Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thing about Peter Parker’s worst mistakes—the NOW That’s What I Call Hubris! of his life, volumes one through twenty-five, that play on shuffle when he’s in the shower or trying to sleep—is that he always knows he’s doing something wrong or making a mistake at the time. When he used his powers to win wrestling matches, which was cheating and he knew it. When he let that thief go because he was feeling petty, which killed Uncle Ben. When he didn’t reveal Green Goblin’s identity when he first learned it, which not only didn’t stop Harry from his self-destruction but led to Gwen’s death. Lying to MJ that he wanted them to marry instead of pair-bond because it would make it easier for her career if she didn't need him physically close, when the truth was that he couldn’t stand the idea of her being alone all her life when he died. Lying to MJ that they’d have kids “someday" and that "the time isn't right yet" instead of admitting that he was scared of being a father and didn't think that would ever change, until he’d destroyed her faith in him entirely.

And it was the same with the current mistake, the one that currently had him retching into the toilet after having gone on his worst bender since the night they signed the divorce papers.

He fucked Miles. He fucked Miles three times.

The first time, the sense that he was doing something wrong was like a nagging fly, disappearing out of his mind constantly, always coming back, but only briefly, driven away immediately by the intoxicating scent or the boy’s pleading voice and eyes. The second time, he was bargaining with himself, saying the damage was already done and that another round would only help the boy cope with his heat, and never mind about Peter’s pleasure from it. The third time... the third time though... it was like a goddamn siren going off in his head the whole time, from when he texted Miles that he’d come over all the way until he returned to his own dimension.

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG...

His head certainly feels like a siren is going off in it still as he dry heaves again. Especially because his music is still playing from the living room, the plucking strings of Panic! At the Disco particularly ill-suited to Peter’s nausea.

How could he do that to Miles? Miles was still a kid inside, he didn’t know what he was doing when he made those noises and touched his soft wet lips to—

Peter hears a key turn in the front door and he scrambles back from the toilet.

No. No.

He’d heard the door buzzer go off but he’d ignored it, just like he ignored the sounds of texts and calls.

There is only one person who has a key to his apartment and would use it to come check on him like this.

As Peter hears the sound of heels clicking into the apartment and suddenly stopping, he can picture exactly what’s happening.

MJ taking an ordinary innocent breath, just breathing, and realizing something is weird. Stopping, taking a deeper breath, smelling the residue of heat.

The footsteps start again, pause—she’s looking at the empty bottles, no doubt—and then start again, heading straight towards him.

The door is already open. MJ just has to appear in it, karma police there to arrest and convict him. She looks great, dressed in a lovely sundress that ruffles a little when she stops. When he squints up at her beautiful face, the brim of a sunhat surrounds it like a straw halo.

“Was it someone I know?” she says. She doesn’t even sound disappointed, just tired.

“No,” Peter says from the bathroom floor. He’s afraid that if he tries to stand up, he might start to heave again. “It was—I made a mistake.”

“I can see that, Peter. I think... I think it’s too many mistakes, at this point.” She smiles down at him, which hurts far worse than if she would scream or cry. “We really... aren’t going to work out. I think that’s final. No... it is final.”

What can he say? Please forgive me, I’m sorry, I want to be everything you need, I want a family with you... He said that, when he came back from Miles’s dimension, and she gave him this second chance.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because that’s true. That’s the only true thing he should say.

She walks away, but not towards the door. He hears her in the kitchen, a cabinet opening, the fridge, getting the water pitcher and pouring him a glass.

MJ clicks back to the bathroom and sets the glass down on the tile in front of him. “Take better care of yourself, Tiger,” she says gently.

Then she really leaves.

*

"My buddy Mike said I could have his tickets to the Mets game this Sunday."

Miles is drowsy on a Monday morning. His mom did laundry for him and it smells so nice in the seat next to him in the back of his dad's police cruiser that he just wants to lean into it and go back to sleep.

"Was thinking we could go, you know?" his dad prompts when Miles doesn't respond. "Get some father-son time."

"Yeah dad," Miles says, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them wide, repeating the action, trying to remind his body how this seeing thing works.

"So just make sure you don't leave any projects for the weekend, okay?"

"Yeah dad," Miles says again.

Ever since his parents found out he's an omega, his dad especially has been so baldly eager to reassure Miles that nothing has changed. Omegas still face a lot of prejudice, even if it's not as bad as it used to be. He's got a supportive family and his charter school is super progressive, but in the traditional way of thinking, if a guy turns out to be an omega, he's basically like a weird failed girl.

"Your mom's so excited about taking you up to Boston next week." His dad catches his eyes in the rearview mirror. "You excited?"

Miles yawns. "Yeah."

"MIT," his dad says, dragging each letter's syllable out a bit with pleasure. "It's a real good school. Boston's a pretty town. Leaves should be something, right? Autumn leaves."

"Well, I guess I'll see if I like it. Ganke's already planning to apply early admission there."

"That's good!" his dad says heartily, grabbing his coffee from the cup holder, even though his dad is already way too chipper for Miles's mood this early. "That's good that he's got a plan already. He seems like a nice kid. A fun kid."

"Yeah."

The car pulls up to the school, and Miles grabs his backpack and his mesh laundry bag and says "I love you dad" quickly before opening the door and going in.

He's so tired. He's always so tired these days. He barely patrols as Spider-Man, even, after he fell asleep in class and got written up for it.

Junior year is the year, Miles, his dad said, staring at him with those big, I-expected-better eyes. This is the year that really counts, for your college admissions. For your future. You can slack off in spring of your senior year. Once you get that envelope.

His stomach roils again. He's gotta get a grip on this nervous stomach he's developed. He's even barfed a few times.

*

“Listen, I’m just gonna ask this once, Mr. Parker.”

Uh oh, Peter thinks groggily, trying to open his eyes. “I’m just gonna ask this once” is the question that happens before he fires off a sassy one-liner and then gets shot in the ribs. And he’s all out of sassy one-liners.

He’s not wearing the mask or suit, which is also not ideal, and he’s... in a hospital?

“Oh, hey doc.” Peter squints at Dr. Rosenberg, a mutagenetic specialist he’s seen before at the Presybterian Hospital. “Fancy seeing you here... at the hospital.”

She smiles a little. “Here it goes, Mr. Parker. Were you trying to get yourself killed in that fight?”

Was he? Sounds like the kind of thing he might do... but not lately, not since...

Right, not since Miles.

No matter how guilty he is, he can’t shirk his responsibility to Miles’s development as Spider-Man. That didn’t change.

“No,” Peter says. His eyes switch from Dr. Rosenberg to his leg in traction. “That doesn’t look great.”

“Your leg bones were practically powder,” the doctor says, pulling up a rolling chair. “Not to mention the muscles and cartilage.”

“You should have seen the other guy.”

“I did. Sergei Kravinoff’s corpse has been transported to DC already, but they let me take some samples.”

“Oh.” Fragmented memories of the fight come back to him. “Well, there ya go.”

“If you weren’t Spider-Man, you’d have lost the leg for sure, of course... but you wouldn’t have made it alive to the hospital, either. As it is, you’re going to be our guest for a little while while your leg heals. We don’t want a repeat of the nose incident.”

Peter rubs the bend in his nose. “Yeah, I guess my leg bones growing back crooked wouldn’t just be an aesthetic no-no.”

“Quite. Glad to see you’re taking this reasonably.” She pulls up the tray on his bed and places a few objects on it: a remote control, a nurse call button, his phone, and the transdimensional texting gadget. “Someone else from the hospital will be along a little later to handle some more logistical issues for your stay.”

“I’m kinda hungry. Any chance of getting a pizza up here?”

“The hospital takes deliveries.” She winks at him and departs.

Peter calls in an order for a large pepperoni and watches television for a few minutes before the gadget buzzes.

Miles: Didn't go. I'm gonna go tonight though. Wanna come with?

It’s a reply to a text Peter sent that morning.

Peter: Sorry bud I got my leg caught in a trap by Kraven this morning, I'll be out of commission for a bit.

Miles: You alright?

Peter: Yeah I just chewed it off, pretty sure it'll grow back.

Miles: Dang man make sure you get some calcium for those new bones then.

Peter smiles at the gadget. He can just picture Miles’s face... concerned, but also not about to take any shit from him.

Peter: I'm on it, already ordered a pizza.

With Kingpin and Tombstone still in jail, Green Goblin dead, and Scorpion having moved on to merc work in Los Angeles, Miles’s dimension has been blessedly quiet. The boy’s had to tangle with his universe’s Doc Ock a few times, but the super-scientist doesn’t have any personal vendetta against the new Spider-Man. If anything, from what Miles said about the last time they tangoed, she just wants to capture him alive so she can examine—

A snarl comes from deep inside him before his conscious thoughts have caught up with the implications of what it would mean for the female alpha to have Miles restrained, helpless, unable to stop her from touching him everywhere.

Mine. He’s mine, I’ll destroy anyone who hurts him. Only I can touch him.

Peter blows out a long, controlled breath.

*

He heads back to his dorm room when classes are done, even though the computer club is meeting that day. He wants a nap. He needs a nap, especially if he's gonna be able to get in even a short patrol that night. It's been a week, almost, since he last patrolled. He can't shirk this.

Ganke's at the computer club so he has the room to himself. He pulls the special transdimensional gadget that he uses to text Peter and go to his dimension out of its hiding place.

"We'll be back to normal in the morning. Mostly normal."

But they hadn't, he and Peter. They'd fucked two more times that day, once in Miles's own bedroom. And then...

And then they hadn't seen each other.

Oh, Peter wasn't totally freezing him out. They still texted every day. But there was always some reason why they couldn't go on patrol together, or why Peter couldn't come to help Miles train, or whatever. It was coming up on two months apart.

Peter: How'd patrol go last night?

It was from mid-morning.

Miles: Didn't go. I'm gonna go tonight though. Wanna come with?

He's expecting no reply and then to get a "whoops I missed your text" message later, because Peter hasn't used that excuse for a week or so, but Peter actually texts back right away.

Peter: Sorry bud I got my leg caught in a trap by Kraven this morning, I'll be out of commission for a bit.

Miles: You alright?

Peter: Yeah I just chewed it off, pretty sure it'll grow back.

Miles grins, even though his stomach is getting all twisty again. It's so close to their normal. Just looking at these couple lines of text, it could be their normal. But it isn't, it really isn't.

Miles: Dang man make sure you get some calcium for those new bones then.

Peter: I'm on it, already ordered a pizza.

Miles yawns, stuffs the gadget back in its hiding place, and puffs up his pillow a bit before closing his eyes.

*

"You should get your mitt," his dad said, "in case a ball comes our way. Never know, might catch it. Your Uncle Aaron caught a ball at a Mets game when he was a little younger than you, you know. He had great reflexes."

So Miles is staring into his closet, and he should be hunting around for the baseball mitt that's in there, but he's not.

