Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Yeah? Join the club.”

He knows it was a mistake the moment they step off of the portal. 

Miguel recognized the Spider from Earth-65 almost immediately, had groaned when he tracked the anomaly of Renaissance Vulture to her universe. He can see the screens behind Lyla from that day  now, she had been part of the Original Anomaly. He wants nothing more than to leave this girl alone if only Jess hadn’t been adamant when the trio had been in the Guggenheim. 

But the way this Spider-Girl (she calls herself Spider-Woman but there’s no way she’s over sixteen, he knows that for a fucking fact) stumbled out of her first multiverse jump and into the budding Nueva York HQ is painful for even him to watch. 

She handles herself with grace as Jessica shows her around the facilities. She hasn’t taken her mask off since she put it back on before entering the portal but her eyes stay level, flitting around the place even through the fabric. Jess introduces her to the growing hordes of Peters and puns, Miguel himself stalking behind the two as if to make sure that the new addition to the task force isn’t any more of a liability than she’s already proven to be. 

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. For her to start yelling and throw a fit or something, maybe. For her to break down. 

Because he saw it. Well–he heard it. Her last few minutes in her own universe, with her father. The man had pointed a gun at his own daughter. He’d accused her of things that Miguel didn’t want to care about, but the look on the girl’s face had been enough for him to toss her a gizmo in the first place. He hadn’t been able to stand it. 

If Gabriella had ever looked at him like that he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know what he would have done. 

The thought stops him in his tracks, Jess and the girl moving further away. It surprises him, he’s skipped a beat of breathing. Gabi. His jaw clenches. No–she had never been scared of him (he could only pray). But she had been scared of dying, that much had been obvious as her universe shattered around her and Miguel lost her for a second time. 

At least he could keep this girl from her fear. 

He sighs, dragging a hand down his face. He was complicating things. This was a kid, but she was a Spider. No special treatment. 

Miguel catches up to her and Jessica soon enough, just as she’s being shown the dormitory areas. “They’re still in developmental stages,” he hears Drew’s voice as he gets closer. “But you get to be the first full time resident! How about that, Gwen?” 

Gwen. 

“Sounds good,” the girl– Gwen– says slowly, poking her head into the small living quarters. “It’s..it’s nice.” 

Jess seems like she wants to say something but within the instant, her phone buzzes. She glances down and sighs, shooting a glance at Miguel. “I need to get home.” She's looking at Miguel but he feels like the slightly apologetic tone in her voice is meant for Gwen. What is for him is the pointed look she gives. It says ‘deal with it.’ 

“Call me for anything. Both of you,” Jessica says, punching her universe into her gizmo. The geometric portal manifests itself behind her and she steps in, disappearing within the instant. Miguel watches it glitch out of existence.  

He stiffens at the spot where Jessica used to stand. What’s he supposed to do? She’s absolutely fine–

Gwen hadn’t even turned away from looking into the room, but she finally reaches a hand up to tug the fabric off of her face, only to bunch it up between her knuckles.

Miguel O’hara doesn’t have a spidey sense. But her hands are trembling. Her eyes are wide and fixed on a point beyond the window overlooking the greenery of Nueva York that he can’t make out. The skin at her under eyes creases over and something about this girl is young, trying to fight against a maturity that the mantle of the spider is weighing on her. It isn’t working. 

Maybe it isn’t the suit. Maybe this is normal for teenage girls. Just as soon as the thought surfaces, another one joins it. 

Gabi never got to be this old. 

So he doesn’t know how to handle it, this kind of distance, this kind of ache that he knows is inside of her, breeding a new one between his ribs. But he steps past her, into the room, and flicks the light on so it isn’t only the sun illuminating it. “You can customize it however you want,” he says tonelessly. It’s a small rectangle of a room, a few cabinets and closet space with a quaint loveseat that leads into a twin bed tucked underneath a window that overlooks Nueva York. It’s full of neutral nudes and beiges that makes both of their…dramatic suits stand out. 

She walks in after him, lips gently pursed as she looks around. She’s cautious, tense. It makes sense, he muses. First time in a very strange location. She just saw a T-rex with a web-shooter, she’s allowed to be a little rattled. She moves around, poking her head into the cabinets and glances back to Miguel. 

“Am I supposed to recycle this one suit?” she asks slowly. He thinks it's a canon event for all Spider-People to be sarcastic smartasses at this point, for once he finds that it’s a bit of an effort not to smile. 

“We have a department. They’ll make you other ones to change into,” he assures her with a wave of his hand, gazing out the window. “And this universe has clothes stores, you know.” 

She snorts softly and moves to sit down at the neutral-toned loveseat. Miguel inclines himself to face her a little more, but he freezes at his immediate instinct. To sit next to her. To settle his arm over her shoulder and listen. All the things he had promised himself he would do all those years ago. He grits his teeth, about to leave–

“Does it get better for people?” she asks quietly. 

He stops, eyes fixed on Gwen. “Being in the Spider-Society?” he ventures. 

“Leaving things behind.” 

Oh. It occurs to him that she’s the first person to inhabit the dormitories. Everyone else comes and goes to and from their respective universes. But it was easy to tell from the way she had looked when she turned her back on her father that it would not be her situation. This was her life now, her well-being tied to a watch fixed around her wrist. The only person who’d been through something similar had done it willingly, under better circumstances. And he was right in front of her. 

“If what they’re going to is better than what they’re leaving behind,” Miguel says after a bit, voice quiet. 

At that, her shoulders quake. Her waterline wells with moisture and his eyes widen by a fraction. “My dad-” she whimpers, one hand reaching up to grab a fistfull of her own hair. “I left him there, d-didn’t I? Do I get to pick this over him? Do I-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Miguel interjects, eyes softer than he’s supposed to let them be but somehow still firm as ever. He hesitates but he moves to step forwards until he’s standing in front of Gwen in her seat. He lowers himself onto one knee so he’s more or less eye level with her. Even then, he’s tall enough to be a head or so above her. 

His response surprises her and Gwen looks up at him, searching for answers in the unyielding planes of his face. She starts to say something but his mouth opens first. 

“You chose this life a while ago, yeah?” he says, voice softer now. It’s not a question, so he doesn’t expect a real answer. Even when they both know what it is. “You chose this. This is an extension of that decision. That’s how it went. I can send you home right now–” her breathing hitches at that. “but I don’t think that’s what's best right now.” 

“...what is best?” 

His voice clogs itself in his throat. As if he would know. No. His teeth grits and he reminds himself with a very private grimace that he does. He has to. He has hundreds following him, it could be thousands by the time they finish recruiting. If they ever do. He has to be sure of every action he takes or else everything that they’re doing is for nothing. Everything he’s gone through is for nothing. And he can’t find it in himself to let that happen.

“Making the best of what you can while you’re where you are,” he says simply. 

Her mouth tightens in a thin line and he can see the way she screws her eyes shut. It’s so painfully familiar that he can’t help it the way his arm reaches up to tentatively lean on the back of her head. But she knows how fathers act more than he knows how daughters do, so just as instinctually she leans forwards to lean her forehead against his chest. It shocks him, the ease with which he fell back into it. His breath slows as hers stutters and all he can do is rest his hand on the back of her head. His suit is a hologram, but he can feel the moisture of her tears against it. His other hand rises to wrap around her shoulders. 

This is highly inappropriate. All things considered, he’s her boss, and he chides himself for it. But she is a child. In a strange place. She’s scared and confused, that’s all he can bring himself to really focus on as she trembles in his arms. 

Eventually she sniffles for a last time and brings herself to lean away from him, one of her hands reaching up to wipe her tears off. His arms melt off of her and settle back at his sides as he stands up, clearing his throat awkwardly as he glances away. 

