’s where you came in.
The two of you never had any friction, working in tandem to keep the society afloat. You had clearly laid out the boundaries of everyone’s work and whilst Jessica and Peter tended to overstep, you always stayed in your own lane. With a bachelors in Psychology and your extensive experience in HR for some of the most frustrating people you’d ever met in Alchemax, you could tell when a fuse was going to blow from a mile away. So either you avoided it completely or diffused the situation immediately.
Miguel typically stood dead center of whatever fuse was going to blow, which is why he kept you close.
“You’re very competent.” Miguel said.
The two of you stood in front of the vending machine in the, at the time, still newly built headquarters. It was late at night and only you and he remained in the building, having spent hours going over plans and reports to build the infrastructure of the society. When the midnight munchies finally got the better of both of you, he’d suggested you two swing to the closest vending machine for something light.
“Thanks boss.” You grumbled, your eyes bleary in the bright light of the vending machine as he paid for your chosen midnight snack.
“I’m not your boss.”
Sun spots bloomed in your vision when you turned to him, “Huh?”
“You built this society with me.” He said, taking his energy drink from the machine’s dispenser, “Pretty sure that makes you a co-founder.”
“Oh.”
“Would you like equity?”
It was your turn to pick up your bag of chips from the dispenser, “Boss - Miguel, we’re not a for-profit company. We’re not even a company , we don’t have the cashflow for this.”
A beat passed.
“I know what you’re thinking,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. “No Miguel, I will not try to sweet-talk the mayor for more donations.”
“Even when we know he’s corrupt?”
“Unless they’re Alchemax - “
Even in your bleary eyesight, you could see Miguel grin. It’s toothy and his canines were visible, you tried to squint to make sure you were facing the right direction. He must have thought it was funny because you could hear him laugh. It was dry and sarcastic as always, but there was something else there. Camaraderie, perhaps, for having faced the similar rotting carcass that was Alchemax.
“Of course.” He said, “It always leads back to them, doesn’t it?”
You wondered, briefly, if a variant of Miguel had been laid off by you in your home universe. Perhaps you’d saved him from a fate like this, which is why he was always kinder to you here. Perhaps he knew, perhaps this was his way of thanking you - always a bit softer, always a bit kinder, always trusting a bit more.
You once wondered about the forbidden, but sighed in relief when you saw the variants of his wife across the multiverse. She looked nothing like you.
Once that was settled, you just went back to work.
Ever since that confirmation, you were more at ease when spending time with him. You dropped the ‘boss’ title, calling him Miguel or O’hara if there was teasing. A habit you two had gotten into when you were alone. Sometimes, at the dead of night in his office, shared laughter would bounce off the walls when you recalled a particularly funny interaction during an outing to city hall.
You’d rattle off about whatever ridiculous event had happened in your teams. You had a feeling Miguel appreciated, to some degree, the normalcy of misplaced documents and the legal team arguing with the public relations team. Maybe it made him feel like he was somewhere else for a moment, like the two of you were colleagues in a world where Alchemax was a bit nicer.
Then there was this one time in a fit of laughter, as his own chuckle rumbled in that silent steel room, you had accidentally lifted your gaze towards his monitor. A video of Gabi, his daughter, on his shoulders, flickered. So overcome by your own laughter and joy for whatever story you were recounting, you’d smiled at the image of her - happily squealing and eating ice cream.
Though you made no comment, when you turned back to Miguel you caught the flicker of something beneath his gaze. You didn’t know what to make of it, even now you don’t know what it really meant.
“Let’s get back to work.” You mumbled, tearing your gaze away from him.
You wished it ended at that, but Miguel had other plans.
“Humor me for a while,” he began, making you lift your gaze up to him.
He had that far off look on his face again, you knew this one quite well. He wore it often when thinking of the future. His dark eyes would glaze over somewhat, staring at seemingly nothing as he scratched his cheek and began to pace the room.
“What do you think happens at the end of this?”
“After what?” you replied, absentmindedly tidying up the documents on the desk before you.