He's staring at a plastic Walgreens bag, and the dimly visible contents.

"No te avergüenges, mijo," his mom said, putting the bag in his hands the morning after his heat broke, "you need more, you tell me, okay? Es normal."

Despite his mom telling him not to be embarrassed, he had been intensely embarrassed to look in the bag and see omega male menstrual supplies. Pads designed to sit in his underwear and catch blood coming out of his butt. It was even grosser than girl pads.

His mom even got him a couple different kinds, his numb brain recognized before he twisted the bag closed and threw it into his closet to forget about it.

And he did forget about it.

But now he's remembering. He's remembering health class, and talk about periods that he had naively assumed would never be relevant to him, but taking notes anyway because it was on the test.

Two weeks after ovulation, if there is no conception, the body flushes out the unfertilized egg and the uterine lining via menstruation...

Two weeks.

Two weeks!

It's definitely been a lot more than two weeks!

"Miles?" his dad calls. "Can't you find it?"

Miles shuts the closet fast. "No, I can't find it."

"He has too much stuff in that closet," he hears his mom complain.

He hears his dad chuckle. "I'm always telling you the same thing about our closet."

*

When the game's over, he tells his dad he wants to go to Target to check out some video game stuff, since there's one right by the field, that he can get the subway home.

It turns out that shoplifting from Target when you can turn invisible could not be easier. He feels guilty, but since he stopped that car from smashing through that other Target's main entrance a couple months back, he figures he'd owed the cost of a two-pack of pregnancy tests.

You know, just in case one is wrong.

But as he stands in the stall, staring at two identical pairs of double lines, he's kinda wishing he hadn't grabbed the two pack.

Then he would have had at least a few more minutes of hope that it might be wrong.

He puts his hands to his abdomen. His Mets hoodie is bulky, oversized. He got it for Christmas last year and he still hasn't totally grown into it. All his hands feel are fleece.

Pregnant.

Like, two months pregnant.

Like... like only seven months left until there will be an actual baby pregnant!

Or, hell, don't lots of babies come early?! Could be less time than that!

He throws the tests into the garbage, washes his hands, and books it to the subway.

*

Peter: How did your Mets do today? Mine were a bunch of clowns. They would have done a better job running the bases with clown shoes.

I'm pregnant, Miles thinks.

Miles: They won but it was close.

You got me pregnant. I got me pregnant, when I shot you full of drugs and tied you down and begged you...

Peter: Who'd they play?

I should get an abortion. I know. Anybody would say that. You'd probably say that. Planned Parenthood doesn't ask for parent permission around here, I could give a fake name. Then nobody would ever know. We could act like it never happened, just like you want.

Miles: Nats.

But I don't want to. I want to have this baby. Is it an omega thing? Is that why?

Peter: I'm watching baseball right now actually. West coast game. Seattle Oakland. Been a while since I got to watch so much baseball in one weekend.

But if I tell my parents that I'm pregnant, they're gonna wanna know who did it. And they're gonna flip if I say I wanna keep it.

Miles: Your leg hasn't grown back yet?

What am I gonna do?

Peter: Nearly there! Just need the toes. Can't be Spider-Man without toes, kid.

Can I be Spider-Man and pregnant?

Chapter Text

Miles used to think that other kids must get away with a lot, way more than him. If his dad got it into his head that Miles was hiding something? It was game over before it even started. His dad would take all the training, all the skills, all the experience from being a cop, and put it towards investigating the mystery of whether Miles actually brushed his teeth (he didn't) or was it really an unavoidable accident that knocked all those pictures off the wall and smashed the glass parts (it wasn't) or what movie did he actually go to see with his friends instead of the claimed Hotel Transylvania 2 (the Visit, which his parents had explicitly forbidden as too scary for an eleven year old—his parents were right).

But his dad had to first suspect something to turn into Jefferson Davis: Miles Misbehaviour Terminator. If Miles could just prevent that suspicion, then he could get away with stuff. He learned his dad's blind spots and how to walk in them long before he learned how to actually turn himself invisible. His uncle, for example—even with his dad knowing his uncle was bad news, his dad had trusted Uncle Aaron with him, and Miles used that to get away with so many forbidden things...

What was the point in thinking about Uncle Aaron, again?

Oh, right. Suspicion.

If you were in the situation Miles is in right now—having to actually tell his mom and dad (but mostly his dad) about something bad—then you were way past suspicion.

Miles knows this. He knows his dad is going to immediately know his story is BS, and his dad is gonna pull out all the stops to get the truth. And since he can't get the truth, since his father can't even imagine the true identity of the sire of Miles's baby—a 40 year old man from another dimension—there's no corner of his life that isn't about to get turned absolutely upside down.

The story Miles is going with is that on the way to Ganke's that fateful night, he went into heat in a park, ran into another teenager, an alpha, and they had consensual, condom-protected sex, but the condom must have failed. So far, totally unlike what they'd expect from Miles, but barely plausible. But then the rest of his story was that Miles didn't know the alpha's name, couldn't describe him ("it was too dark"), and the kicker, wasn't interested in finding him.

His parents know him better than that.

So when his father demands his phone and his computer, he hands them over.

His dad finds his Spider-Man costume and moves right by it without even realizing that what he's touching isn't a cheap costume but the real deal, the one Ms. May Parker helped him get. He even finds the transdimensional gadget, but it looks like a toy, a prop, and it has to be unlocked to show that it's actually got a hidden screen to use for texting, so his father leaves it alone.

There are talks with the school. There are visits with doctors and social workers.

There's no patrolling as Spider-Man, because Miles is being watched way too closely for that. His parents put up cameras to catch him sneaking out, even via the window—the fire escape, they're thinking.

If you would just tell us, if you would just tell us who he is, Miles. It's not your fault. Is he older? Is he a teacher? Is he a relative? Is there some other reason you can't tell us? Whatever it is, you won't be in trouble. Just tell us, Miles. We wouldn't have to do this if you would just tell us. We have to keep you safe from someone dangerous, someone who is taking advantage of you... if he says he loves you, it's a lie.

His school is progressive, way progressive. Miles doesn't have to drop out. It even has a teen parents program, little one teen one kid shared rooms, with the kid getting to stay in the same on-site daycare the teachers use for their kids. There's one open, so Miles gets moved in there, so he can start making it feel like a safe space so that he's used to it when the baby comes.

*

He still texts Peter every day, only now Miles is the one lying and putting Peter off.

Apparently, around three months past Miles's heat, Peter suddenly got the idea that hey, enough time had probably passed that they could really get back to normal, and started inviting Miles to patrol and asking if he could meet up.

Miles turns all of Peter's tricks against him. Agreeing, then canceling last minute. Claiming not to have seen a text until it was too late. Claiming to be injured. Claiming he's busy with this and that. Claiming he lost track of time, or ran into a villain on his way.

He also has a lot of other lies to keep track of. Lying that he's still rooming with Ganke. Lying that he's having fun doing this and that on the weekends, instead of being grounded. Lying that he's patrolling.

He doesn't have anybody that he can tell the whole truth about himself to anymore.

*

The boy took an extended period of only communicating by text pretty well, and Peter decided to give it a try meeting in person again. In public, of course, doing something unambiguously hero-related; they would need to wait a lot more until they could hang out again...

But after a few attempts to meet up fell through, Peter began to realize that it was now Miles who was putting him off.

If it was that Miles didn’t want to be in contact with him anymore, he would have understood. But Miles was still initiating the texts most of the time. Miles was the one double and triple texting when Peter didn’t get back to his first text immediately.

Miles had been the first to text in their current session, too.

Miles: You around Peter?

Peter: Sure bud, what’s up?

He’s eating hot pot for one in Chinatown, having chased a small-time but quick-footed villain through Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge before finally tying him to a lamppost on Canal Street. He never leaves Chinatown without getting a meal.

Miles: Nothing. I don’t know. Just wanted to talk.

Peter: Anything cool happen on patrol lately?

Miles: Just the usual. How about you?

Peter: Nothing exciting. Done for today, having dinner.

Miles: Tell me about your day anyway.

Miles: Or the food, is it good?

Peter frowns at the interdimensional communicator and teleporter. This was exactly the kind of thing that had been niggling at him for a while. Miles never seemed to have anything to actually say, he never asked for advice on specific issues anymore, yet he was desperate to talk. He’d text and text and text, but the texts were lifeless.

The funny, sassy, challenging kid that Miles had always been, even in text form, was gone.

Miles sounds... depressed.

Suddenly Peter’s own appetite is gone. He puts his chopsticks down.

Peter: Hot pot. It’s good in the winter to eat soup, right? It’s snowing here. What are they feeding you at that cafeteria?

Miles: I think it was macaroni and cheese tonight? But they put cauliflower in it man, it’s gross.

Peter makes a face and laughs. He can only imagine how he would have reacted at seventeen if someone served him macaroni and cheese with cauliflower in it.

Maybe he’s overthinking this.

He picks his chopsticks back up.

Maybe he should just... check up on him. Miles won’t even have to know he came by. He’ll just pop in tonight, late but not too late, when Miles will definitely be in his room, and watch him a bit. Not in a creepy way...

Okay, it probably is creepy. But he means well, right?

*

Miles: You know it's past eleven here right? I still got one day of school left man!

Miles’s roommate is playing video games with another kid, some kind of racing game. Miles isn’t in the room. Peter waited ten minutes to see if maybe Miles was in the bathroom, but no sign of him.

Peter: Oh as if teachers ever try to get anything done the last day before vacation, nobody can focus then. I woke you up?

Miles: Yes!!!

Peter’s fingers shift against the building.

Oh God. What if he hasn’t been texting with Miles?! What if Doc Ock got him and he’s been texting with her this whole time, while Miles has been at the mercy of her claws—

No. Don’t get ahead of yourself man. Miles could be lying for another reason.

Oh, and he is.

*

The buzz of an incoming interdimensional text wakes Miles up.

Peter: You excited about Christmas break?

He squints and looks at his clock.

Miles: You know it's past eleven here right? I still got one day of school left man!

Peter: Oh as if teachers ever try to get anything done the last day before vacation, nobody can focus then. I woke you up?

Miles wishes he could send an angry gif instead of just text. He can't even use emoji.

Miles: Yes!!!

Peter: I figured you and your roommate would be playing video games or something since it'll be the last time you see each other until break's over.

Miles: Ganke's asleep too. EVERYBODY IS ASLEEP.

Peter: Really?

Miles is too sleepy to recognize the trap he's springing.

Miles: Yeah really!! Good night! Stop texting it makes this thing buzz!

Peter: How come I can see Ganke playing a video game with somebody who isn't you, then?

Now Miles is wide awake.

Peter is in this dimension.

Peter is in this dimension, one floor down, peering through the window of the dorm room that used to be his.

Peter: Why are you lying to me, Miles?