“Almost everyone else is part-time,” he says finally as she composes herself again. He isn’t sure what to do so he just looks to the side, hands resting in their comfortable position at his waist. “So if you need anything, find me. Or call Lyla.”

As if summoned, the AI flickers to life next to him, perched on his shoulder. She waves comically and sticks her tongue out at Gwen, who chuckles weakly and nods. 

“You…” Miguel takes her in one more time. She’s feeling a little bit better but nothing can take away how jarring of a situation this is. Even he knows that. As much as he needs hands on deck, he can’t bring himself to bark an order. “Take the rest of the day. Jess showed you the cafeteria, make sure you eat. Get some sleep. I’ll have someone drop off some sleep clothes until you go shopping. I’ll drop an order for a few suits for you–”

“Why are you doing this?” 

That stops him and he balks at her. He wants to justify the Spider-Society, to explain why he knows that everyone can’t have everything at once. To preach the truth of The Canon. But something in her eyes tells him that she isn’t talking about why he’s doing that. It’s asking why he’s doing this. 

And if he had an answer he thinks he would give it to her. But he doesn’t. So he turns on his heel to walk away, out of the room, leaving her seated on the small seat. “Report to my office first thing tomorrow, you’ll get a more detailed briefing and Drew will show you the ropes.” 

Miguel can’t bring himself to look at her before he leaves the room.

Chapter Text

“Miguel, I need a favor.”

“ Carajo– ” O’hara mutters to himself as he swipes something into the screen in front of him. It glows a soft orange and casts its light over his angular features. If he had a nickel every time Peter B. Parker asked him for anything he’d have the money to buy the man a machine so that he’d never have to come to him ever again.

He doesn’t look up but one of his eyebrows raises. Peter takes the que with an insufferable grin. “So, listen, our babysitter canceled on us–me and M.J.’s, I mean–and I was wondering if you’d be willing to look after Mayday-”

“You named your child Mayday?” Miguel asks slowly. He types something into the screen. 

“May, actually, but Mayday’s cute, right?” Peter chortles, fumbling with his phone. “Look, Mig, isn’t she adorable?” He shoves the screen in Miguel’s face. 

She’s small . 

It’s what strikes him first. No matter how normal that’s supposed to be, it always surprises him. When Gabi first came out he’d started crying because he thought something was terribly wrong for something so miraculous to be so small. No, Maria had teased, breathless from labor. Babies are small, Miguelito. 

It seemed she was right. She was always right. Had always been right. 

Mayday’s about the same size Gabi had been at that age, he supposes. He’d never been able to keep track of the months and such. Every moment with her felt like a lifetime, like death and resurrection. This, he had later been informed, was meant to be normal. He wondered if Peter felt the same way with Mayday as he had with Gabi. He decided he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to care. 

“You’re ignoring something,” he chides tonelessly, finally bringing the screens down. “Mayday Parker can’t be here because she isn’t from Earth-2099. She’ll glitch, Peter, is that what you want? No one’s ever seen it happen to someone that young, and I don't want to be the first person to find out.” 

“No matter how useful for data-gathering it would be,” Lyla chirps, having just materialized. He scowls and she flits off somewhere else. 

But it changes something in Peter’s eyes, even after the AI’s quip. He balks and sighs, tucking his phone into his downright comical pink bathrobe. “I don’t know who else to ask,” he confesses after a moment, glancing away. “There’s no other sitter in Queens available on such short notice.” 

An idea sparks to life inside of Miguel’s mind. He grimaces at himself, dragging a hand down his face. No. Nonononono…

“When do you need her taken care of?” 

Peter brightens immediately. There’s an impish glint in his eye that makes Miguel think that he knew he’d give in that makes him want to tear out the Spider-Man’s arteries, but before he can take it back Peter says, “Tomorrow at seven.” 

“Be here at six forty five. Without her.” He glances at a digital clock on the side. It reads 10:18. He has things to do in the morning, missions to debrief and anomalies to track. He gets office work done at night–ergo, now–which usually takes him until two if he hurries..he can get what he has in mind done in four hours and have time for coffee breaks. 

“Sure thing, Mig!” The mere fact that Peter is so ecstatic makes him want to take it back but he’s already too wrapped up in thoughts of how to pull this off…

An object able to tether its wearer to their current dimension without necessarily giving them the capacity to leave it or make autonomous jumps to other ones. The latter would shave off a great deal of clunk from the build, which would help because he needs it as small as possible. It needs to be comfortable as well, snug around the wrist of a baby without chafing…

Twenty hours later, running on no sleep after all the missions of the day, Miguel O’hara stands in front of Peter B. Parker and holds out a plastic bracelet. 

The shorter man stares at it, eyes narrowed. “...is it for me?” 

He’s obviously dressed for a night out, suit and tie and all. Miguel can’t even see the hem of his Spider Suit poking out from underneath his white dress shirt. It must be serious. An anniversary or something. A familiar feeling twinges inside of his chest and he speaks before he can name it for what it is. Jealousy. 

Miguel rolls his eyes. “It’s not for you, Parker. Go to your universe, put it on your daughter, and bring her.”  

Peter’s gaze brightens immediately and he steps backwards into a portal he’s made within the last instant. Miguel stands there rather awkwardly for a little bit, shuffling on his feet as he waits for it. Maybe Peter thought better of leaving his daughter with Miguel. Maybe–

“Careful!” 

Miguel doesn’t have spider senses, so it’s his own reflexes that rise to catch the mass that the portal has flung into his face. His eyes widen as he draws it away from his head, his hands instinctively finding it– her- torso.

Mayday Parker stares at him with big eyes. The pictures don’t do her justice, they don’t begin to quantify how full of life she is. Red hair blazing as she looks up at Miguel with unrestrained wonder, emerald eyes analyzing everything about him with the clear truth and honesty of a child. He grimaces and glances away, shifting to move her away from him. It’s been two seconds, he shouldn’t be scaring her this early on. What he should have done was put his mask on before she came–

Her soft palm lands on his cheek. 

It isn’t a primitive attempt at a hit, she’s just resting it there, as if to check whether or not he has a corporal form. He thinks the palm of her hand could fit on the pad of his middle finger, but it doesn’t stop her from resting it against the edge of his cheekbone. Her eyes are still impossibly wide as she miraculously stuns Spider-Man 2099, whose chest is caving in. But Mayday’s father comes in from behind her and Miguel reminds himself that he will not cry, much less in front of his coworkers. 

She gasps. Immediately his eyes widen, fingers tightening around her torso by a fraction. Peter notices, memories of his own glitching flashing behind his eyes. Both men experience a current of fear, but Miguel’s stomach filled with dread that he failed to protect one more child–

Mayday sneezes. They both exhale with relief. 

“You sure its ok for me to leave you alone with her?” Peter asks, watching the two with an amused brow cocked. 

I was a father, too. The words settle on Miguel’s tongue, but he swallows them down, cringing at the bitterness. 

“She’ll be fine,” is what Miguel settles on, gently moving her so he can hold her between his hands a little more comfortably. It must be enough because Peter steps through his portal to date night with his beloved. 

“Have Lyla play Cocomelon or something, she’ll fall right asleep!” is the last thing he says before the geometric glow recedes. 

“... que co ñ o is Cocomelon?” 

Silence is the only answer that awaits him. 

His chest deflates a little as he’s left alone in the room. He hazards a glance downwards at the small child, still in one piece in his hands, and he sighs. “Guess it's just us now, chiquita ,” he mumbles. He’s too tired to notice the pet name. 

It’s an uneventful night, but the domesticity makes Miguel want to claw his own eyes out, which he’s also, conveniently, too tired to actually do. It’s familiar, and to say that he hadn’t seen this kind of scene recently would be a lie. But only ever in dreams. Only ever in nightmares. So he tries to be nonchalant with the kid who he’s, by all accounts, borrowing. No– this isn’t for him. This is for Peter, who asked him a favor. To look after his daughter. His very alive daughter. 