“How long,” his voice was a big hollow echoing sound in the large room, “do we do this for? Where does this end? What would that future look like?”
“There is no end.” You shook your head, “If there are an infinite amount of universes out there, there will always be an anomaly.”
“Let me rephrase my question.” he said, turning to face you, “Humor me as a scientist. Let’s say there is an end, what does it look like and where would we be?”
You shot him a sardonic smile, “I think if I asked a scientist that he’d chuck a textbook at my head and tell me to go back to university.”
Miguel gave you a hard look. He actually wanted an answer from you, as if you were a scientist yourself. You noted that in this light, with his hands on his hips, and staring at you expectantly, you could imagine a variant of him as a professor somewhere. Perhaps you were his student in one universe and in another a fellow colleague.
But you weren’t, you were just an HR specialist slash variant of spiderman currently in a different universe from your own. Your world expanded from a forest to a multiverse in the blink of an eye. You remembered that small spider that bit you in the rubble of that destroyed building. You imagine it’d be scared, too, if it saw how big the rest of the world was.
Clearing your throat, you straightened your back.
“No more villains, no more Alchemax.” You answered, “The variant would have no reason to continue being spiderman. Petty crime would only be what’s left, and I don’t think that’d keep someone as spiderman for too long.”
“What happens next, then?” Miguel mumbled, eyes trained on one of his many monitors, desperate for a distraction.
“Maybe their universe just disengages from the spider-multiverse.”
“And the person?”
“If they’re here during that time,” you paused, thumbing the documents before you of the new recruits. “Perhaps they just begin to disappear, fade back into their universe instead of glitching out.”
“A gentle ending.” he murmured, “I hope you’re right.”
You are right, as you usually are.
The two of you called this thought experiment Project After-Story. When Miguel returned back to headquarters after a particularly rough mission, drained and slouched over on one of the couches in his office, you sat beside him. Softly, you’d recount what Project After-Story would look like.
“I think Jessica would go first.” You mumbled as he laid his head on your lap, “I’ve heard that the multiverse jumps have scarred a lot of her villains.”
You threaded your fingers through his locks, convincing yourself that this was casual. You were just close friends, scarred by a similar organization, sitting at the helm of a growing society, and were fortunate enough to never step on each other’s toes.
“Hm.” He exhaled softly, his large body heaving like there were weights coming off his back. “I heard she’s planning on having a kid soon.”
“Oh?” you smiled, “That sounds nice.”
“Either this year or the next.” He said, his voice light and unlike the usual loud ones he’d used on the new recruits.
“I’ll congratulate her when it does,” you mused, “Maybe get a gift for her babyshower. Do you think she’d invite me?”
Miguel huffed out a tired laugh, “She wants the both of us to go.”
“Our friendship has for sure been cemented then.” You grinned, “What do you think you’re planning to get her?”
You never told him, but Project After-Story could look a lot like this. His head in your lap, talking about a friend’s baby shower, making plans to buy a gift, and laughing in soft voices. But when his monitor goes off, another anomaly detected, Miguel rises from your lap like an entirely different person. You noticed that the bigger the society got, the less he looked like the way you remembered him. And more like this other person, a stranger.
“I’ve got to -”
“I know,” you nodded, dusting makeshift dust off your knees before getting up. “Good luck out there.”
Sometimes, Miguel would offer a glance back at you or some words. You watched as he paused before putting on his mask, his dark brown eyes covered with the red.
“Thank you,” he said, “for humoring me.”
“Thank you for keeping the multiverse safe.” You replied with a smile.
“It takes two -”
“I know.”
A beat passed and all you could do was watch as Miguel stepped into one of the harsh spotlights of his office. Below it, neither gentle muted darkness nor bright soft sunlight illuminated him. Here, he was all jagged lines and harsh muscles. It was scary sometimes to watch the way his muscles flexed beneath his suit, to be reminded of just how powerful and terrifying Miguel could be.
Yet when he turned around for the briefest moment to look at you, even the garish light could not hide what you saw. For a brief second, you could see the man who once had Gabi on his shoulders.