Miles pushes himself up to sitting in his bed. He's well into his second trimester now, he's got a definite little belly, but it's small enough that it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight if he wears his uniform blazer unbuttoned, and if he's got his parka on you can't tell at all, he's sure.

Miles: Okay, I switched rooms, it's not a big deal. Ganke and I had a falling out, I just didn't want to bother you.

Miles gets out of bed and grabs for his parka. He's not expecting Peter to be satisfied with just texts when he's caught him lying. He needs to reassure Peter and send him back to his dimension.

Peter: I've been concerned about you. You've seemed depressed in your texts for a while, so I just came by to check on you. Where'd they move you? If it's the same side as your old room, flash your room light on and off for a second.

Miles double checks that there isn't any obvious giveaways that he's pregnant in plain view—no prenatal vitamins or reminders about appointments—then grabs the light switch and flickers it.

Peter's there at the window before Miles even has it fully open, and slides in. Miles leaves it open, the cold December air blowing onto his face.

It's never really dark near a window in the city. Miles can see Peter perfectly well, his stubble, the touch of grey at his temples, more noticeable now than it was when they first met in that graveyard. Even if he couldn't see him, seeing Peter is almost beside the point. His smell. His smell.

The cool, mind-your-business attitude that he was psyching himself up to take about the imminent how-come-you-changed-rooms-and-lied-about-it accusation melts away. Miles wants to wrap his arms around Peter and just stay like that for a few hours. No, maybe one hour like that, and then they'd need to get into a position where Miles can put his face in the crook of Peter's neck, like maybe if Peter picked him up and held him, they should do that for at least three hours, then maybe they could go back to the hug, or—

"You look terrible," Peter interrupts his mental babble, his strong eyebrows furrowed.

Miles stuffs his hands in the pockets of his parka to remind himself not to fling his arms around Peter.

Peter closes the window and lowers the shade, then brushes against his sleeve as he goes past him to the light switch and flicks it on. He regards Miles again as the boy blinks in the light. "Correct that, you look nearly dead. What's going on with you?"

"I'm not nearly dead," Miles says defensively, "all my signs are good." Sure, the obstetrician is worried about Miles's trouble sleeping and his stress levels, but his blood pressure and weight gain have been unobjectionable and all the tests and ultrasounds have come back with no problems.

"All your signs?" says Peter, and Miles realizes too late that he worded that in a really weird way for an ordinary teenage boy. Miles sees Peter scanning every inch of him intently, from his sleep-flattened hair to the bare legs sticking out incongrously from under the parka. "You seeing a doctor about something?"

"School nurse," Miles ad-libs, "I thought I was sick but it was just a cold. You—you should go, you don't wanna catch it, I might be contagious..."

Peter's looking around the room now. Thank God he's keeping the bassinet he already purchased at his parents' apartment, Miles thinks fervently.

Then Peter stops breathing for a moment.

Peter inhales, slowly, looking directly at Miles, and Miles doesn't know why or how, exactly, but he's definitely screwed.

"Your scent's different," Peter says.

He knows. I am caught. There's no point—Miles laughs nervously, a little high. "Uh, guess that's like... puberty? Like, developing into an omega, or something, scent's gonna change... or, or maybe it's that cold I was talking about, I've heard being sick can change your scent..."

"It's not that kind of change," Peter says. "Miles..."

Peter steps forward, he's in touching range again. With the window closed and the wind not blowing the air past him so fast Peter smells better to Miles than ever. They stand there, silently, for a few moments, both smelling each other, both unable to say anything. Miles still can't say anything, he can't say it, so he just unzips his parka and lets it fall.

The dorms actually get pretty hot in the winter, they keep the heat too high, and Miles is running even hotter because of his pregnancy. He's wearing boxers and that's it.

Topless, there's no mistaking what he is.

"Holy shit," Peter whispers.

"Yeah," agrees Miles.

"No, I mean..." Peter moves his hand up and down, looks away from Miles and back at him, crosses his arms, uncrosses them, puts both hands on top of his head and tugs at his hair a little. "Holy shit."

This is about what Miles expected. "Yeah."

Peter lets go of his hair. His gaze is riveted on Miles's belly now, and he's breathing a little faster. Slowly, his shellshocked reaction changes to a wide, almost manic grin.

"Wow," Peter whispers, and he laughs. It's a giddy laugh, shaky, and Peter wipes his hand over his face and then just stares at Miles's belly some more, still smiling. "A pup... I'm smelling me, us, that's... you smell different because of our pup..."

This is nothing like what Miles expected.

His parents, when they are not crying or arguing in hushed voices that he can still hear about who this awful abusive alpha is who raped their son, intend to be supportive, but they're not happy. His teachers, too, are best described as supportive but not happy. His friends think this is weird as fuck and that Miles is crazy for not getting an abortion, but in their abrasive way they're supportive too.

What absolutely nobody has been, not initially and not any time after, is happy. Nobody's smiled, nobody's had joy that they could barely contain, the way that the news that a pup's on the way is supposed to make people feel. Even Miles, who's been sure he wants to have the kid from the first day he knew about it, hasn't been happy. He hasn't felt worthy of being happy. He's known he's being selfish and making the wrong choice and all of that...

There's still a chill in the room from the window being open, but Miles feels so warm all over. He doesn't have pockets to remind him not to hug Peter anymore, and so that's what he does, moves forward and hugs him, and Peter hugs him back, and for a blissful moment Miles, too, is happy.

*

There’s a train crash in his head when he sees that body, that lithe young body that’s haunted his imagination, and his body is... he hears an echo of an even younger voice... a different shape.

Peter sired a pup on him. Bred him. Miles is getting heavy and soft and his scent is sweetening and swelling because of Peter’s pup...

Peter’s alpha, his primal urges, has gotten out at a lope while his conscious mind is still returning only error messages, and Peter’s face breaks into a wide smile.

“Wow... A pup... I'm smelling me, us, that's... you smell different because of our pup..." Yes... yes, yes! I bred him, I fucked that sweet little pussy so good, and it took, my seed took inside him, yes, yes, he’s carrying my pup, ours, he’s mine and his pup is mine and I’m keeping them, both of them are mine, he’s so good for me, my perfect omega is carrying my baby, our child, oh Miles!

Miles looks so gorgeous smiling back at him like that. His omega closes the distance between them and Peter gets to hold him again and it’s bliss.

Until the rest of his brain breaks out of the shock.

*

Then it breaks.

"Holy shit," Peter says again, and Miles recognizes that tone.

Guilt.

"Oh God, fuck," says Peter, and he's stepping away from Miles and pacing. "Fuck, Miles, why didn't you say—six months, it's gotta be almost six months—is abortion illegal in this New York, or something? It didn't even occur to me—you could have come to my New York, I would have helped you, but six months, I don't think that's possible, not even, that's—but you already look so bad like you haven't slept for six months—if you had just said something, this is all my fault, oh my God, I've ruined your life—"

"Would you shut up?!" Miles interrupts, angry beyond all reason, angry for no good reason, because he's angry that he didn't get to be happy for even five minutes, couldn't Peter have let him pretend for five minutes? Now he's just been brought up in order to slam down more painfully. "This is exactly why I didn't tell you, because I knew you'd want me to get rid of it and I knew you'd feel guilty—"

"It's not that I want you to get rid of it!"

"Yes you do, you didn't want kids, you didn't want them with MJ—"

"I was afraid! I was afraid because I thought I would be a bad father and I was right, Miles!" Peter's stopped pacing now, he's gripping onto the post of Miles's bed and the metal squeaks ominously for a moment when he goes too far. "I was trying to be a father figure to you and look what I've done!"

"My father—I never thought of you as my father—" Miles is jerked out of the current crisis to be almost quaintly offended, somehow. "I've got a father, you're nothing like—a cool older brother, maybe, but not a father—"

"I'm old enough to be your father. I'm twice your age, more than that." Peter's voice is low and miserable. "All I wanted... I wanted to help you become the hero that I should have been and now... because I was weak, because I couldn't keep my dick in my pants—"

"I drugged you, tied you down, and pulled your dick out of your pants."

Peter sighs. "We're not having this argument again. You're the kid, I'm the adult—I'm supposed to be the adult—"

"You said it yourself, first heat is really intense, you tried to stop this—"

"I fucked you three times. Once, maybe, maybe, could be excused as the drugs and the poison and the heat. Maybe even the second time, I couldn't throw you out because it would have made you go into omega drop so I had to keep you with me, but the third time, the third time! I wasn't even in the same dimension as you, the xylazanine was out of my system, I went out patrolling so I wouldn't keep breathing in the pheromones you'd left in my apartment. I made the choice to change dimensions, to come into your room, telling myself I wasn't going to fuck you again, and then I fucked you again."

Miles didn't really have a counter-argument for that. "But if omegas drop when their heat partner rejects them, then maybe, if alphas do too, and you said my smell was in your apartment—"

"I should have handled it. I should never... I didn't even think about a condom..."

"Doesn't that prove you weren't in your right mind?"

"God damn it, Miles, it doesn't matter!" Peter hisses, and Miles sees him glancing from wall to wall, doubtless thinking about how easily they might be overheard. He steps closer to Miles. "Fine, have it your way, I'm not responsible—you couldn't be responsible either because you're a kid. You're a kid, you're supposed to—you're supposed to be in that other room with that other kid—"

"Ganke."

"—that other kid, playing video games and eating junk and staying up too late on a school night, you're supposed to be making that kind of bad decision. You shouldn't be pregnant, you can't handle this by yourself... you're not supposed... you shouldn't be alone, when you're pregnant..."

Miles wants to touch Peter again so bad that it's almost physically painful. "Yeah, well... I shouldn't be Spider-Man, either, but here I am. I got bit by a radioactive spider and then I got fucked by a Spider-Man."

Peter laughs before he can catch himself. "That's not—" funny, he tries to stay sternly, can't do it, and then laughs again, but resigned. "Okay, it's funny, but..."

"You helped me," Miles says quietly. "Not just the heat, but I mean... I was out of my mind, dude. If I hadn't fixated on you... If I'd just gone for some random alpha—"

Peter tenses. "I thought I told you before not to talk like that."

Miles remembers very well what happened when Peter told him not to mention fucking other alphas as a possibility, and shivers. "Point is, I mean, I would have had the same problem only worse, but somebody else wouldn't be... it couldn't be as good as it was with you, and..."

Miles no longer knows where he's going with this. When he started, he was trying to reassure Peter that Peter was actually the best possible option out of a sea of worse dangers, and therefore Peter should be glad that it went that way.

But now all he's thinking about was how good it was. How it felt, how Peter smelled, and looked at him, and touched him, how Peter's penis tasted, and felt in his ass, and how Peter kissed him and called him puppy...

He's beyond warm and well into hot, now. He can feel himself getting wet, back there, and he knows Peter can smell it from the way his face changes, and it's all so mixed up and embarrassing that suddenly he wants to cry, too, even though he's aroused.