Mayday is a shockingly calm companion as he gets some last minute work done, settling on his shoulder. It’s ironic how this infant can have the sticky-fingers that Miguel himself doesn’t, but it lets her stay on him with some degree of stability. Periodically she’ll giggle or fuss with his hair/ 

He just has to repair some watches, not ignorant that Mayday is watching intently, before he sighs, moving on to checking reports. For that he moves to his chair, settling against the hard backrest with a hunched back as he reaches for his keyboard. 

With a mischievous coo, Mayday topples off from her perch and onto his lap, but not before his reflexes can catch her with a hiss from him, eyes wide with worry. She hasn’t sustained any damage, but she watches him expectantly, as if that was what she’d wanted the whole time. 

“ Maldita traviesa…” he mutters. She’s so much like her father, even at something-odd months. But there is no one around him, save for an infant who will not likely remember him tomorrow. So he lets the side of his mouth quirk upwards as he shifts his arm so he can hold the young spider in one arm. He can type with one hand, right? She snuggles into the crook of it.

It isn’t long before Mayday is snoring ever so softly and despite his best efforts, he can’t help but derive some satisfaction from it. He sighs softly, a yawn rumbling through him. He’s careful so the rise in his chest doesn’t disturb her too much, but once his spine hits the back of the seat he can feel his eyelids begin to flutter shut. How long has it been since he’d had sleep…he just needs to get one last thing done..then he’ll be done…

The last thing he’s conscious of is the soft heat of Gabriella–no– Mayday against his chest, her small breath warm even through the nanotech of his suit.

Late into the night, a father comes back to the room and recognizes another one. There’s a tragic mirror he recognizes between how Miguel is holding Mayday now and how he had been holding his own daughter on that day. The image makes Peter’s smile falter. 

His first instinct is to take a picture and make the moment last forever. Not for the pleasant embarrassment that he knows will have Miguel chasing after him on all fours to delete the picture, but to prove to other people (and maybe a little to himself) that Spider-Man 2099 isn’t all that bad. How could he be? The planes of his face relaxed. Looking more peaceful than Peter thinks he’s ever seen him. It makes his chest ache with the intimacy of the moment. 

Peter leans forwards to ease Mayday off of Miguel. She stirs a little bit but fades back into easy sleep without too much of a fuss. But without warning, Miguel’s eyes shoot open, the edges tinged with scarlet, and a sharp claw of a hand shoots out to wrap around Peter’s wrist, another one reaching desperately for Mayday. 

“ Not again–” he gasps, red glint fading from his eyes as the present moment settles in on him. “I can’t–” He looks up at Peter, who’s balking at him. The rest of his impulsive words die in his throat ( don’t take her from me, por favor, god, not again) The color drains from his face and he stands abruptly, retracting his hand from Peter B.’s wrist. And from his daughter. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he says shakily. It’s the least stable his voice has ever been in front of one of the other spiders. It’s dark, but the light from the screens glints off of the moisture collecting in his eyes. Miguel doesn’t move to wipe them, as if it would acknowledge them even more. 

The two watch each other carefully, almost abrasively. But Peter nods, a silent promise of confidentiality. “You’re fine, Mig.” If Miguel trusted himself to betray an emotion right now, it would be gratitude. But his face doesn’t change in the slightest as he watches Peter disappear into a portal, back to the family fate had allowed him to keep, leaving Miguel in his work. 

So Miguel reaches for his rapture shots and gets to work .

Chapter Text

“And it doesn’t hurt them?” 

Miguel doesn’t turn but his eyes glance over to his side. The glimmering image of Margo Kess’ avatar flickers slightly in her signature lilac hues, but she isn’t looking at him. Her eyes are on a Chameleon anomaly that Ben Riley had caught earlier in the week, restrained by the aptly named Go-Home Machine. 

Her bottom eyelid creases in hesitant distaste as the man thrashes against the silvery legs of the giant mechanical spider. He follows her eyes and watches with her, his face stone as ever. 

Margo had been in charge of the Go Home machine for a few weeks now, since he’d found her. She was particularly useful for the job, having no physical form to harm in the first place should something malfunction. Besides, her state as a digital avatar as opposed to a physical presence made her particularly efficient when handling the machine. She still seemed to have to type and such, nor could she just teleport around like Lyla could, but she seemed more attuned to it than the hordes of Peters and such that they had running around. 

Some instinct in him got nervous that she’d be too…lonely. He was used to solitude, he reveled in it (he had to tell himself that or he didn’t know what he’d do with himself), but he’d been seeing Gwen and Hobie come in and out of the room periodically to spend their lunch breaks with her. If they stuck around for too long he’d reprimand them (no matter which infuriating response Hobie would manage to fire back at him without a moment’s delay) but the time has never bled into Spiderbyte’s duties. He can’t help but notice that they all seem better because of it. 

“Only for a moment,” is the answer he decides on as the kaleidoscopic barrier forms between the Chameleon, screaming and pleading at them from the distance. Neither of them can make out his words, but they make Margo grimace nonetheless. He’s not quite sure why. She’s been doing this for weeks, and there’s no way that this has been the first anomaly to demand they release them, no matter how many times they explain that releasing is exactly what they’re doing. “Their fear is worse than the actual pain.” 

She exhales in a sharp sigh and shrugs, shifting to the side to type something in the screens, recording the return of the anomaly into an ongoing log. He keeps his eyes trained on her and hazards a step towards her. Maybe its that she’s tired thats leading her to suddenly be particularly concerned about the state of the anomalies. 

“The pain they’d cause unchecked is worse than anything we could do to them,” he reminds her tonelessly. Her back is facing him but he can feel the eyeroll, even though it doesn’t feel hostile. True to his theory, it just feels tired. 

“...” he shifts awkwardly in his place, glancing to the side. “You’ve done good work today,” he says slowly. Simply. “You’ve been doing good work. You can take the rest of the day back in your universe, rest up.” 

Miguel isn’t great with kids. Too often his words go over the heads of the younger spiders. Jess is better, she seems to be able to effectively control–no–keep Gwen in check. No one can handle Hobie, that much is a given, and even though Pavitr hasn’t come to HQ yet (there’s a little over a few weeks until his canon event if the calculations are correct), but the kid is a handful. 

With that in mind, he doesn’t know what it is about what he just said that makes Spiderbyte’s shoulders seize up. He can’t help but marvel at the accuracy of the digital projection of her, able to communicate the nuances of her physical mannerisms in their entirety. The way her fingers go brittle against the screen she’s tapping against, the way her movements stiffen. She brushes them off and keeps typing before beginning to line up the anomaly. 

His mouth tightens and he reaches forwards to hold her wrist, to stop her from distracting herself from him, from making him understand her less and less. He forgets the situation though and his hand falls straight through the projection and onto the desk she’s in front of. Still, it gets her attention, and she looks up at him, surprised. 

It's his turn to stiffen. “You’d rather stay here and process anomalies, Kess?” 

She raises both brows at him, surprised at his forwardness. At him apparently not wanting her to do the work he’d assigned her to do. “Should I not be?” she ventures. 

“You’re tired. It's useless to stay here.” She flinches but manages a small nod. 

“Sure, boss,” she says simply, her form glitching. It isn’t a multiversal instability, just a sign that her attention is going back to her own Earth. That’s always how it is, her form flashing out of Earth-2099. What comes next is a projection in front of her, and Miguel’s attention is drawn. 