“We’ll continue that thought-project more later.” He promised.
“I’ll be waiting.” You said.
As time passed, the two of you did it less and less. Until, inevitably, it graduated into becoming a reality.
You took off like a bolt of lightning through the forest. Gunshots hit the ground around you as you kicked up mud and leaves, the boots of your suit thankfully designed to be anti-slip as the rain pounded down on you and your chasers. Military personnel Alchemax had recently recruited to guard the chemical plant, the ones you vetted personally. You knew all their tricks, all their plans, and contingencies for the mission that night.
It was almost laughable how the leader had accused you of thinking you could win this cat and mouse game. Perhaps you were the mouse in this situation, but you were also the human who bought the cat in the first place. Besides, with the gizmo in hand it was easier than ever to escape. If anything, you were just playing around with them knowing full well that the more resources they expended to try and catch you, the more expensive the bill would be.
You’d heard rumors that the finance department was struggling to keep up thanks to your mischief. All you could do was laugh as the thunder roared, the lightning flashed behind you, and as the gizmo booted up. Racing through the forest and then into the rainbow portal before you, you found yourself now in a different forest - your forest.
Eyesight blurred, you blinked when trying to adjust to the sudden change of lighting. Nueva York’s small forest sanctuary built near the society’s headquarters was bathed in sunlight. The peaceful lake that stretched out before you and the quiet treetops your one companion.
Miguel had built this for you, frustrated by how often you rejected taking equity from the society or any other benefits.
As you took off your mask and breathed in the fresh air, you laughed after another successful mission of taking a shot at Alchemax yet again. You spun in the forest clearing as you headed towards the lake’s shore. Bending over, you began to take some water to clean off your suit - watching as the morning sun made the waters glitter.
“Need a towel?”
You smiled, turning your head up and squinting your eyes in the light, “Jessica!”
Spider-woman smiled, tossing the towel in her hands towards you, “Figured I’d find you here.”
“You know me so well,” you laughed, still pleased after a mission well done. “Thanks for the towel.”
“Anytime, I take it the mission went well?”
“Very well.” You grinned, rising to your feet to finish toweling off the excess water. “How’s Gwen been, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask about her apprenticeship with you, anything you need help with?”
“Oh,” Jessica shook her head, a smile mirroring yours as the two of you walked side by side towards the headquarters. “No, everything’s fine. In fact, we’ll be sending her on her very own mission soon.”
“You got Miguel to say yes?” You asked, surprised.
She shrugged, “We’ve watched Gwen closely. We believe she’s ready for it.”
You raked through your mind as you tried to remember that file on her. Everything about her could be summarized in bullet points, which included: Gwen Stacy is from Earth-65, currently has an estranged and tense relationship with her father, and by her own request she was accepted into the society. When you were handed the file, you were visibly distressed when you saw her age: 18.
You were only one year older than her when you first began interning at Alchemax, disillusioned by your youth still. Vaguely, you remembered that this revelation lead you to do something you rarely did: contact Miguel.
The minute he picked up, you were greeted with a soft but surprised hello, this is rare, you never call me - is something wrong?
“Miguel,” you balanced your phone between your cheek and your shoulder as you looked through the documents, “I just got the report from that mission with the Vulture, what is this about you recruiting an 18-year-old?”
There was silence on the other end for a second before his voice came back, less soft and almost defensive, “Trust me, it wasn’t my idea.”
“Yeah, I figured,” you mumbled, “But still, you gave the clear for this?”
“She has potential.”
“She’s 18.” You frowned and you knew he could hear it over the phone, “I was only 19 when I got in Alchemax -”
“And you had potential then,” he replied, “And now you’ve far exceeded whatever potential you had then, far more than what I saw in you when I scouted you at 24.”
It was always compliments with him, as if he saw no flaw in you. It frustrated you, did he not see how insane you could be like when you were running from gunshots in the forest? How freely you laughed in the aftermath? The way your claws dripped with venom, the way you could disappear into nature like a ghost?