"This is really messed up," he says, his voice cracking, willing himself not to cry.

"Oh, puppy," Peter says, and then Miles really can't stop himself. He's crying into Peter's shoulder, and Peter's weathered hands are touching his bare back so gently, and it's so good but Miles can't even pretend it's going to last anymore.

"I missed you," Miles sobs, "I missed you so much. Every night. I can't sleep, my body's like... it's just like, where's my alpha..."

"Shh," Peter soothes, and his arms are bringing Miles over to his bed, they're laying down together on the twin mattress, Peter's big body crowding Miles into the wall and feeling just right to do that. It feels like Peter's the real wall, the shield that Miles has been craving, so that he can feel safe enough to really sleep.

"Scent me," Miles begs, and Peter actually does it, pulls Miles into him and lets his scent get all over him.

"You're gonna need to shower when you wake up, puppy," Peter says, tugging the blanket up, even though Miles doesn't need it. He doesn't need anything but Peter. "And open the window to air this room out. Hey. Miles."

When Miles doesn't respond, Peter sharpens it into a command. "When you wake up in the morning, open the window and then shower off my scent."

Miles doesn't want to do that. He wants to stay in this scent forever. But it's a command and this time there's no brain-altering jellyfish to stop it from sticking. "Don't want to," Miles mutters, "but I will."

Peter chuckles, and that's the last thing Miles is aware of before he's asleep again.

*

Miles... Miles is a kid, what the fuck is Peter doing, acting like this is anything but a total catastrophe, that Miles is pregnant, that Miles is this pregnant and standing there with his face gaunt and ashy like a plague victim, God, what the fuck has Peter done to him?!

“Holy shit—” He lets go of Miles fast, backs up and starts pacing. ”Oh God, fuck—Fuck, Miles, why didn't you say—six months, it's gotta be almost six months—is abortion illegal in this New York, or something? It didn't even occur to me—you could have come to my New York, I would have helped you, but six months, I don't think that's possible, not even, that's—but you already look so bad like you haven't slept for six months—if you had just said something, this is all my fault, oh my God, I've ruined your life—”

"Would you shut up?! This is exactly why I didn't tell you, because I knew you'd want me to get rid of it and I knew you'd feel guilty—"

"It's not that I want you to get rid of it!" Peter blurts and then mentally screams at himself. That he even has the audacity to want Miles to have this pup, and then to let himself say it!

"Yes you do, you didn't want kids, you didn't want them with MJ—"

"I was afraid! I was afraid because I thought I would be a bad father and I was right, Miles!" He grabs onto the bedpost and struggles to keep himself from ripping it apart. "I was trying to be a father figure to you and look what I've done!"

Miles crosses his arms, suddenly indignant. "My father—I never thought of you as my father—I've got a father, you're nothing like—a cool older brother, maybe, but not a father—"

How fucking messed up it all is. "I'm old enough to be your father. I'm twice your age, more than that. All I wanted... I wanted to help you become the hero that I should have been and now... because I was weak, because I couldn't keep my dick in my pants—"

They keep arguing, Miles getting him sidetracked back into whose fault it is, when they’re well past that now, fuck. "Fine, have it your way, I'm not responsible—you couldn't be responsible either because you're a kid. You're a kid, you're supposed to—you're supposed to be in that other room with that other kid—"

"Ganke."

"—that other kid, playing video games and eating junk and staying up too late on a school night, you're supposed to be making that kind of bad decision. You shouldn't be pregnant, you can't handle this by yourself... you're not supposed...” God, Peter thinks, all of that, and Miles is chiefly worried about Peter blaming himself?! “You shouldn't be alone, when you're pregnant..."

"Yeah, well... I shouldn't be Spider-Man, either, but here I am. I got bit by a radioactive spider and then I got fucked by a Spider-Man."

Peter laughs before he can catch himself. "That's not—" funny, he tries to stay sternly, can't do it, and then laughs again, but resigned. "Okay, it's funny, but..."

"You helped me," Miles says quietly. "Not just the heat, but I mean... I was out of my mind, dude. If I hadn't fixated on you... If I'd just gone for some random alpha—"

Mine, roars the alpha instinct that Peter physically tenses to hold back. "I thought I told you before not to talk like that."

Miles shivers. Is he cold? Peter yearns to scoop him up, scent him, wrap him in blankets and himself. "Point is, I mean, I would have had the same problem only worse, but somebody else wouldn't be... it couldn't be as good as it was with you, and..."

The scent in the air changes, and Peter’s tongue fidgets over his upper teeth as he realizes that Miles is getting slick. But the boy’s face is crumbling. Miles chokes out, “This is really messed up.”

“Oh, puppy,” Peter says, and embraces Miles again, murmuring wordlessly as he soothes his hands over Miles’s back, lets him cry into the spandex of his suit. He can’t understand what Miles is saying through his sobs. “Shhh.”

He leads Miles gently to his bed, scents him when the boy begs for it, tucks him in and commands him to shower off his scent and air the room in the morning.

Then he stays, as the boy’s breathing evens out and deepens. He should get up, at least to turn out the light.

Instead he stays for a good ten minutes just looking at Miles’s face. The sparse, subtle little freckles that dot his nose and upper cheeks, the ones you can only see up close like this. There aren’t a ton of them—in fact it looks like he could easily count them. So he does. Ten on his right cheek, four on his nose, six on his left cheek. Peter wants to kiss each one.

But Miles’s skin... Peter’s not a doctor, but Miles just doesn’t look healthy. The underlying colour... it’s off. His lips have this slight bluish cast to them, that’s the most “oh, that’s not good” sign, but just in general... he looks sick.

Leaving him like this... Peter hates it on every level.

But he needs to. He never should have gave in and scented the kid, he’s already risking the kid getting caught.

Peter lies to himself that he’s going to get up, turn the light off, and get back in bed with Miles. He knows it’s a lie, but it sufficiently shakes his yearning loose enough for him to get out of bed, turn off the light, and remind himself to leave.

When he gets home, he takes off his suit to take a shower but pauses in the act.

It smells like Miles.

He throws it into the corner of the room and takes a cold shower.

Chapter Text

Peter dreams that he’s being held over the collider beam by Miles again, everything the same, except that’s not the fourteen-year-old Miles. It’s the sixteen-year-old one, the face feverish with his first heat. Miles is pulling him up by the chest of his suit and it’s like it’s not just the fibres that are warping, it’s Peter’s heart that is changing shape in Miles’s hand.

Collision. Collision of particles, causing electricity. Collision of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, making water. Collision of tectonic plates, forming mountains. Collision of sperm and egg, creating a new organism.

Collision of Peter’s lips against Miles’s mouth as Miles brings them together. They both have their eyes open, Peter stunned, and Miles is... Miles is...

Before Peter can figure out the expression, Miles lets him go.

Peter wakes up with that jolting, sudden stop sensation that accompanies a dream ending while falling like that.

He puts his hand over his face and murmurs, “What?” aloud.

His phone says it’s past nine am already. Did he forget to set an alarm? Apparently so.

What a strange dream. What was his subconscious trying to process in it?

Other than that he wanted Miles to kiss him, which, yes, but also, not helpful, or, y’know, morally right, or anything...

Okay. So. Nine am (ish) on December 22nd. Miles’s winter break would start the next day and run through the 4th. He won’t be at school... will he go on vacation or a family visit? He might be sharing a room with someone again and the buzz from the transdimensional gadget might give him away. Peter quickly grabs it and texts Miles to ask if it’ll be safe to text him over break or not, then gets out of bed.

He gets dressed in street clothes, trying to think.

The gadget buzzes.

Miles: We're going to my abuela's for Christmas and I don't know where I'll be sleeping. Don't text me first, okay.

Peter: Okay.

Reading back over the little exchange makes him queasy. It sounds so predatory...

Well it fucking is predatory, genius. You’re asking your underage babydaddy how to avoid getting caught by his parents.

He goes down to the Starbucks on the same block and orders a drip coffee with double cream, a bacon and egg sandwich, and a danish, then hangs back waiting for his order, thinking.

Miles saving him, Miles letting him go.

There’s a bittersweet pang. Yes, Miles will need to really let him go...

How can he help Miles do that?

Helping Miles—that needs to be his number one priority right now. Miles, and the pup...

How to help, how to help...

First do no harm, right?

They spent way too much time yesterday, by which Peter means any at all, with Miles trying to convince Peter that Peter hadn’t done something horrible. Miles got so distressed and stubborn about it.

Okay, that’s number one. Miles can’t be worrying about Peter, for fuck’s sake. That’s so goddamn backwards it isn’t even funny. There’s no time to waste trying to convince Miles to properly blame Peter, either.

It’s gotta be set to the side for now, the whole issue, everything about Peter’s feelings. Peter can beat himself up on his own time. If he lets Miles see him doing it, then Miles is gonna try to reassure him, and be stressed for him.

“Pierre,” calls out a barista, and after glancing around to see that nobody else steps forward, Peter steps up to see that yep, it’s his coffee, sandwich, and danish.

He pops the lid off the coffee when he sits down, blows on it, and takes a tentative sip, and still burns his fucking tongue anyway. He cools it off with a bite of danish.

Peter texts Miles again, even though he’s probably gone to class by now.

Peter: I've been thinking and it's not fair for me to burden you with my guilt about this. We won't talk about my guilt anymore, okay? Just focus on what I can do to help you.

“Well I’m not getting any younger,” a plump middle-aged woman with a loud voice says to her companion as they take seats at the next table. “I mean, I gotta think about being around for my kids in ten years, right?”

“Good for you,” her companion says, just as loud. “I don’t think I could get through the holidays doing your diet. I mean, do you take cheat days?”

“Well, I’ve been doing it for six months now, so I got through Thanksgiving and my birthday. I don’t think I can do cheat days. It’s about discipline, you know? And you gotta know yourself. Cheat days probably work for some people but this is the longest I’ve ever stayed on a diet and I don’t want to go back to how it was before, now that I’m halfway to my goal.”

“Good for you,” the companion says again.

Peter chews another bite of danish silently.

Diet, discipline, being around for your kids in ten years.... Jesus H. Christ. Could the multiverse just let him eat his sandwich please.

Peter finishes the coffee, the sandwich, and the danish, but when he goes back upstairs to his apartment, he stands in the kitchen for a moment looking out the window, and then suddenly starts pulling bottles of beer and spirits out and setting them by the sink.

He takes a deep breath, opens one, and begins pouring it down the drain.

*

When Miles comes back to his room after showering away Peter's scent, the room is cold as hell and already doesn't smell like him, much to his chagrin. He checks the gadget and finds that Peter's texted him.

Peter: Will it be safe to text you over break?

Peter's exasperating in so many ways but he always comprehends everything so fast. Miles feels a little spark of jealousy about it. Peter just found out he's pregnant and they had that crazy confrontation. If it was Miles on the other side, his brain would still be mush, but in the time since then, Peter's clearly already connected all the dots and realized that Miles has gotta be under intense surveillance at home, and winter break is about to start.