She looks the same way she does here, to a certain degree. Her dark skin has warmer undertones than it does here in her purple-hued avatar, but it’s still cool-toned. Her hair isn’t in the afro puffs that he’s used to seeing her in (even though she likes changing the style, she usually sticks to the puffs), replaced by cornrows that stitch over her head and fall down the back of her head. He can’t see her eyes past the virtual reality headset she’s repurposed to hook up to her avatar, an exceptional feat of engineering he can’t help but be proud of, especially considering how little she’d asked him to help her save for leaving behind a gizmo so she could use its parts. She’s in gym shorts and a shirt much too big for her, legs crossed on an expensive-looking gaming chair that matches the headphones she must hear him through. On a nearby desk is a half-finished bowl of what looks like noodles. Her bed is made, with a copy of a comic book he doesn’t recognize on the bedside table. It's the late evening. 

A screen flickers between her avatar and the image of her real body, reading Are you sure you’d like to return to your universe? Two boxes appear below the question, Yes and Cancel. 

At the same time, Miguel realizes he can hear her universe, though the audio is somewhat distorted, as if its underwater. But he can make out the traffic from outside of her bedroom window. There must be music playing from her monitor, he can hear a vaguely familiar tune. His eyes widen at another familiar sound. 

Yelling.

It’s two voices that are in the background, he can’t make out the words. It’s decidedly a pair of them, male and female (though he isn’t sure). His chest tightens as he keeps his eyes trained on the ‘real’ Margo before they flicker back at her avatar. She’s watching herself too, but once she feels Miguel’s eyes on her she clears her throat. “Sorry-” she chuckles softly and reaches her finger out to hit the Yes button–

“Wait.” 

It stops. She looks up at him mildly confused. He’s confused. 

It goes without saying that it’s awful that Margo has to go through this, but it isn’t his responsibility. He’s her boss, not a fucking social worker. If he stuck his nose in the business of every spider under his roof he’d never find the time to hunt anomalies, never find the time to recruit, never have time period. 

But it’s better for Margo to stay. If only to help work the machine. If only to do her job. If only to hang out with Gwen–he finds he doesn’t care. Which he should. Everyone here is a cog in the machine, even him, no matter if it was him that built it. They capture anomalies. They organize the multiverse. And they recruit, an endlessly growing spider machination. 

And yet, as she eyes him, her hand withdraws from the screen. His eyes flicker between the two versions of her. Both of their mouths draw into a thin line with anticipation. When he can’t come up with an explanation for her as to why he said anything at all, its Margo that breaks the silence. 

“Do you want me to keep processing the anomalies?” it isn’t accusatory, she isn’t mad about being asked to keep working. But she’s well past her weekly quota, but she keeps coming back. She isn’t here out of a sense of duty, and something about her indicates that it isn’t that she’s a workaholic. 

It slowly dawns on Miguel that she’d prefer the company of Green Goblins, Chameleons, Doc Ocks, Prowlers, monsters, to her own universe.  

Gabi had a friend like that once. Maria always made too much to eat for dinner whenever he had come over for a playdate so he’d have to stay to help them finish it all. She’d make dessert so it would be ‘rude’ for him to leave without having some. When the night got too late, she’d have Miguel call his parents because ‘we know it's late and don’t want to make you come all this way, wouldn’t it be easier for him to stay the night?’

“You can,” he says gingerly, his face betraying nothing. “If you want. You don’t have to.” Margo stares at him, incredulous and a cord of muscle in his neck tightens by a fraction. 

“You don’t have to be working for you to stay here, you know,” he says finally, bringing his eyes to her. Hers widen softly and she swallows, lips tightening. “You should get to know the other Spiders. Especially in the engineering wing, they could use someone like you.” He’s recovered his dignity, connecting it back to work. Because it's true. Another canon event seems to be every spider being some kind of nerd (though he wouldn’t hazard recording it), but the ease with which she handles herself with the state of the art tech in this room makes him wonder what she’d do with the rest of it. Stabilizers, nets, web variations. She’s smart, even by spider standards. 

And yet. A thought conceives itself in his mind that he can’t bring himself to dwell on. He’d contradict too much. But he finds that he doesn’t want her to think that she needs to have a use to have a place. It would make him a hypocrite, so he doesn’t stay on it. He lets it move to the side in the dark, ignoring the festering wound it breeds. It doesn’t matter.

He’s sick of seeing her alone. And he doesn’t want her to go to a situation she’d prefer solitude over. It's selfish of him and he wants to kick himself. But he just turns his back on her and moves forwards to the exit of the room. 

“Gwen’s coming back from a recon mission with Drew soon,” Miguel says to no one in particular. He doesn’t need to raise his voice for it to carry to Margo. He knows she knows where to find the other Spider, he’s seen them together in the cafeteria and rec room (even though Margo can’t actually eat anything here).  He would never call himself an expert on the kid, but he knows what it looks like when Margo Kess is content. 

He stops himself at the door. He can’t bring himself to turn to her, but something possesses him when he says, tonelessly, “The puffs suit you better.” On his way out, he can see her raising a tentative hand to her own hair from his periphery. 

When he’s far enough away from the Go Home Machine room, he sighs, walking through the halls. The other spiders don’t avoid him, they meet his eyes and give curt nods before going on their way. 

He raises his watch to his mouth,. “Lyla.” the AI flickers to life, perched on his shoulder with an impish little smirk. 

“Yeah, jefe?” 

“What did I say about your shitty Spanish–forget it,” he huffs, the door to his office opening before him. “Spider-byte.” 

Lyla flickers around him, switching locations as he moves further and further into the badly lit room. “Yeah, what about her?” 

“Keep an eye on her.” 

Lyla pauses, cocking her head to the side. “She suspicious? Think she’s a liability–”

“No,” His interruption is so firm it takes the AI back for a second time, surely running a body-language software on him as he speaks. “Just–stay with her if you aren’t too occupied everywhere else.” 

Its quiet. Too quiet. 

“I thought you said you didn’t care about getting close with them.” 

“I don’t.” 

“They’d want you to.” 

“Did they tell you that?” 

“That’s not who I’m talking about.” 

He stops. Instinctively, talons unsheathe from below the pads of his fingers as if in defense. Of what? It's more hostile than protective–he wants to lash out at Lyla. She didn’t know them. She has no right to speak as if she did, to lecture him as if she doesn’t owe everything, as if everyone doesn’t owe everything– 

He’s acting as if it isn’t him who keeps asking Lyla to pull up the recordings. His eyes burn and he walks forwards, tapping a monitor until it displays the anomalies of the day. 

“She’s a kid. Are you surprised I don’t trust her to handle that kind of tech on her own?” 

He punches in a universe number. He can’t even register it, he just copies the symbols he sees on his computer to his watch. But when the portal materializes, Lyla flickers to life in front of him. She isn’t a miniature anymore, proportional to a real person but still incredibly short compared to him. 

“You have the time to keep her company yourself, you know.” 

He walks straight through her hologram. “I didn’t program you to question me.” 

“You don’t want her to be alone but you keep running into being alone yourself, Mig. I’m just saying–” 

“Then stop.” It comes out more raw than he means it to, the forced firmness of his voice accidentally making it brittle. His voice comes out cracked. “Follow your orders, ¿que te questa ?” 

There’s an exasperated sigh from behind him. But when she flickers out of existence with the signature glitch noise as he steps into the portal to deal with a rogue Sandman, he prays she’s keeping the kid company until Gwen gets home-

Until Gwen gets back. 

Chapter Text

It’s been a mistake. This has all been a mistake. 

He shouldn’t have let Gwen in, because the second membership was based exclusively on merit (he doesn’t want to ask Ben Riley the merit of Spider-Plush, he doesn’t even want to start with him) it had been more and more fucking kids. Peter Parker usually became Spider-Man at 17 or so, but that wasn’t exclusive. Even if it was, they seldom recruited them too young. The Peters were all of age. 