There was no other variant like you, no other variant who lived in a single forest determined to destroy a company by death of a thousand cuts.
“... The decision has been made.” He said, his tone carrying that all-too-familiar sound of finality.
You pinched the bridge of your nose before sighing. You remembered the clearly outlined boundaries of each of your roles, there would be no stepping on each other’s toes. At times, the two of you could offer feedback, but inevitably it was only the other person who had the final say so.
“Alright,” Reigning yourself in, nodding stiffly, though you knew he couldn’t see, you replied, “It’s your call, Miguel.”
There was another beat of silence.
“Is there anything else?” he asked, as if the stretch of silence meant nothing more than to prolong the conversation.
At that moment, an email from Alchemax came through. Another layoff you were in charge of, something about plans to downsize the workforce. The worry about Gwen soon dissipated, replacing it was a mischievous smile - a giddiness you got whenever you caused trouble for them.
“Nope.” you answered Miguel, plopping yourself down on the office chair with a grin.
“You sound… happy.” He said, sounding bemused, “Is it Alchemax again?”
“Yep.” You said, twirling yourself in your chair around. “Another layoff!”
“If you said that in any other context I’d count as a villain you know that?” He joked, a tired laugh seeping into his words.
When was the last time you’d last spoken to Miguel? Perhaps a month or three ago, when you two had an hour free from work. When was the last time you heard his laugh? You couldn’t remember. It still sounded foreign, but you couldn’t lie that it didn’t make you feel warm and happy to hear.
“Good thing you know my story then.” You smiled, “I’ll have to get back maybe in an hour or two to take care of this. Is that okay?”
“So long as you remember the society,” he paused, “and that you’re also still needed here.”
You rolled your eyes, “I know, I’m not leaving just yet.”
“Good.”
“Talk to you later, Miguel.”
“See you.”
And the line went dead.
Another email came in a bit later once you got back, now sitting on your desktop in your office in Alchemax. Gone is your spider-suit, replaced by a dark navy blazer and blouse, some slacks, and heels. In the corner of your eyes, you could see what the email’s subject was: a digital invitation to Jessica’s baby shower in 2 months or so. It would’ve made you smile, giddy with excitement, but all of it is tempered by the young boy in front of you.
His name, written in bold font on the document before you, was Miles Morales, a new intern at Alchemax. He was even younger than you were when you first got in and, fortunately and unfortunately, he was Alchemax’s last ditch effort in getting free labor. An unpaid internship, compensated by ‘experience’ and free lodging in their ‘finest’ chemical plant. Even when you started out as an intern, you remembered getting paid rather handsomely - yet here was Miles, getting less than what you got.
You fought the urge to frown whenever you saw him in the hallways, always acting more gruff and cold than necessary. You wanted him to leave, but considering the situation there would be no way he’d give up that easily. He’d tried to charm you with bringing baked goods from the cafeteria to your office, seeing as you were his supervisor. You’d only ever arch your eyebrow at him, making a mental note that whatever you did as Wild-Spider you left Miles out.
At some point, Miles was convinced you hated him. Perhaps because he was too young and you were too high level, too busy to take care of him. Little did he know that in the shadows you made sure to protect him from nasty managers, and to ensure whatever wild-spider did he would always be left out of it. Not that Miles cared much, he needed the approval of the head engineer - not the head of human resources.
Then came the day that you’d heard news that he was being forced to do triple his workload, due to the downsizing you had caused. Neither your department nor the engineering department had ever seen you so angry, so willing to exercise your power to fire the head engineer immediately - threatening that you had at least 5 more people more competent than she was.
In all your years working in Alchemax, you never once raised your voice - always maintaining that cool, kind, and accommodating facade. Yet that one day, Wild-Spider had sprung from the deepest recesses of your soul. Gnashing her teeth and sinking her venomous claws on anything that harmed what she held dear.
You realized you saw too much of Gwen, Peter, and your younger self in Miles.