Miles: We're going to my abuela's for Christmas and I don't know where I'll be sleeping. Don't text me first, okay.

Peter: Okay.

Miles goes for breakfast, goes through classes, and goes back to his room to get packed up for break, and there's another message from Peter.

Peter: I've been thinking and it's not fair for me to burden you with my guilt about this. We won't talk about my guilt anymore, okay? Just focus on what I can do to help you.

Miles isn't sure what to make of it. He doesn't want to argue with Peter about guilt anymore, either, but...

*

Christmas Eve is loud and noisy and full of familiar people and foods and traditions, and everyone pretends that Miles isn't pregnant, which Miles prefers to the alternative under the circumstances. He eats too much roast pork and rice pudding and listens to his cousins wondering about what happened to the "little Spider-Man".

Christmas Day is quieter and Miles is able to steal some time in a room alone.

Miles: Merry Chinese Food and Movies Day

Peter: Heh. You remembered that?

Peter told him last year that he had "semi-converted" to Judaism to marry Mary-Jane, and when Miles asked what that meant, he said that he went to the movies and ate Chinese food on Christmas but he still ordered sweet and sour pork. Miles said that sounded a lot more semi than converted and Peter said that was the story of his life.

Miles: Of course I do man that was hilarious.

Peter: Yeah. I'm mixing it up this year though, I ordered vegetarian. Trying to eat a little more clean, you know.

Miles snickers at the idea of Peter "eating clean."

Miles: I ate enough pork last night for both of us then.

Peter: Well, you are eating for two.

That sobers things up quickly.

Miles: I do eat good stuff and take my vitamins and everything, it's just Christmas.

Peter: Wasn't meant to be a criticism, sorry.

Miles doesn't know what to text after that.

*

Miles: You at a party or something, or can you talk?

Not an unreasonable question at close to eleven pm New Year’s Eve. Peter squints down at the entrance to the dockside area where a gang is planning to use the cover of the midnight fireworks to perform an ambush on some rivals. Some, but not all, of the people he needs to stop have arrived.

Peter: You could say I’m at a party uninvited. But I can talk for now.

Miles: Man I wish I was there helping you out. I’m holed up in the bathroom here going crazy man. I might need you as a character witness for when I murder my cousin.

Peter: Sure I’ll say despite being part spider you wouldn’t hurt a fly. What’s the cousin trouble?

Miles: She been playing the Spider-Man Christmas album NON STOP since we got here. If she’s not playing it she’s singing it. I did okay the first 72 hours but I just ain’t having it anymore man! I’m seriously cracking! And my other relatives are all like oh it’s Christmas and she’s only eight. She’s never gonna get to nine if I have to hear Spidey Bells one more time.

Peter snorts.

Peter: The other me did have a nice voice.

Miles: NOT YOU TOO

Miles: Did you put out a Christmas album in your universe?

Peter: I think even autotune can only go so far.

Miles: Hey, this is maybe a little more serious, but how do you make money and be Spider-Man. I don’t know if I can do the merch thing like my Peter Parker did.

“And raise a kid” was probably appended there.

Peter: Why don’t you think you could have merch?

Miles: Man you’ve heard me sing. Plus I haven’t done anything cool yet that people know about. People still want the good Spider-Man back.

Peter winces.

Yeah, the good Spider-Man. The one who didn’t need to be nagged and guilted into training Miles, but who volunteered it immediately. The one who really committed to his Mary-Jane, who would never have been tempted by Miles’s heat-scent because he had a pair-bond. The one with an amazing underground hide-out instead of a shed with a futon that probably had rats nesting inside it right now. The blond blue-eyed one with the straight nose who died when he was only twenty-six.

Jesus. It’s always like getting flicked in the forehead, to be reminded that his entire life he’s actually been the evil twin, the cursed doppelgänger, the goateed Spock, of a better version of himself in another dimension.

Down below, a Rolls-Royce pulls up and the driver gets out to open the backseat to let out a man in a yellow suit with a rose on the lapel.

Peter: I think the party here’s about to really heat up, kid. Talk to you later. Happy New Year.

*

After he arranges for Miles to come visit for the first time since... that time, Peter knows he needs to get ready.

Not his apartment—it’s basically fine, Miles has seen it way worse—but himself.

First, get out some energy with a good clean patrol. And none of this “pick a rooftop and wait” stuff. No, he’s gonna swing to goddamn Montauk and back if that’s what it takes until he finds some action.

When he gets back to his apartment he’s feeling pretty good about himself. He makes an order on his computer for some Chinese delivery—a large mapo tofu and brown rice, because he’s making healthy choices today—and gets in the shower.

Second... wash.

And while he’s in the shower, it’s a good time to, y’know. Spank the monkey. Choke the chicken. Jack the beanstalk. Play a little five on one. Masturbate.

The conundrum is what to fantasize about when he does it. Because the more he tells himself that he shouldn’t fantasize about Miles, that to do so would be immoral and disgusting and taboo and just very, very naughty...

The more his dick twitches.

“Who the fuck am I kidding,” Peter mutters aloud as he works his hand on himself faster, closing his eyes, leaning his forehead against the tile while the water hits his back.

Those noises the kid made, and how he looked at his cock like it was the most beautiful prize he’d ever laid those big eyes on. Fuck. And how was it possible for him to be that slick yet that tight. Oh God. Peter breathes fast and shallow, picturing how Miles’s asshole was practically winking at him the way the boy was clenching, how it sucked noisily on his fingertip it was so tight. But he opened up for him so well, he was a natural, taking his fingers, stretching open, and then moulding around his cock.

Perfect fit.

His hand is really nothing like it, it doesn’t encase him like Miles did, there’s no precious, beloved one attached to it, lying back on his bed and gripping his thighs, displaying himself to Peter, silently begging for him as Peter covers his mouth to stifle those lewd noises, but those honey-amber eyes keep asking so sweetly for his knot.

“Miles,” Peter gasps as he comes. “Oh, ooooh God, Miles, oh puppy, you’re so good baby, you’re so good. I fucking love you.”

Peter opens his eyes as he moves his hand down to grip his knot, always the worst part about masturbating. He should really get a knotting toy, even though they were depressing and nasty to clean.

He pulls the shower head out to spray the wall clean more, before any of it has a chance to get stuck on.

Peter finishes actually washing himself, gets out of the shower, rubs himself down with a towel, and then looks at himself as he wraps the towel around his waist.

He looks like a tired middle-aged man. Which he is, so he can’t claim any shock.

Muscles, yeah, but flab on top of them. The grey at the temples has gotten bigger—should he do something about that? At least his hairline hasn’t receded yet. Peter puts a hand to his stubble. Should he shave again? He could swear his facial hair did not grow this fast when he was younger. Maybe he should just grow a beard. After all, he does live in Brooklyn now.

He gets dressed and calls down to the doorman.

“Hey Jamal, it’s Peter in 24B. Did my Chinese food get there yet? I was in the shower, so if you buzzed me, I missed it.”

“Yes Mr. Parker, I’ve got it at the desk here. You want me to bring it up for you?”

“No, I’ll come down and get it, it’s no problem. Also, I’m gonna have a visitor in a bit, his name is Miles, black kid, about eighteen, so if you see him ringing the bell, let him in.”

“You got it, Mr. Parker.”

*

The day that Miles is back in the dorms, he's texting Peter to ask when they can meet up, and Peter says Miles had better come to his dimension if he thinks he can manage it.

Miles rings the buzzer on Peter's building, which feels weird, but he has a feeling that if he webcrawled up the side and went in the window like normal, Peter might get worried, and he just wants to avoid that.

"Feels weird letting you in this way," is what Peter says instead of hello when he opens the door. "Sorry, I'm still eating. I went patrol earlier so that I would be free now. You want something? A drink? Help yourself."

There's Chinese take-out on the table, the familiar little cardboard folded containers with red pictures of pagodas. Miles steps in and looks at what Peter's eating. "What happened to eating clean?"

"This is clean! It's vegetarian!"

Miles laughs, and some of the butterflies in his stomach dissipate. "Dude I can smell the meat and I can see the oil."

"It's not, it's tofu, mapo tofu! They just have this genius way of making it taste good, I dunno. I've been ordering it a lot."

"Mapo tofu has meat! It has pork!"

Peter stares at him. "But it has tofu right in the name."

"It has meat and tofu!"

Peter frowns and sits at the table. "I don't think that's right."

"How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?" Miles goes into the attached kitchen and opens the fridge. The insides do look a little different than previous. He doesn't see any beer or soda; the latter is what he was hoping for. But there is a carton of orange juice, so he grabs that.

The cups are in the same cupboard as before and it feels familiar, this; it feels like they're gonna go patrolling after this, like Peter is gonna talk to him about how to go up against a shapeshifting villain, or something.

He sits next to Peter with his juice.

There's only the sound of Peter chewing for a long moment, then he swallows. "Your pregnancy," he says, and Miles is thinking great, relaxation time over. "Have you talked about it with your May Parker, gotten in touch through her with any... the government, or..."

"Why would I tell Ms. Parker?" Miles says.

"The spider venom... your abilities... it might come up during labour, or...  a doctor might notice something weird and blow your cover... in my world, at least, I'm not the only hero, there are others, other people with powers and gadgets and stuff, on the side of good and trying to help, and some of them are even in with the government, sort of... your May Parker is the only person I know who can maybe get you into contact with that world. Maybe they would have a doctor that could help you keep your identity safe."

"She's never mentioned anything like that before," says Miles, frowning. "I mean, like, if there are other heroes like that, where were they during that stuff with the Collider? How come we had to do everything?"

"I don't know. Granted, even the ones in my earth, a lot of them are more trouble than help, a lot of the time... but it could be that you're really all on your own in your earth. That's... it's been bothering me a lot. You look... well, you look a little better, maybe, but that's only because you looked awful last time, Miles." Peter's face is very serious. "I'm really worried. What if there's something about the spider venom that's making this pregnancy dangerous for your body and you don't know?"

"I don't think that's what made me feel awful," says Miles. This is it, this is what he came here to ask for. "I... my big thing, I told you, I wasn't sleeping. And then you came and... and you scented me?"

"Yeah, I remember," Peter mutters at the rice.

"I slept so good that night," Miles says, "and then for a few days after I slept okay, but now it's almost back to how it was before, with not sleeping. I think... I think I need you to scent me."

"You shouldn't," Peter says, still apparently addressing the rice. "We're not bonded, so, you shouldn't need scenting."

"Yeah but it's really unusual for unbonded omegas to get pregnant, right?" Miles had this counter ready. "Like, I been trying to look it up, in the library and stuff because I still don't have my own computer, and everything I find is about how pregnant omegas need to be scented by their mates. It just assumes that if you're pregnant that you have a mate, I can't find anything about—"

"Wouldn't your doctors have mentioned this?"