Hobie is of age. He knows that. But he’s young. He’s rash. He’s a liability. A liability he’d had to bring with him on this particular mission. Jess was out taking care of things in her own universe, Ben Riley had said something about Peter ‘Parked-Car’ (Miguel hopes he’s joking), and Hobie had inexplicably been in his office when the mission came up, poking around his tech for whatever reason. Kids couldn’t keep their hands to themselves, that's what settles the matter for him. 

And it would only be a kid that would put protecting the civilians over apprehending the anomaly. 

Miguel isn’t evil, he knows that. But even he knows that you have to look at the bigger picture. If they got stressed over every single casualty as a result of the greater good, the canon would fall apart. And he knows Brown knows this. 

So not only did Brown know it, but with that knowledge he went to try to single-handedly hold debris on top of civilians as they scrambled for escape. He’d stayed there, panting but refusing to scream, guitar slung over one shoulder and lean arms strained. Miguel had still been fighting the Mysterio stuck in this universe when he caught sight of him. And he’d stopped . 

Why had he stopped? 

Musterio had followed his gaze and targeted an attack at Spider-Punk. Miguel had let go. 

It was half an hour later. Mysterio was ‘safely’ detained and waiting for Spider-Byte to process him. And Hobie was no worse for wear. 

“‘S not how you do that, bruv,” the boy says tonelessly. He’s leaning back in one of the rolling chairs in Miguel’s office, top hitched up so that Spider-Man 2099 can reach the incision that Mysterio had made across his torso. “You sure you certified for this? Mind the piercing-yeah?” 

“Since when do you give a shit?” Miguel grumbles, leaving one hand pressed against the open laceration (careful not to irritate or get too close to the stud of metal that the younger man has embedded into his belly button), reaching for more gauze. The blood loss is nothing particularly drastic and according to Lyla, Hobie’s spider-DNA is already stitching itself back together. Nevertheless he figures Hobie doesn’t want to swing around HQ or his hellhole of a universe with a gaping cut in his body. 

“Since when do you?” 

Miguel doesn’t stop his ministrations but his lip curls in annoyance that borders on confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, not meeting Hobie’s eyes. Instead, he reaches for the disinfectant inside the open first-aid kit and presses the open bottle against a wad of gauze. He presses it against Hobie’s torso. The boy’s breath finally hitches, betraying a reaction for the first time since they’d begun this. One of his hands reaches up to grab onto one of the wicks he has his hair done into, as if needed something to squeeze on. A cold sweat shines on his multicolored figure, which flickers to monochrome before into orange and teal. It occurs to Miguel that he’s never seen Hobie give a reaction to pain, period. 

It’s this quiet realization that draws his eyes across the expanse of Hobie’s torso. It’s always a little visible, the shirt is tight fitting and closely cropped, so it easily rides up when the boy is swinging around or taking one of many appalling casual sitting positions. But he’s never looked too close–he’d never had a reason to. But now, looking at Brown’s lean muscle, he’s confronted with it. 

Scars. 

Many of them littering his dark skin with the lighter scar tissue. Under Miguel's hand, as he presses the gauze against his skin (back to a ‘normal’ dark brown color), he can feel the telltale of previously broken bones. Spider-DNA is a powerful healing agent, and it works quickly for most minor issues. But even something as minor as a fractured rib is going to show its history when he presses against the cut right under it. 

His memory stretches itself back to Hobie’s universe. He makes a point usually not to pry about each individual universe’s issues, tragedies, or otherwise. He’d waste too much time, and Lyla was usually pretty good about giving him a rundown just before he jumped there. He strains to bring the images to the surface of his mind:

‘

Oscorp. Rebellions. Blood. So much blood, but one male standing above it all despite everything, guitar pick in one hand. An ingenious solution to the V.E.N.O.M.-powered police force on behalf of the corrupt president, Norman Osborn. 

He supposes he’s the naive one for being surprised when the leader of a rebel faction stayed alive without a few scars. 

“Means whatever you want it to mean, bruv,” Hobie says simply, staring at the ceiling. 

“Humor me. What do you mean?” 

Hobie sighs. Miguel is focused on his work but he can feel the younger man rolling his eyes. “Just you make a proper box of toys over how suffering’s necessary for the multiverse not to collapse.” 

“This isn’t the same.” 

“Isn’t it?” 

“No, it’s not,” Miguel says, surprised by how firm his voice comes out. Nothing will glitch out of existence because Hobie Brown doesn’t bleed out an hour less than he otherwise would have. There will be no casualties over this, one man hunched over an open wound on a child that isn’t his. 

“Yer whole thing is putting the collective over people,” Hobie says simply. It isn’t a question, he knows Miguel, and Miguel knows that. Can feel his eyes on him whenever they’re at meetings. Can see the intelligence flickering behind his eyes, no matter how casual he tries to put himself off as. Can see him look at the tech around them and see something. “Putting your ideology over individuals, ain’t that the whole point ‘ere?” 

“I don’t want people to suffer, Brown,” Miguel rolls his eyes and steps off the wound, reaching for a needle and proper threading. “No matter how much you hate me.” 

“But you’d let them.” 

“Not pointlessly,” he snaps. “The safety of the entire multiverse is worth more than a few lives, you know that.” 

Hobie knew that. But he lifted the debris off of the civilians. He held it up for them to escape knowing that Mysterio had not been dealt with yet, knowing that the movement wouldn’t bring them any closer to dealing with him. 

Of course Miguel would have done anything to help them. But he wouldn’t have done it first. 

“I respect the inconsistency,” Hobie crows tonelessly. “But lump of ice, if yer going to have thousands of blokes following you, you better be sure of what yer doing.”

“I am sure.” He pierces the skin next to the cut with the needle. Hobie barely flinches but his skin changes to a lavender hue of purple. Miguel would be mildly satisfied that he got some kind of reaction, but he has a feeling that the color change isn’t a reflection of Hobie’s mind. His body just got tired of having the same color palette for too long. “The only one who doesn’t trust me is you.” 

Hobie snorts. “‘S because I don’t follow ideologies.” He moves to say something else but he stops himself. It surprises Miguel, this spider is known for saying exactly what's on his mind every second of every day, past the point of annoyance and into frustration. Unless he’d have something to gain by not saying everything. Something burns in Miguel’s chest and he refuses to look the feeling in the eye. He doesn’t care, just chalks Hobie into a potential liability. Something he should have known from the start. 

“You’re here, aren’t you?” he says, voice stony as he gingerly threads the wound shut. He gives it a small tug to tighten the stitch and Hobie bites at his bottom lip, teeth sliding off of the metal piercing and into the flesh of his lip. “So you’re following it: an ideology you don’t believe in. That you don’t trust.” 

"i don't trust ideologies. I don't trust corporations. I trust people. Trust myself." 

"You trust yourself?" 

"’f I don't, what am I doing this for?" He says it like its obvious. In a way it is, but the idea stirs Miguel’s insides in a way he doesn’t appreciate, to say the least. Hobie finally tilts his head down to meet Miguel’s eyes, his gaze far more analytical than the larger man had been expecting. “Don’t you?”  Miguel doesn’t have an answer and Hobie’s brow twitches. 

“I’m doing this for people. Every person, everywhere,” Miguel says instead, voice tight. “What part of that don’t you agree with?” 

Hobie rolls his eyes. Again, Miguel is seized with the feeling that Hobie isn’t telling him everything. There’s more to this exchange, there’s something that he’s missing out on.  He’s being a hypocrite, the fact comes to him too quickly for his liking. He looks away and sighs, dragging his hand down his face. “You’re still here,” he forces the words out. “If I was completely wrong you would have left. You know that.” 

“Who says I won’t?” A smile tugs at the side of Hobie’s mouth and Miguel reaches for scissors before positioning them over the stitches. 

Snip. “Well then I hope you give a notice for the record,” he says dryly, placing it to the side. He starts to pack up the first aid supplies, watching Hobie touch his wound gingerly. “To your satisfaction?” he asks sarcastically.