Even now, when staring at Earth-1610’s Miles Morales, you saw nothing but the flashes of their deaths. You were always a lonely, bookish child who grew up never having many friends; so when the opportunity presented itself to you, you latched your claws onto them. The memory, the laughter, the joys, and – unfortunately – the pain as well.
At times, it could blind you. Achingly, you recognised the same with Miguel; his talons digging into his own memories of Gabi.
Which is why you could only stand and watch, slack-jawed, as Miguel trapped Miles in that cage; how you couldn’t speak, neither to defend Miles nor bolster Miguel.
As Miles released that blast to escape, you could only hear ringing in your ears and the vague sensation of a large body encasing yours. Your breath came out in short staccato shots, the panic and doom filling your heart again just as it had when Peter and Gwen died. Soon, your hearing returned and you could hear Miguel barking out orders, still hovering above you.
The sound of feet thundering against the ground, the familiar ‘thwip’ of multiple web-shooters, and mixed voices echoed in the room. The lights were cut out, yet even in the haze of light coming from somewhere near, you could make out Miguel above you. His eyes were bright red like blood, widened, and staring at you as if you were some weakened civilian caught in a crossfire - and not as his own equal.
Miguel said your names a couple of times, calling out to you, as you blinked up blearily at him, “ – are you alright? Hey!”
“... I’m fine.” You groaned, rubbing your eyes. “I… what was that?”
His eyes flickered for a moment, bright red switching to dark brown for a second, as his hands tightened around you, “Miles has Bio-Electrokinesis, he can reverse the flow of electricity at will - blowing up that net -”
As Miguel explained what was happening, you could only observe. Here he was, holding you in his arms as if you didn’t have superhuman healing, as if he hasn’t seen you get thrown into a building many years before. Three keywords: Many Years Before . True that you hadn’t been on the field with Miguel in years, spending most of your time indoors if not in that forest, and it seemed he had forgotten how strong you were.
Or perhaps he remembered? You couldn’t make too much sense of it, especially when he was staring at you like that. As if he dreaded losing you.
Perhaps being the head of HR, PR, and the legal team was just that important to him.
“You should go get him.” You muttered, getting up slowly - Miguel’s hands still helping to steady you. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, you need to stay.” he insisted, “I’d rather you stay indoors and take care of any situation with the authorities if this anomaly starts causing unwanted damage to Nueva York.”
A frown formed on your lips as you stared at him sharply, “Miguel, I get hurt on the daily whenever I return to my home-universe. I get scrapped by bullets, I trudge through mud, and I get way too near chemical explosions - I can handle an anomaly. My team can take care of Nueva York.”
‘But you can’t handle Miles,’ a voice inside you wanted to say, ‘You keep thinking about your Miles.’
“No.”
“Miguel, be reasonable -”
“No, and that’s final .” He practically growled out that last word and you knew what he meant, he was officially exercising his authority - those boundaries you two had drawn from the very beginning.
You relented; you couldn’t take back your words.
Appeased, Miguel took off afterwards.
Perhaps this was the way things would always be, always separated - always respecting each other’s boundaries. Only when push came to shove would Miguel breach it, the way he shielded you, the way his eyes lingered on yours when you smiled at the image of Gabi, and the quiet nights where he’d only ever let his guard down with you.
‘You look nothing like the variants of his wife,’ that voice in you said, ‘Remember that. Get back in your office and finish your work.’
Apparently, the search for Miles was taking longer than it should have. The whispers in your department had grown loud enough for you to hear that Miguel was tearing his head apart trying to find him. He wasn’t in his home-universe and everyone feared for the worst of what would happen next. It felt a lot like, according to some people, watching the waters on the beach recede so far out that you knew a tsunami was coming next.
Yet in the quiet of your office, handling complaints and PR requests from politicians and diplomats of Miguel’s home universe, it didn’t feel like your world at all. Where his side of the building had erupted with multiple missions, switching priorities to finding Miles, yours was… quaint. Quiet and peaceful, with your ceiling length windows showcasing the stellar skyline of Nueva York - the sunshine beaming in as the winds around your tower rattled the glass - your world was truly nothing but peace and quiet.