"My doctors don't want me to be in touch with whoever sired my pup. Nobody does. The doctors, my teachers, my parents—they're all convinced I'm covering up for some rapist—"

"They're right."

"You said you weren't gonna bring up that guilt shit!" Miles yells, surprising himself with how loud he made it, and drinks orange juice in order to have something to do with his face.

Peter blinks, but he doesn't seem too knocked over by Miles's yell. "You're right. Sorry. It was low hanging fruit, and we know I can't resist—" He stops again. "I'm just gonna eat. You talk again."

"I think—you said you wanted to help, you said it. I think you should scent me. I don't think that's too much to ask, when you said..."

This is coming out wrong. Miles told himself before he crossed dimensions that he was gonna ask for this but it was gonna be a strong ask. He wasn't gonna be an asshole and demand shit, but he wasn't gonna beg and plead and whine, either. But being here, sitting next to Peter, in his apartment, all full of his smells...

The thought of leaving and having to go without Peter's smell again is unbearable.

"It's not too much to ask," Peter says, real quiet. "Let me think a minute."

It's way longer than a minute, Peter eating, Miles sipping at orange juice that he doesn't really want anymore because the butterflies are back and multiplied.

At last Peter says, "You'd better sleep over here sometimes, then. Not every night, obviously, you'd get caught, but... if I scent you there, it'll be more likely somebody will sniff me out. If I scent you here, then you can shower before you go. Maybe... maybe once a week."

Miles didn't expect Peter to give in this quickly, and he definitely didn't expect Peter to offer to have him sleep over. "Really? You'd let me sleep over?!"

"Sleep's important," Peter says, collecting up empty paper containers and stuff to clear the table now that he's done eating.

*

Miles didn't bring a change of clothes or anything because he didn't expect to get this far, but Peter sighs and says he'll set the laundry to go if Miles wants to stay the night.

The borrowed t-shirt and pajama pants that were way too big last time fit really comfortably around his bump now, and Miles wants to make a joke about how his body matches Peter's in shape now, but he doesn't. It's not too late for Peter to get a guilt complex and cancel this.

They settle into that position that Peter did with him back then: Peter on his back, Miles cuddling into his chest.

Once again, Peter is tense to start with.

Miles thinks about saying, I'm not gonna jump you this time, man, and nixes that as well.

Not being able to joke around with Peter on a topic is putting a real crimp in his communication skills.

He decides to try, "Thanks for doing this."

Peter takes a slow breath in and out, but he doesn't relax that much. "Like I said, it's not too much to ask for."

Miles wants to get into that drowsy, dreamy space that his head was in when Peter scented him in the dorm, but Peter's too tense, and his words are making this sound like... like some kind of horrible ordeal for Peter. Like Miles is a burden he doesn't want, but he's taking responsibility for because of his guilt.

"Do you not want me here?" Miles blurts out.

"Huh? I said you can stay here. Your clothes are in my washing machine right now, you can't leave."

"That's not what I meant—I mean—what is it? Am I like... is it MJ?"

"Why are you always asking about MJ?"

"Weren't you trying to get her back?"

"No. She... I mean, I was, for a while, but not now."

"Why not now?"

"Miles, we should sleep."

"I wanna know why not now?"

"She had asked me to give her time, and... she figured out that I wasn't... that I was..."

It's so weird having an argument with somebody lying on their chest. "Are you trying to figure out how to lie to me without lying to me?"

Peter groans. "You are worse than a dog with a bone sometimes."

"Just tell me then!"

"Ugh, fine. She... an omega in heat's smell is really powerful, not just to alphas, other omegas can smell it, and it lingers a few days, if you aren't really diligent in cleaning it out. I wasn't expecting her to come to my place. She got mad... which, she had every right to get mad, we weren't intimate but we had both agreed not to date other people while we tried to figure out if we could make it work again. I... it's hard to tell you these things and not bring up. You know. The g-thing. The g-word."

Miles can well understand that part. He is feeling a lot of guilt right at this moment.

I'm the reason that Peter will never get back together with MJ.

MJ's supposed to be the one having a family with Peter. She's the one he loves.

But if he says that he's sorry, then Peter is going to insist it's his own fault, and then Miles is gonna argue back and they're gonna be right back in that awful guilt Mexican standoff again.

"Jesus," says Peter, and it sounds like how Miles feels.

"Maybe... maybe if I explain to her, not now, obviously, but when I don't look pregnant anymore—"

"No," Peter says with finality.

"But you guys are like, meant to be, right?"

"If there's one thing I've figured out from this multiple universe bullshit, it's that nothing's meant to be. She gave me a second chance, I failed it. Now she's moving on. She wants to have a family, she doesn't have time to see if I'm ever going to get my shit together. I hope she finds a partner who's ready to be what she needs right now. I really do. We... we don't really talk, anymore." A beat. "She hasn't blocked me on social media... so there's that." Another beat. "That's like... that means it's still an amicable divorce. I think."

"Do things ever go right for a Spider-Man? I mean go right and stay right?"

"Peter Porker seems to be doing okay."

Miles laughs. They both laugh, way more than it deserves, letting tension out.

Miles feels the baby kick suddenly, and he says, "Oh."

"What is it?"

"Um... uh, the pup's kicking..."

"Really?" Peter's response is quick, surprised, and there's just that hint of happiness in it, an echo of that lovely, dreamlike moment when Peter's conscious mind was still too in shock to process Miles's pregnancy and so Peter's alpha, his id, was in control and it was euphoric about knocking Miles up.

"Wanna feel?" Miles grabs Peter's big hand from where it's settled past his butt on the bed and pulls it up to splay over where Miles felt the kick. "Give it a minute, usually when he kicks once he'll kick again, he kicks a lot at night anyway—"

"'He'?" questions Peter, and then says hushed, in awe, "I felt that. Was that it? Was that him?"

"Yeah, that's him," Miles affirms. The baby moves inside him and Peter slides his hand to follow where the movement against the inside of Miles's belly is shifting, making the fabric of Peter's t-shirt bunch. "I had an ultrasound about a couple weeks ago, they said the pup's a boy and I got to see him moving around and stuff. They even did this 3d thing, they were doing it to like, check the heart and stuff, but I got to see his face, like the shape of it, and stuff, he really looks like a baby, it was really cool."

"I wish I could have seen that."

"I got some print-outs from it—some earlier ones, too, they gave me some. I could bring them." Miles is definitely going to bring them, even if Peter says he doesn't have to. He wants to see Peter's face light up looking at them.

Peter moves his hand again, and Miles helps him shift it over and down to where the movement is coming from now. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to see those."

Then there's quiet for a while, both of them relaxed, the only movement from their pup and their breathing.

Then the baby seems to settle again, and it's just them. Miles becomes aware, very, very aware, of how low on his body the tip of Peter's middle finger is. If it went down just a little bit farther, Peter would be able to feel Miles's coarse pubic hair through the thin fabric of the pajamas, and if it went a little farther still—

Miles grabs Peter's wrist just as Peter goes to take his hand off. It's not a real struggle, Peter stills as soon as Miles grabs onto him, it's not like...

"I think he's settled down," Peter whispers. "We should... we should..."

"What's the point in 'should,' now, anyway?" Miles whispers too. "It's not like you can knock me up twice."

Miles is getting wet, again. He hopes Peter can smell it.

"It's not..." Peter tugs slightly again, doesn't push it when Miles still doesn't let go.

"Do I really look that bad to you? I know I'm not MJ, but since I messed that up for you..." Shit, this isn't coming out right. Miles wants to sound adult and reasonable about this—about having sex, again. He doesn't want to sound like a jealous kid.

"Jesus," Peter lets out a little disbelieving laugh. "It's not—you don't look that kind of bad to me, that's not it at all..."

Miles lets go of Peter's wrist and moves his hand down, quick and accurate, between Peter's legs.

Peter's cock is hard. It's gotta be uncomfortable, the way it's all caught in his underwear and that Peter hasn't been able to adjust it, and Miles pulls at the fabric to help him.

"Puppy," Peter says, and it's the wrong word, it's totally the wrong word if Peter really wants Miles to stop.

"Three times isn't much different than four," Miles argues. The tip of Peter's penis is poking out from beneath the band of Peter's pants and underwear now, and Miles finally gets to touch it again, touch it directly. "You wanna do it, I wanna do it..."

"What about the pup," Peter says, and Miles knows he's got him. Now it's just negotiating.

"You don't have to fuck me," he coaxes, "we could just touch each other."

When Miles grabs at the band of Peter's pants, Peter lifts his hips.

*

"Oh fuck," Peter hisses. His rhythm as he drives his penis in and out is stuttery, hard and fast when he forgets himself, then way too slow and gentle again when he remembers. "You have to tell me, when I start to go too hard, you have to tell me to slow down—"

"But it feels better like that," Miles whines, and whines again because Peter is stopping again, half in and half out.

"I can't be rough with you." Peter's voice is what's rough. "Fuck, I shouldn't be doing this at all."

"Okay!" Miles promises quickly, because if Peter stops fucking him now, when Miles has come so close to getting his nut twice already, he thinks he might actually die of blue balls. "Okay, I'll tell you to slow down, I promise!"

Peter starts moving again, and Miles moans, because it feels so good and so right and because he's already figured out that Peter really likes hearing him make noises.

"This little pussy," Peter says, and it's quiet, almost lost in the sound of the squelching noise of Miles's slick leaking around where Peter's thrusting in and out, in the little cries and whimpers Miles is making as he braces himself against the headboard of Peter's bed, "this little pussy..."

He doesn't finish it, doesn't say what's he's thinking about it.

"It's yours," Miles says, and Peter moans.

"Yeah," he snarls, and his hips snap into Miles a little faster, a little harder. It's not yet as rough as the last time Peter forgot himself and Miles hopes he can get away with not telling Peter to slow down yet. "Yeah, it's mine. My little pussy. Only mine."

"Ah—ah—" Miles cries out. Peter's rubbing against that spot inside of him just right again. "I'm close!"

"You're gonna come? You're gonna come around my cock, puppy?"

Miles wails as he does it, come spitting out onto the sheets below him.

"Oh fuck, you squeeze me so good when you do that." Peter squeezes one of Miles's ass cheeks. "God, you feel so fucking tight, baby."

"Ah—Peter—"

"That's right. You know who's fucking you, don't you puppy. You love this cock."

"I love it, I love it—Peter—Peter, I want—" He wants to ask for Peter's knot, again. Peter wouldn't give it to him last time and Miles wants it so bad. "In me—don't pull out—"

"You want my big knot?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes—oh yes—yes, yesssssss!" His voice raises in pitch again because Peter's giving it to him, that last 's' escaping him like air from a punctured tire, because Peter's fallen forward and gripping him around the neck with his teeth, caging him all around with his body, and his knot's swelling up inside.