“‘ve had worse,” Hobie quips, reaching for his mask and guitar. “Ye’ve done this before,” he observes, hip cocked to the side as he watches Miguel put the first aid kit into one of the many cabinets in his workspace. 

Every father should be prepared to patch someone up. Gabriella had loved soccer, she wanted nothing more than to play with her friends after school. It had carried to every universe, the one he’d stayed at. The ones with footage he’d saved before Lyla made the algorithm veer away from Earths where Gabriella O’Hara was alive. And she had been a child. Children got hurt.  He was no longer a father. But Hobie had gotten hurt because of him. Neither of them had been wrong, he could let that concession barb at his lungs as much as it wanted to. 

“Do you at least trust Gwen?” Miguel asks before he can stop himself. He’s walking back towards his desk, where his proximity is enough for Lyla to start lighting up the screens for anomaly sightings. 

“I care about Gwen,” Hobie says, suddenly defensive. No– protective . Relief floods O’Hara’s chest, unbidden. The silence that follows spells a million words out of the blood of bitten tongues. 

You trust her over me? You trust a child over the man who knows from personal experience what he’s talking about?  

She doesn’t have a choice when it comes to following you and your broken logic. She’s effectively homeless and you’re taking advantage of her whether you like it or not. She’s doing her best with what she knows–with that she has.  

Hobie’s colors switch to red and blue before he leaves. “Get her a drum set then we’ll talk,” he calls behind him as the doors open to let him out. 

“When all I want is for you two to be quiet?” Miguel means it as a terrible attempt to sarcasm, maybe levity, which is unlike him but he’s tired. But the way Hobie laughs is as if it's exactly what he expected Miguel to say. 

Chapter Text

Mumbattan is awfully colorful. 

It isn’t the first time that Miguel has made this observation since he got here. But the myriad colors assault his senses from every angle, to every end. If he complained about it, Lyla would surely fault his tendency to stay in a terribly-lit office room when he isn’t running around on missions to apprehend anomalies. One of which had brought him here. 

Still, even he has to admit that it’s beautiful. By far one of his favorite Spider-City variants, though he’d never admit it. His eyes flick around the staggering buildings and impossible roadways, grateful that the design of his suit would stop his curiosity from being too obvious. He likes the abundance of warm colors, he likes the comfortable heat that he, admittedly, had the fortune to be experiencing at this time of year. 

It was nice to look at: the rainbow across everything. Women hanging multicolored fabrics over their balconies. Different colored mopeds speeding around. The different styles of clothes that he didn’t know the name for, and every single hue was bathed in the soft gold of the late afternoon that the mission had finished during. The vibrancy of the city filled his lungs as well, warm spices perfuming the air and making its way even all the way to the top of one of the more elaborate spires of the city, where he and Pavitr Prabhaker were perched. 

All things considered, Pavitr took it pretty well. He’d been standing next to Miguel the whole time, staying quiet as the older man walked him through the concept and reality of the Spider-Society. It seemed to be a real labor on his end, keeping silent. Just by looking at him, Miguel could tell that this kid liked to talk. He’d quipped quite a bit while the pair had apprehended the Green Goblin, though Miguel didn’t suppose that was really unexpected. It seemed every Spider loved the sound of their own voice or just collectively fancied themselves comedians. 

Still, the kid listened dutifully. The only thing that betrayed the restlessness underneath his skin was his constant fiddling with the bangles on his wrists. It was an ingenious way to go about webbing, Miguel supposed. If nothing else, they gave Pavitr’s hands something to do and kept his mouth shut until the end of his spiel about the Spider-Society. 

“Do you have any questions?” he said finally, tilting his head down to Pavitr, a brow raised. The younger boy’s head was fixed in a way that suggested his eyes were on one of the rooftops below them, where various spiders were busy fixing up the wreckage and carrying away the Green Goblin. Miguel had brought the two of them up here for privacy, even though some version of this speech had been given to every single one of the others. Not necessarily by his own voice, but still. Jess had done it enough times to imitate his own words pretty well. 

Pavitr shrugged, leaving the bangle alone for a moment to swat at a strand of his free hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. “Mmm, not really. Seems pretty self-explanatory. A little sci-fi but who am I to judge, I guess,” he added, rolling his shoulders back to presumably stretch the muscle. 

Miguel gave him a look but sighed. He should be used to the quips by now, he supposes. “I’m a busy guy, Prabhakr–”

“You can call me Pavitr,” he said lightly, rolling the bangle forwards off the ledge of the building and back into his open, waiting palm. His voice had an ever-present levity to it, uncommon even amongst Spider-folk, that stood out to the older man. He faced Miguel and even though his features were covered by his intricate mask, the older man was seized by the feeling that he was being brightly smiled at. 

“Alright, Pavitr,” Miguel says experimentally, eyeing the boy through his mask. “Do you have any questions? Last chance, kid, unless some other anomaly ends up here.” 

Pavitr sighs, shrugging again before stopping himself. His eyes lock onto Miguel’s wrist. “Can I get one of those?” he asks, voice dripping with honey-sweet curiosity. Miguel follows his eyes to the watch fixed around his wrist, proudly displaying the number of this universe. 

Lyla is incapable of reading his mind, however much they’ve tried. But over the years, she’s gotten almost uncannily good at picking up exactly what he needs at exactly the right time. Surely it comes out of the AI looking at conversations like replicable patterns. Something to be picked up, something to be analyzed. The same must apply to his own behaviors that seem to make him so predictable to her. These things make him the type of person who has an AI as a best friend (he’d rather die than admit it. but it’s in the quiet things, she knows him well enough by now). 

And it’s what makes her manifest just behind Pavitr’s head without Miguel’s conscious heed. He must not detect the subtle glitch sound that her presence creates, or she’s being quieter on purpose. Maybe she’s doing that thing where she’s only visible through the nano-tech lenses of his suit. Either way, Pavitr stays ignorant to it when Lyla flickers to life. 

Nor did the younger boy see when she dragged her thumb across her throat. However melodramatic it was, it got the message across. If her hand sign hadn’t, her avatar switched positions to a few inches away in the air, motioning to a small sign above her head that reads in blockish letters:

Canon Event: In Progress

There’s subtitles underneath that list a few of them; parts of a spider’s life that Pavitr Prabhakr had simply not yet experienced. To no fault of his own, the kid was not an anomaly by any means. At worst, the way he’d gotten his powers was a little unconventional, but that was, in and of itself, fairly standard. Miguel’s eyes don’t linger on the small words, but one important event stands out to him. He commits it to memory just before Pavitr seems to sense him looking at something that’s behind him and turning his head. Whether or not Lyla is really there for him, she dissipates. 

Miguel turns the event over in his mind. 

Loss of a police chief close to Spider. 

But still, he eyes Pavitr. He can’t help but remember Gwen, Hobie. Margo. Pavitr is too much for him, but he can see him as someone they would grow fond of. They needed friends their own age who could understand them. And so did Pavitr-

He curses himself, rolling his eyes and not even caring that Pavitr can see it when he does (he cocks his head to the side curiously but doesn’t make a quip about it. he seems to assume that Miguel is the type of person to roll his eyes at anything. Miguel isn’t sure he’s entirely wrong). He doesn’t care. He only means that even Spider-Kids need to be healthy. Proper mental development, especially in these years, requires people they can relate to and spend time with. 

He can’t remember which parenting book he’d read that in. He only remembers consuming as many of them as he could, even if most of them said more or less the same things. He’d been reading about how to deal with a child moving away for college when Gabi was still in diapers. He’d read too many on handling your kid when they’re dating. 

Always an overachiever, Maria had chided. But I need you here. I need you now. Not in the future. 

He sighed again. If he could, he’d drag his hand down his face, but they’re too much in public for him to hazard removing his mask. So, instead, he gets some background. 