If anything, it was currently populated by frequent emails between your higher-ups in Alchemax and friendly chats with your universe’s Miles. After that scuffle between you and the head engineer, Miles had finally realized you didn’t hate him. And when he’d prodded that truth well enough, you eventually broke and formed a careful friendship with him.
Perhaps this was your way of atonement for not helping Earth-1610’s Miles, who knew what universe that poor boy was adrift at.
At least here, you could help him. You provided career advice, chatted to him about what your fellow recruiters were looking for in a fresh-graduate, what universities would suit him best - and he was grateful. He was open to being reviewed, ravenous for feedback. He was nothing like the way Miguel described Earth-1610’s Miles. Where your Miles was bright-eyed and readily willing to listen to input, the other was apparently impulsive, stupid, and selfish.
You remembered Miguel knew a lot about science, chemistry, engineering, and physics, but he never studied psychology. You had a sinking suspicion that Miguel had gotten Miles all wrong but couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. Boundaries, you remembered, boundaries.
Frustrated, you’d grown into furiously typing away at your keyboard. Your eyes were trained on your monitor, unwilling to look away. If Miguel wanted you to stay in your lane, then so be it. Then so be it. You reached over for your glass of water, your jaw still working angrily as you finished the next email - only to grow frustrated when no matter what, you couldn’t reach the glass. Finally, your tore your eyes away from the screen - only for your eyes to widen at the sight before you.
Your hand had, indeed, reached the glass. But your wrist had phased right through it. The gears in your head worked overtime, trying to understand what was happening. A new superpower, perhaps? You’d heard of other variants being late bloomers, but –
At that exact moment, the notification of a priority email popped up on your desktop. The CEO of Alchemax himself announced that the company, after years of running, was going to close its doors.
The gears slowed, the neurons in your brain finally settling on a single destination point in your mind.
Project After-Story. Boundaries, boundaries. The end of your time here. The first success story in the history of the society, the first Spiderman to be relieved of their duty - not by death nor tragedy, but because their job was done.
And that success story was you.
On any other occasion, you would have rushed to tell Miguel first but with the state of things you decided to wait for a while. All the while, more than your hand had begun to flicker from existence. It began to happen more and more with how much more carefully you began to lay-off people from Alchemax, as you scrolled past news articles from your home-universe of how the company was going bankrupt.
You tried to hide it, worried that Miguel would have more problems if he had to quickly find another person to replace you as head of three whole departments. So you took matters into your own hands. You compiled around 10 candidates for him to pick from, readied the onboarding documents, and a list of instructions for how the new head would need to operate. And you did it in record time, you always did.
You were after all, as Miguel has said, very competent.
Sometimes too competent for your own good.
The day of breaking the news to him came quicker than you thought. Miguel had called for a meeting for all priority personnel to be gathered for the next excursion to find Miles, through Jessica’s help they were able to pinpoint the universe he was in. A universe existed where there was no spiderman, where there was supposed to be a Spiderman but that opportunity was ripped away from them by the anomaly himself.
You were sat there beside Miguel, more of a show of authority than it was for you to provide any other input. It was important, he had reasoned, that the two co-founders of the society provided a united front.
Then you began to flicker in and out of reality, surprising everyone in the meeting with you. Everyone chalked it up to you having developed new powers, but Miguel knew right away that this was not the case. Suffice to say, he adjourned the meeting immediately.
Before he could even begin interrogating you, you produced those documents you’d written up before him. You relayed your well-rehearsed speech about what was happening. You figured Miguel should have been thrilled, the news should have relieved him of some of the burdens on his shoulder.
But it didn’t.
Instead, he locked the door to the meeting room, closed the blinds over the windows, and began pacing the floor back and forth.
“When were you going to tell me?” he said, his tone clipped and you recognised the anger bubbling beneath it.
You couldn’t understand why, or perhaps you knew why. But, like always, you’d rather play pretend.