This time since Peter scruffed him before his knot started, Miles's body is totally relaxed and limp under him as the knot fills him up. Miles still doesn't know, once the high of the sex fades, why he wants the knot so bad, when it feels more weird than pleasurable, still, even if it doesn't hurt the way it did the first couple of times.

Maybe it's just omega instinct, to crave that connection. To have your alpha locked inside you. So he won't leave you.

*

Well, Peter thinks to himself when he’s tied in Miles later that same evening, that certainly didn’t work one goddamn bit.

“Three times isn’t much different than four,” Miles said, with his cheek rubbing on Peter through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “You don’t have to fuck me,” Miles said, tilting up his face just so, getting his fingertips slippery in Peter’s precum.

Jesus Christ. How could he never say no to Miles about anything.

Miles is just so... so... so...

So Miles.

Utterly adorable in every way. So much fun. And now, now that he was growing up, he just had to turn out to be sexy as hell too. It ought to make him sick, it ought to, it ought to.

They’re tied together, though.

Peter’s not going anywhere.

Chapter Text

Next week Miles comes with his own pajamas, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and copies of the ultrasounds.

Peter gets that giddy grin looking at the ultrasounds on his couch while the television newscast talks about an incoming coldfront. "These are amazing. Wow. Wow, you can see his little fingers..."

"You can keep those," Miles says, "they're copies."

"Thanks," says Peter, still transfixed on the last ultrasound picture, the one where their pup really looks human instead of some weird sideways skeleton thing.

"I'm supposed to get another one at the 32 week appointment, cuz, uh—anyway I'm gonna get one then, so I'll get another copy with that one."

Peter looks up. "Why do you get another one at 32 weeks?"

Damn Peter and his perceptiveness. "Uh, it's just a precaution, they said omega males, the angles and stuff, we're a little at higher risk of having problems with the placenta covering the cervix. But even if it is, it just means I get a scheduled c-section. No big deal."

"It might be a big deal," Peter says. "If you get a c-section—you've got a healing factor, like me. They'll notice you heal way faster than you should from major abdominal surgery. Faster than humanly possible."

"It may not even be an issue."

"Did you talk to your May Parker yet?"

"I can't exactly just call her up, man, my dad took my phone and my laptop. The teachers and stuff have talked to my friends, too, I can't borrow their phones, either."

Peter furrows his brow and stares into space, thinking, absently shuffling the ultrasound copies back into a tidy pile, which he sets on his coffee table.

Miles looks at the TV as Peter thinks. The news is talking about how some super smart robot named Living Brain is celebrating his twentieth anniversary of assisting computer science researchers at Empire State University. It talks about how Spider-Man defeated the then-evil robot twenty-two years ago and about how a brilliant student at ESU named Peter B. Parker took the parts and reassembled them into the humanity-assisting robot it remains today.

Peter's really a genius...

The television shuts off.

"I was watching that," Miles says.

"It's late and you have school tomorrow," says Peter.

*

"You... you really do look better," Peter says while they undress. "Your skin and your eyes..."

"I told you I been sleeping better since last week."

"Guess the scenting really is helping," Peter mutters, hanging up his belt.

"And the sex," Miles says.

Peter shoots him a look.

"No, really! I was looking it up in the library—"

"What kind of library—"

"The school library, shut up, it's science, sex is good in pregnancy, there's prostaglandins, and oxytocin—it's science."

"Uh huh." Peter chuckles darkly. He's taken off his pants and is standing there in just his underwear, but he's got his back to Miles, so Miles doesn't know if he's aroused, aroused like Miles is. "Science."

"It—it'd be helping, too." Miles is down to his own underwear. Peter keeps his apartment a lot colder than school, and little goosebumps are rising on his arms, but he doesn't want to put on his pajamas.

"I did say I'd help."

Peter fucks him from behind that day and the next week too.

*

Peter puts the 3d ultrasound picture up on his fridge. Then takes it down. Then puts it back up again.

Damn it, he really, really wants to have the picture up somewhere where he can look at it all the time. He wants to see that sepia toned image of a little face in profile, one tiny hand spread against his ear, the other just in front of his mouth, every morning when he comes into the kitchen.

But at the same time it makes him feel so damn guilty to see it. He should not be thrilled to look at it, he does not deserve to pretend like he’s a normal happy father-to-be. Not when the pregnancy not only never should have happened in the first place, but the pregnant parent is currently under enormous stress in another dimension, where Peter can’t even help him.

In the end he decides to leave the picture up, at least when nobody’s over. It’s a reminder to keep going with his diet, with his discipline in life generally. A reminder of the stakes.

Peter steps back with a green smoothie and looks at the picture while he drinks it.

He just can’t shake his worry that something bad’s gonna happen to Miles in the other dimension. Maybe it’s partially just alpha instinct, to want to have the omega carrying your pup close. But there’s a damn rationally based element to the fears, too. What are the odds that with two Spider-Parents that the pup doesn’t have some kind of unusual genes? There’s no telling how and when that could manifest. And even if Miles was looking more like his old self in last night’s visit, there are so many ways this pregnancy could go wrong. And yet Miles is all alone over there, no way to find help.

Peter needs to look for help for him.

*

When's he actually in Peter's bed, Miles sleeps better than he's done since he entered high school, let alone became Spider-Man.

The nights alone, in between, he doesn't sleep quite as good, but it's still way better than it was. People notice. His friends, his teachers.

"I guess I'm just getting good at being pregnant," Miles jokes when people mention it. "Practice makes perfect."

He wishes he could keep something small, anything, with Peter's scent on it, to sleep with when they're apart, but it's too risky. His mom and dad are definitely still regularly searching his room, and while the room checks at school aren't as frequent, they're definitely still happening.

At the end of January he goes straight from school to a lab for a glucose screening, to check for gestational diabetes again. After drinking down the gross orange drink, he sits in the waiting room doing an essay for AP Spanish homework. He'd thought that since he spoke Spanish at home with his mom a lot that it'd be like a gimme class, but it turns out that the range of subjects that he actually talked about in Spanish with his mom were a lot narrower than he'd thought. He never talked in Spanish with his mom about his sexual orientation or climate change or how to write a formal business email, or most of the other stuff that was actually gonna be on the test.

Los humanos de este mundo están divididos en tres géneros: los primeros son los alfa, los segundos son los beta, y los terceros son los omega.

Yo soy un omega.

Los omega no pueden vivir sin preocuparse de su celo, pero en el futuro...

The waiting room's like his dorm, too hot, and so he's taken his blazer off and he's thinking about taking the vest off too.

"Oh my God," he hears one middle aged white lady tut to another one. "Isn't that a shame. So young."

They probably think he can't hear them because he's got headphones in, but they're not connected to anything because he doesn't have his phone. They're just there to keep anyone from talking to him.

With his spider senses, he can hear every word.

"It's a big problem with urban youths," the other white lady whispers back.

They're in Brooklyn, they're all urban, but Miles knows what she means. She means black. She means Miles is a stereotype: just another pregnant black teenager. Knocked up with no mark.

...creo que podemos crear nuevos y mejores supresores y medicamentos.

"At least he's still in school," the first lady whispers. "Poor thing."

The second lady sniffs and says, "Hmm," like she doesn't have any sympathy at all.

Pienso que un mundo mejor es posible, para la próxima generación.

*

“So, as I recall, on the balance, you owe me a couple favours,” says Peter.

Nick Fury just stares at him, face neutral.

Peter raises his eyebrows. “Oh, wow, you’re actually admitting you owe me favours.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know, that’s how you admit things.”

Fury snorts. “Cut to it, Parker.”

“You remember the collider incident I reported to SHIELD.”

“Yeah. Still got people researching it. More cross-dimensional threats to national security... like this damn universe ain’t enough.”

“Okay, right, so... the source of that incident’s universe, Earth-1610, the kid who became the new Spider-Man there, Miles Morales... we uh... I was with him in an unexpected heat and there’s a pup on the way now.”

“I’ll be damned. Congratulations? Or not, since you’re here talking about calling in favours.”

“He may not be able to have the pup safely in his universe,” Peter says. “His identity is still secret and his universe doesn’t have anyone for him to reach out to for help. He might need to flee. I want you to get him an identity so he can come here if he needs to.”

“What about the glitching thing?”

“Even the glitching thing takes some time to start up and get bad. I had to be in his universe a continuous week before I had the first glitch. Anyway, I’ll be looking into other stuff about that. Probably talk to Strange.”

“New identity... yeah, it wouldn’t be difficult. You got a picture?”

Peter holds out the copies he made of Miles’s student ID photo. “Will this work?”

Fury looks at the photo. “That a high school uniform? How old is this kid?”

“He turned nineteen on September 11,” Peter lies.

Fury regards him steadily for a little while, then says in a cold way, “I won’t ask anymore questions about how old he is, but this clears any and all favours I might owe you, Parker. I’m gonna choose to believe he was capable of consenting to sex and this was all a one-off heat mistake anyway. But if I hear one motherfucking breath of a rumour in the future regarding you touching any goddamn kids, I will come down on you like the hand of God, got it?”

“I agree completely,” Peter says seriously.

*

It shouldn’t fucking turn him on this much, seeing Miles’s belly, how blatantly pregnant he is, at night when they’re getting undressed and the kid takes off his shirt and pants and then pauses, just pauses, giving him that goddamn hopeful look.

Peter doesn’t like his apartment too warm and Miles’s nipples are pebbling up, they’re bigger and darker than they used to be, the tissue around it a little puffy, almost feminine. Peter’s avoided commenting on them because he doesn’t know how Miles feels about them, about any of the feminizing changes of pregnancy to his body. His already amazing hips, ass, and thighs are getting even thicker, too. Peter loves all of it, but Peter’s to blame for all of it.

“The doctor said it was normal,” Miles says.

Peter blinks. “What?”

“The line,” Miles says, and rubs self-consciously at his belly. There’s a thin dark colouration running straight down from Miles’s chest through his belly button and down to his crotch. “Weren’t you staring at it?”

“No,” says Peter, “I was just looking at you.”

“Oh. Well... uh, like I said, he said it was normal and it’ll go away after the pup comes. Said it was some hormonal thing. Uh... the nipples, too...”

“I don’t think it looks bad,” Peter says. Understatement.

“Uh, thanks. Do you, um... do you want to, tonight, or...?”

I want to every goddamn night for the rest of my life, is caught on his tongue. He doesn’t trust his mouth to say anything appropriate, as if there’s even anything appropriate to say to the seventeen-year-old boy who’s snuck out of his dorm to cross the boundaries of his universe just to lie in your arms.

So instead he just drops his briefs, lets Miles get distracted at the sight of his cock, so he won’t notice how Peter can’t stop looking at him with something way more than just lust.