“How long have you been doing this?” He asks simply. 

“The whole Spider-Man thing? Pft—if i had to say, like, five months? Four and a half? I don’t keep track, man,” Pavitr crows, spinning his bangle between his hands. “Why?” 

Alright—so he was still relatively new to this. It varies when certain canon-events take place. For some spiders it’s the day after they get bit (or otherwise infused with Spider DNA). For some it takes years. Miguel doesn’t know how long he’ll be waiting on this boy’s tragedy to give him a community. He can’t afford to bring him to Nueva York; if he knows, it’ll all get derailed. 

But what about Gwen ? He frowns to himself, vaguely aware of Pavitr still fixing him with a curious gaze. She knows. She’s fully aware that Captain Stacy is meant to die in her universe. A universe she has no intention to return to. That will not stop the canon, right? So why should it stop this one? 

“Uhhhh, Ninja-Vampire Spider-Man?” Pavitr asks, taking a step towards Miguel. It snaps him out of it for a moment, bringing his head down to fully face the younger boy. He’s so tall in comparison to him (even Gwen is taller than this kid, dios santo..) “What’s up, man? Tired? You look like you haven’t had coffee—want some chai? I’m sure I could get some from my Auntie’s place before she notices—“

“No.” Miguel sighs, glancing down at the Spiders collecting the anomaly. They finish with most of the damage, and Spider-UK glances up at him. She smiles lightly again and flashes an ‘ok!’ sign with her hand, pinching her pointer and thumb together. He nods curtly in her direction and a portal manifests itself in front of her group. One of the bigger spiders grabs the anomaly by the cage and tosses them both into the geometric vortex. One by one they filter in until the portal disappears, leaving Miguel and Pavitr alone together on the other building. 

“You’re still new, kid,” Miguel says simply, glancing to the side. “Might not be an experience requirement to be a part-timer for us but it’s a different story for the watch. Nothing personal.” 

“Oh. Ok,” Pavitr shrugs, but Miguel can see how the lenses at his suit linger at the space where the portal had appeared for the other squadron. “You’ll let me know if I can help though, yeah?” 

“Sure.” Too many lies, but they’re for the best. What isn’t for the best is Miguel’s curiosity getting the better of him: 

“Tell me about your life, Pavitr.” 

Pavitr blinks. “Oh—uhhh, I guess it’s going alright. You make it look too hard, this whole thing, I'm having a great time. Schools great, my body’s never been better, Gayatri said I could take her out on a date, as long as her dad’s on duty somewhere else that day—“ 

“Gayatri.” Miguel repeats, face slack behind the mask save for a creasing of his eyelids. Defeated by a beast of his own creation. He’s verifying the name just for the records. 

Pavitr’s mask’s lenses make a movement that gives Miguel the impression that he’s wiggling his brows at him. As if Pavitr’s chastising for listening in on the classroom gossip. 

“Gayatri Singh.” Again, Miguel feels as if he’s being smiled at. Or Pavitr is just smiling for the sake of it and he happens to be an unsuspecting witness. “That’s her right there, actually.” He reaches his arm forwards to point at a billboard mounted on a building a few buildings away. It’s bright red, a familiar shade of it (it seems particular soda is also a canon event, go figure). Miguel can’t read the lettering, but the general marketing plot is the same: some slogan and a young girl holding a can in her hands. Miguel squints to the foot of the billboard for the person that the younger boy is pointing at before it slowly dawns on him that the kid is referring to the model. Ben would congratulate him on getting a girl like that and Miguel is suddenly glad that he didn’t bring the Scarlet Spider. 

“She’s not just pretty,” Pavitr says brightly, taking a seat on the ledge the two of them are on. One of his legs bounces but his eyes stay on the advertisement. “She’s smart and super popular, but not because she’s mean or bitchy or anything,” He chuckles, giddier than Miguel’s heard anyone for the past week (since Peter showed him the pictures of Mayday’s first web-swing). “People just really like being around her. I’m just lucky I’m the one she gave the time of day to.” 

Lucky that the multiverse saw fit for him to have something that only exists for it to be taken for him. 

Miguel has to look away. 

“So yeah, things are good for me.” 

Fuck, he can hear Pavitr still beaming. Maybe that isn’t it. Maybe she isn’t his canon event; Pav had mentioned— Pavitr had mentioned his Auntie. Not uncle. Maybe he’d already lost someone. In Miguel’s weakness, that wounded, hulking animal in his chest paws at a discarded parenting handbook in the back of his mind. Before he can stop himself, he opens his fucking mouth. 

“Where are you taking her?” He regrets it immediately. These kids are turning into nothing

but regrets, but he finds that he cares about the answer. He’d never prepared for being on this side of advice-giving. He supposed he’d assumed that Gabi would be the one being asked out, as opposed to vice versa (“Things change, Miguelito! Girls ask guys out too, now, don’t be sexist.” The tease had come with a peck on the cheek, as always). 

“The mall!” 

“You’re taking a model to the mall?” It comes out a little more judgemental than he’d intended, but if it was Gabi, he’d be a little annoyed. Typical. The thought draws him back to another part of the conversation, Pavitr had mentioned the girl’s father: 

‘…as long as her dad’s on duty somewhere else…’ 

Her dad. 

On duty. 

Oh. 

He should be happy. The kid is on track. Something about that is harder to swallow, no mate how many times he forces the pill down. 

The kid. 

“You don’t think it’s a good idea?” Pavitr turns away from the billboard and the face of his poison of choice. Spider-Man 2099 forces himself expressionless as the boy looks to him for advice. “What would you do?” 

“Something smaller,” Miguel grumbles, shrugging. He was a ladies man, once, right? The memory makes some of the tragedy slough off of his shoulders. He doesn’t know if it makes him worse of a person. 

“Local restaurant, no chains. What does she like? What can only you show her?” 

“I have a small legion of street-dogs that love me.” 

Miguel doesn’t even want to ask. “That works.” 

Again, he’s struck with the feeling that he is being smiled at, but it’s warmer. Pavitr smiles brightly for everyone, it’s becoming clear to him. This is the type of kid who does that, gives a grin the size of the sun to anyone he thinks deserves it. But this—smaller, goofier, warmer— Miguel has a feeling doesn’t pop up as much. It occurs to him that he should be honored. Pride seeps into his chest through the brittle cracks. 

He’s trying not to think about it like he’s condemned Pavitr to events preordained to him anyway. Nothing wrong with making the highs higher. A question tugs at him: will it make the lows lower ? 

He’d rather wallow in it than reanalyze the Arachno-Humanoid Poly-Multiverse (name pending). Pavitr needs a support system. There is nothing that outlaws it. 

“We have other recruits your age,” Miguel grumbles, punching Nueva York’s universe number into his watch. “I’ll have them come by to help you out.” 

He doesn’t say ‘hang out’ but the way Pavitr reacts, it’s like he heard that anyway. The young spider nods enthusiastically. 

“Come back anytime, Ninja-Vampire Spider-Man!” 

Miguel hopes he won’t have to.

Chapter Text

I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel.

I am all the things they might have said to you

Do you ever think of me and my two hands…

A flash of light. And it was over.

Miguel panted for breath, eyes wide and teeth grit. His claws were still out, grasping at nothing but air. Miles Morales, the accidental Spider Man of Earth-1610, had slipped through his fingers. Had outsmarted them all. But what was worse then that was that he had been educated. He wasn’t like Pavitr, who they’d had to keep in the dark. Who would have been able to join them by now had Miles not interfered.

The world would end because one little boy could not let go of his father’s hand. It made him sick.

It was a mistake to not treat him like Pav. And it was too much to expect that he’d react like Gwen. With resignation. Because she didn’t have a choice, she’d had to stay.