“... Soon,” you said, fiddling with your hands as you sat in your seat. “I’ve been flickering in and out for a week.”
“A week?” He seethed, eyes finally rising to meet yours. They were red and filled with a cross of anger and devastation, like tragedy had befallen him. “A week, and you didn’t tell me – ”
“You were busy with Miles!” you threw your hands up in exasperation, “Shouldn’t you be happy? I’m the first success story, I’m the first variant to have finished their job as Spiderman well! That means that in all our stories, in all our universes, there is an ending. There is a good ending, shouldn’t you be happy?”
“Happy?” he laughed, the sound hollow. “Happy. You think I’m happy about this?”
“Yes!” you exclaimed, getting up from your seat. “Isn’t this what we’ve been working towards? Isn’t this the reason why we become Spiderman? So we could one day save the day and have it be saved permanently?”
Miguel could only stare at you as if you’d grown a second hand. He narrowed his eyes and you could see the billions of thoughts flickering through that red gaze of his. There were too many, too many unanswered questions and too many questions you wish would stay that way. You could see the answers, could see the truth, but that boundary still existed. And you were far too cordial, far too accustomed to professionalism, to ever cross it.
“And you’re okay with fading away?” he asked, his voice a touch quieter now. “You’re okay with leaving?”
A beat passed and you walked over to him, two hands on his shoulder as your mind lurched to make sense of this. And to a lesser degree, to overpower your heart.
“We built this society to accomplish a mission.” You said, your gaze searching his. “And we have. You’ve found Miles, I’ve finished my job. Isn’t this a good ending?”
He once valued how driven you were to the mission as he was, but now it seemed like he viewed it as more of a curse than anything else. For a moment you both wished that you were less like each other, that one of you were more willing to cross that boundary, that one of you was just a touch more pushy. But you weren’t and neither was he.
Another beat passed.
“Isn’t this everything you wanted?” you whispered, “Isn’t this that light at the end of the tunnel we talked about all those years ago?”
You didn’t miss the way his eyes searched yours, flickered to your lips, and how his body had neared yours. His own folder on Miles was long discarded by the meeting table. His attention was focused solely on you, as if trying to commit the image of you to memory forever - as if to sear your gaze on his soul.
You knew what his answer to your question was, but neither of you were brave enough to verbalize it. But you could taste it when he leaned in to kiss you, you could feel it when his hand came up to cup your cheek, and you could hear it when he spoke in his mother tongue - urging you to stay.
For the first time in your life since you’ve known him, Miguel turned his face away from his goals and instead turned towards you. Fully, entirely, and his affections were all-engulfing.
As he took your hand in his, trying to tell you how he couldn’t do this on his own, what a shame that your hand phased right through his. What a shame that it was too late.
He’d invited you into his office, the same way he used to all those years ago, to talk as you once did. His fingers played with yours as you sat beside him on that couch, just idly staring at your intertwined hands - feeling the warmth of his body next to yours.
“How long?” you asked, your voice a quiet mumble.
The holographic suit fizzled away on his hand as he slipped off your gloved hand to feel his calloused palm, “Since the day I called you competent. But I was sure when I saw you smiling at that video of Gabi.”
“... Why?” your voice was hoarse.
“Who else could stand toe-to-toe with me?” he said, his voice low and sad. “Who else could I work this well with?”
“Boundaries.” you whispered, trying to remind him and trying to remind yourself.
“Forget them.” he mumbled.
“A bit too late, huh?”
“I thought we’d have more time,” he confessed, a shuddering breath following soon after. “I wanted to do this right.”
You looked at him, a question in your eyes.
“I’d never be able to take care of you with how things are,” the words felt like heavy lead on his tongue and like sinking weights to your flesh as you drowned, “Why else would you think I was fine to just have you on corporate?”
So that’s why he was content to let you work as head of those departments, why he seemingly chained you down onto your desk with mountains of paperwork. Yes, you were competent, but it was also because he’d rather keep you somewhere he knew was safe. Headquarters was safe. It would always be safe. For a moment, you knew that if he continued this trend of behavior - of wanting complete control - it would suffocate you.
Perhaps this truly was for the best.
What was it exactly that drew you to him? Perhaps it was his laser focus, his well-built body, or how much you enjoyed working with him. Was it how he made you feel special, how he was cold with everybody else but always a bit softer on you? When you stripped away your hatred for Alchemax and his trauma for losing his daughter, what laid beneath it - what was this undercurrent of push and pull between you two?
A similar past with a similar company, sitting at the helm of an interdimensional society, and the knowledge that you did not exist in any other reality besides your own.
The undercurrent, as you understood it, was limerence. It was lust.
You, the fleeting ephemeral comet that he knew would only cross his skies just that once. And he, the burning meteor that would destroy itself as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. One destined to crash and burn, the other doomed to be trapped in another’s orbit. For a moment, both meteor and comet would intertwine in the stars, in the deep space, in the in-between of universes, before finally separating forever.
Lust needn’t be sexual, you learned. You could lust after the slow death of Alchemax, you could lust after the idea of romance between you and another, you could lust after a job, an idea, a future - but you had to wonder, have you ever loved anything?
Did you love Miguel?
Did you lust after him?
If you could not decide, you thought, it was better to leave.
The sun beamed down Nueva York, neither prickly nor hot, and you decided to go for a run. The sight of the city whizzed by as you focused on your steps, desperate for a distraction to the possibility of your disappearance. Yet every now and again, you'd watch the way your skin would shimmer in the sun - as you flickered in and out of existence.
"Love is not a feeling," the man on the podcast you were listening to said. "Rather, it is to will the good of the other."
Food for thought.
When the time finally came, it happened in the dead of night. Your office lay abandoned as you spent one of your last night’s in your office, every night before plagued by the fear that one day you’d close your eyes then wake up back home. You weren’t ready to leave yet and Miguel made sure to visit you even more often, determined to check up on you as if he was a doctor and you were his dying patient.
He’d left momentarily to check up on something, returning to find your office chair swiveling on its own. One of the ceiling-length windows were open, the howling wind filling the room as it scattered your documents to the ground. You’d never know the heartbreak that came after, that paradoxical regret that he wished you weren’t as competent as he knew you to be. He wishes, briefly, you were more of a fool; maybe then he’d be able to keep you.
As he poured through his monitors and scanned the multiverse for yours, he’d find that yours, as you had predicted, had long since disengaged. A gaping hole in the web of the multiverse, the empty space rivaling that spot in his chest. He’d lost Gabi for trying too much and how he’d lost you for not trying at all.
He tried finding you in all other universes, but found that it was for naught. You didn’t exist anywhere else - why? Why didn’t you exist in some other place where he could pluck you from, cradle you close, and pretend this variant was you?
After revising Project After-Story, he came to the conclusion that out of all your variants, you must have been the least competent. Because the universes where you'd existed had already probably disengaged long before. Long before the society came into existence, long before he lost Gabi, long before he knew the tragedy and pleasure of having known you.
But then again, you knew none of this.
In your universe you lived happily with your severance package, a mountain of references and experience under your belt, and a pleasant apartment in New York. In your free time, you’d visit Central Park and sit on a bench - sometimes you’d run into Miles there on a study-date with a girl from Brooklyn. Other times, you’d see a man you once knew with his wife and daughter playing near the lake, feeding the birds, and laughing together.
He recognised you, having met you briefly in Alchemax. He left a thank you note and a basket of baked goods from his wife for your help in finding him a new job.
In this world, he would never face the tragedy of losing his daughter. In this world, he would never have to shoulder the weight of a multiverse. In this world, you’d saved him from the terror of Alchemax. In this world, he'd never need to hunt down Miles.
You were so competent, so good at your job, that it felt like breathing to be able to simply thank him and never see him the same way you saw Miguel.
As the dappled sunlight enveloped your skin, you could only smile and wave at the family.
"Love is not a feeling," the man on the podcast you were listening to once said. "Rather, it is to will the good of the other."