But she couldn’t anymore. That much was startlingly obvious.

He didn’t know what he had expected of her. No—that was a lie. He knew his expectations. But he didn’t know why he’d assumed that they’d apply to her. That she would take them and mean them properly. That she would hold onto her morals (his morals) with the devotion that he did. That she would realize that she and her childhood friendships were no match for the unstoppable force of the canon.

She was a child. He’d known it from the first day she’d been here. Curse his pity, a crack in his resolve. Yes, that was what she was. That’s what this entire thing had been (silently carrying her to her room after a mission, handing her a wad of cash to cover the drum set, quietly eating empanadas while reading mission briefs with her looking over his shoulder a million little moments that should not have been allowed to happen. it had happened with all of them, but her more than them all combined), a crack in his judgement that led the largest liability they had to open the door for the Original Anomaly. And he had let it happen.

All this and more raced through his mind as he blindly tore one of the Go-Home Machine’s probish legs off without a thought, chest heaving as his wide eyes wildly flickered across the room, vaguely aware of the bickering going on behind him. Between them all, one brought him back to reality, harsh and cold as it was.  

“Just let me talk to him—”

After everything, she still wanted to talk to him. And then what? Give him the benefit of the doubt: tell him that he could have everything. And then what? What did that mean about him, that in return for being the most colossal mistake in the multiverse he got to be an exception to it’s laws? What did that mean about every single person who was gathered, who had helped the chase to take him down for the same reason?

They will not have suffered for nothing.

Now, drowning in his own thoughts, Miguel found himself facing a small but firm truth. This was still a theory. So easily accepted because he– they— could not have suffered for nothing. He would not allow it. Their suffering became divine when it was partitioned by him. It was a part of a larger goal, the ineffable canon under which deviation became death.

Miles Morales meant that their suffering had not contributed anything. It had only been suffering.

Miguel could not have a daughter. None of the Peters could have their Uncle Bens.

Gwen’s father was destined to die. Why should he get to keep his?

Why couldn’t she see what he was doing?!

Without another thought, two of his red fluorescent webs shot out from his wrists, pulling him back to the ledge that Margo usually worked from (he can feel her eyes on him. He can feel all their eyes on him, the vampire spider finally gone mad. He doesn’t want to look her in the eyes).  Every time he walked past her it was a new realization of how small she was compared to him. Like Gabriella had been.

He grit his teeth. That was the thinking that had gotten him into this fucking mess in the first place.  

“No. We tried that,” he says through grit teeth. 

“He’s my friend .” There’s something in her voice that breaks when she speaks those words. She wants him so desperately. She is too young to know what love is, in the way that he and Maria had it. But she finds it in other places. She’s found it with Hobie, Pav, Margo. Miles, more than all of them. Miguel wants to hate her for it. He tries his very best.  

“Yeah, and that’s the problem,” He spat as he shouldered past her, shoulders hunching over in concentration. He resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair. She’d let him go on purpose, hadn’t she? And from the pitying look he could feel Peter giving her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had help.

He’d begun this organization for spiders to help each other. He didn’t anticipate he’d be dealing with pests. 

“Do you know for certain what happens when you break the canon?”

He stops in his tracks. His breathing falters for a moment.

For those instants, he is stuck in an eternity. He stumbles face-first into a swarm of elation at seeing his daughter. At taking her to soccer practices. At seeing his wife, at having it all. And when it was taken from her, the multiverse in all its glory and cruelty didn’t see fit that their loss should be the entire price he’d pay for those months of bliss. No, that would be too merciful. It had to take her entire universe. 

It was laughing at him now, he was sure of it, the multiverse. Because now he had to be confronted with the fact that he had done the exact same. Miguel O’hara had not learned from his mistakes. He’d seen broken children and silently corralled them under his arm, his instincts had reawoken to protect them before the missions, little by little, as if they were scraping their knees on soccer tournaments. He’d forgotten to keep them soldiers. He’d pulled their masks off with gentle hands and memorized their faces. That was his fault, he could accept that. 

Perhaps that was his canon event, to fulfill the cycle of his history again and again until there were no more families left for him to steal. Universes left to demolish. 

That would not happen again. 

Gwen has a father. She does not need him any more than he needs him. Which he’s desperately trying to believe is not at all. 

He turns, looming over her with eyes the color of hell. His finger twitches to reach for a rapture shot that isn’t there. His throat his hoarse but he doesn’t think his voice has ever been more firm, stuck in its resolve.

“Do you want to find out?”

When he’d first decided to let Gwen into the Spider-Society, Miguel had been swayed by a scene he’d been an accidental witness to. With her father. He’d considered, too briefly, what he would do with himself if it was Gabriella who was looking at him with the same fear that shone in Gwen’s eyes for weeks after the fact. What he would do if someone he’d taken care of looked at him like that. 

Faced with it now, all he can manage are barbed words at Jess. “I told you she was a liability”

“You’re wrong,” Gwen tries, eyes wide as she casts them at his second-in-command. She’s grasping at straws, and that much is obvious. Distantly, he’s aware of the rest of Spider-Society again. Peter shuffles on his feet awkwardly and Miguel is seized with the urge to tell him to cover Mayday’s eyes. The thought is stifled by the Ghost-Spider’s breaking voice to her lifeline: “Jess, tell him he’s wrong.” There’s an unspoken please buried somewhere in her words. 

It’s times like this that make it obvious that Jess is more suited to be an actual mentor. She can at least feign reluctance when she sighs, “...he’s not .”

“Are you serious right now?” Gwen is breathless, her shoulders turning so she can face Jess fully. Miguel doesn’t look at her, his eyes are fixed beyond her now. He lets this play out.  

“I told you,” Jess is calm, matter-of-fact in a way Miguel knows intimately well. Accusatory. It’s death to hear, even though Miguel condemned her to it already. “You let him get away; I can’t help you.”

Gwen balks at her and turns to Miguel. Even from his slight peripheral, he can see her mind racing. Scrambling through her cards after he’s cast them onto the floor. 

Thinking she’s finally grabbed one, she looks up at Miguel, clearly trying to steady her voice. “I’m not coming,” she says, eyes sharp. He finally meets them in all their indignance. They look like watercolors. 

“You’re right,” he replies, unable to tear his gaze off her now that it’s settled there. 

“What…” her voice falters with confusion. It makes sense. Her back is facing the mechanical legs that reach for her. 

Within the instant, her wrists are bound by the uncaring white of the Go-Home Machine’s talons. It’s been programed to handle anomalies more rabid than her, more prone to violence, but she puts up a good fight.  It’s what gives him the comfort that she’ll be fine in her own universe. Tucked away to weave in her own corner of the grand web.  

Her teeth are grit as she thrashes against her restraints. “What the hell?” She demands, eyes wide and finally giving way to fear. It drives a stake through Miguel, and all he can bring himself to do is watch, face stony, as she’s violently corralled onto the podium.  

“Go home, Gwen,” he says, toneless but firm, his eyes set in stone. 

The web begins to stitch itself around her, the computer behind Margo reading Earth-65. He doesn’t want to look at Spider-Byte. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to take it. So he looks down at Gwen as she finally wrenches free, but only from her restraints. There’s no way for her to muscle through the kaleidoscopic dome around her, but he can see as the fear is gone from her eyes. It’s an odd brand of desperation that’s replaced it. She isn’t trying to appeal to him when she speaks anymore, she seems to know they’re past that. The last words she’ll ever speak to him and he baits his breath for them, wondering if he’ll condemn himself to listen to them forever. 

“We are supposed to be the good guys.”

He thought if he lost her at his own hands it would hurt less. 

“We are .”

A flash of light. And it’s over.

And wonder why they never soothed your fevers 

And wonder why they never tied your shoes

And wonder why they never held you gently 

And wonder why they never had the chance to lose you