Miles gets so excited, seeing Peter hard, as if he’s still surprised by it, which can’t be possible. It must just be teenage libido, Peter simply the only outlet. The omega wriggles off his own underwear and hurries onto the bed, spreading his knees wide, canting his hips up, open, so his cheeks spread and reveal the little hole within to Peter, already glistening with slick. Miles’s cock is hard and pointing straight down, and Miles has one hand on it, rubbing it.

“Peter,” he whimpers, humping his hips a little in the air against his hand, glancing back over his shoulder, amber eyes begging him.

Peter can never resist Miles’s eyes.

“I’m here baby,” he says, gets up behind him, presses over him with his body, caging him in, scent marking him. Peter rubs the goosebumps on Miles’s forearms as he rocks his dick back and forth between his cheeks, feeling the slick start to drip out onto him. He presses a kiss to the top of Miles’s spine, runs his tongue up the back of his neck to just under his ear.

Peter wants to say more, he wants to say so much. You gorgeous thing. You’re perfect. I love you so much it scares me to death. Just look at you, carrying my pup, making it look so good, so pretty, you’re so goddamn strong, Miles. I adore you, omega. Wanna sink my teeth in you and make you mine forever. Keep you. Keep you. Keep you.

He can’t, he can’t keep Miles, can’t really cage him and hold him back. For this brief time he can give Miles some pleasure, along with the scenting his body needs. Then the pup will come, and Peter will do whatever he can to help there. And eventually Miles will go out into the world, find someone better.

So Peter doesn’t say any of those things as he spreads Miles open, as he sinks into his amazing body, as he fucks him. He only says meaningless things, uncommitted things. “That’s so good, puppy.” “Mmm, fuck, your little pussy’s so tight.” “Yeah, let me fuck it, just like that.”

The orgasm’s still so good, the lasting high from knotting a real person’s still exquisite. But as Peter nuzzles and licks at Miles as they lay knotted together, his heart hurts.

*

“You seek entrance to the Sanctum Sanctorum?” intones a voice on the other side of the door of a townhouse in the Village.

“Tell Strange I brought kebabs if he wants some,” Peter says, scratching the back of his neck.

“I will so inform the Supreme Sorceror,” says the voice.

When Peter gets in to see Dr. Strange, the man is levitating upside down inside a silver halo of light.

“So it is a yes or no on the kebabs?” Peter says, sitting on some kind of bumpy ottoman and opening the take-out bag.

“Why kebabs?” says Strange. “You always get pizza when you come here. From that place that fired you.”

“I’m trying to diet.” Peter pulls out a skewer of chicken. “You seriously remember that Joe’s fired me? That was almost twenty years ago. Had we even met?”

“Because you think about it every time. You would complain to yourself that you don’t know why you keep giving them your money, and then you would admit that the pizza was just that good, and then you would brood over the memory of being fired again. And before you complain about me reading your mind, I’ve told you, some people’s thoughts are just loud.”

“And I’m some people, huh?”

“Possibly the loudest thoughts I’ve ever encountered.”

“Explains a lot,” Peter mutters, then pulls a chunk of chicken off the skewer with his teeth and chews it.

“I’ll have one of the beef skewers,” Strange says, still upside down in his glowing aura.

“Yeah I’ll save one. So I’ll explain why I’m here, if my brain didn’t already yell at you too much about it.”

Peter tells Strange about his worries for Miles, who may need to change dimensions to avoid one set of dangers, only to run into a whole other set of risks from glitching. When he’s done, Strange closes his eyes.

“I’ll think about it,” the levitating man says.

Peter waits a moment, then says, “Uh, well, I’ll just leave you to that, then. Where do you want me to put your kebab?”

“Place it on that famille-rose dish.”

“The what now?”

Strange sighs. “The plate with the flowers on it. On the table.”

Famee-hrose, he says, like that’s a thing, Peter thinks as he fishes the beef kebab out and puts it on the plate.

“It is a thing.”

“Stop reading my mind!”

*

"You don't—oh, shit—you don't have to do this," Peter says, for about the fourth or fifth time. He said it twice before Miles even got Peter's underwear down.

Miles does not want to say I know, I'm doing it because I want to yet another time, when it apparently didn't sink in the first five times. Or maybe Peter doesn't believe that Miles is telling the truth. Okay, he's gotta be more explicit. He looks up at Peter's scruffy face through his eyelashes and lets the big mushroom head of Peter's penis slide off his tongue. "I like how it tastes," he says, and feels Peter's penis twitch in his hand. "I like how it smells, and how it feels on my face and my tongue. I love looking at it, it makes me so horny for you, and I really love, when my nose is down by your balls, that smells really good, man, it's like—"

"Enough, God!" Peter's bright red, squirming against the pillows propped up against the headboard. "I get it!"

Mentioning Peter's balls reminds Miles that he hasn't licked them in ages. He gets his face right down there, closing his eyes and inhaling slow, savouring that perfect sex smell. Miles cups Peter's balls tenderly, they're so heavy and full.

"Be careful—those are sensitive," Peter grits out.

Miles licks a stripe up and down, tongues around so he can feel the movement of the testes under the skin, breathes in again and opens his eyes to look up again and smirk. "I know, man, I got 'em too, remember?" He pulls his head back a little, regards Peter's erection as a whole. "Mine aren't as big, though... everything about you is so big..."

"You're... hah..." Peter's penis twitches again as Miles licks it. "You're catching up with me all the time."

Miles doesn't respond for a bit because he'd rather have Peter's penis in his mouth again, fat and full and delicious. He's not lying, he really does love doing this.

Peter's hand is warm as it caresses the back of Miles's neck. "You do this so good..."

The praise makes Miles hum happily before he takes Peter in all the way again, so deep it's filling his throat.

"Ohhh," Peter sighs, long and satisfied. "You gotta stop soon, puppy... gonna knot that cute mouth of yours."

That makes Miles pull off, his own face getting hot and embarrassed, especially because he pulled off so fast it made a really lewd sound. "Cute..." He wipes spit from his chin. "I'm not cute!"

"You're cute to me," says Peter, and he's smiling. That charming smile that oughtta be a superpower all by itself. The one that makes Miles's stomach do a flippy floppy thing and his own smile go all stupid. Especially with the way that Peter is looking at Miles, like he cares about him.

Well, that's not it, of course Peter cares about him, Miles has known for ages that Peter cares about him, but like... really, really, really cares about him...

Even in his own mind Miles can't let himself word it more directly than that.

They're staring in each other's eyes smiling for too long, the moment's gone way too long, and Miles sees the exact second when Peter realizes that what they're doing now is even more intimate than when Miles had Peter's dick in his mouth.

"Uh..." The sound out of Peter's mouth breaks the mood at once, and Miles doesn't wanna hear Peter try to walk this back.

Miles gets up on his hands and knees on the bed again, takes that familiar position, putting his butt towards Peter, so he doesn't have to see that face looking stricken instead of loving.

He hears Peter getting up on his knees, feels the bed dip beneath his weight as the alpha comes up behind him, but Peter doesn't start to fuck him. Instead, Peter's hands both slip slow, along Miles's spine, up from the top of his butt to his mid-back, and then part from each other and slide down, to cradle the swell of Miles's belly.

"How many weeks is it now?" Peter says quietly.

"Twenty-seven," says Miles. "Lucky thirteen to go."

"This is still okay? It's not too heavy or uncomfortable?"

Miles scoffs. "This? This is nothing."

"You'd tell me if anything hurt, right? Or if you had any bleeding? You haven't noticed any blood, after—the day after you've been with me?"

"I'm not that stupid," Miles says, twisting the sheets beneath him into his fists.

Peter sighs. "It's not—I just worry. I worry... about both of you, now..."

Well. It's hard for Miles to be mad at him for that. It's Peter's pup too, after all, and most of the time he's not even in the same dimension as Miles.

"I was thinking, you're getting bigger, maybe you'd more comfortable with a different position."

Miles turns over his shoulder, craning to look at Peter. "Different like what?"

*

Miles is pretty sure that Peter suggested they switch to spooning because it's impossible to make spooning rough, but the position is so intimate that he doesn't even care.

Peter scents him the whole time he's inside him—the whole time—and it's enough to make Miles feel high. He thinks this must be what it's like to huff whippits or something, all dopey and good. Peter kisses the back of his neck and licks behind his ear and whispers dirty praises to him.

Miles falls asleep tied together like that with Peter. When he wakes up in the morning, Peter's still got an arm and a leg over him, really cuddling him, and Miles hates having to get up and go shower all that wonderful Peter-ness off so that he can go back to school.

It's a Friday. In English class they're still studying the Dark Lady sonnets of Shakespeare.

"'Love is too young to know what conscience is, / Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? / Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, / Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove,'" the teacher reads aloud, then says, "Mr. Morales, how would you explain what Shakespeare is saying here in modern English?"

"Um..." Miles squints at the page where he was doodling his tag in the margins. "Uh, well... it's like, when you're in love, that love is kind of born when you fall in love, so it's something young like a pup, and pups don't know right from wrong until they get older. But at the same time, we learn right from wrong in the first place from like, our parents' love, and that kind of thing. So... then, basically, Shakespeare's saying that even though love is young, right and wrong comes from love, so love can't be wrong. So the Dark Lady shouldn't scold him for loving her, because by scolding him, she's actually the one doing wrong and breaking the rules, cheating, whatever."

The teacher looks pleased. "Excellent interpretation, Mr. Morales, well-argued." He turns to the class. "Does anyone have a different interpretation than Mr. Morales?"

*

The next Monday morning his mom comes to sign him out of the school for his obstetrician appointment.

He gets weighed, gets his blood pressure checked, pees in a cup, and pulls his shirt up for Dr. Tran to listen to the baby's heartbeat on a doppler. It's all routine at this point.

But at the end of the appointment, Dr. Tran smiles in a kind of fake way and says, "Could you go wait in the waiting room for a minute, Miles? I just want to talk to your mom for a moment."

"What's wrong?" 

"Oh, the baby's just fine, Miles, it's just some other kinds of stuff that I need to talk to her about."

"Andate ya," his mom scolds, and Miles has to go, but it's not like a puny closed door is gonna keep him from listening.

But he doesn't get anything from eavesdropping via spider sense. Dr. Tran just tells his mom that he can see what he's talking about and that he'll talk to Mr. Davis on the phone about it.

Still, if they didn't want to say it with Miles around, it can't be good.

In his last class, his math teacher gets a call from the office that Miles is supposed to go to a meeting at the main office after class.

"Ooh Miles," some people snicker, and Miles stares at the numbers in his textbook as if there's some formula there to figure out exactly what he's in for.

He sidles in to a conference room with his dad (in his police uniform, never a good feeling), his mom, one of the school guidance counselors, and his social worker.

"Hello Miles," says the guidance counselor in that professionally empathetic way. "How are you doing today? Have a seat."

"Uh, not bad," Miles says, sitting down and figuring out possible exits. There's the obvious windows and the door he just came in through, that looks like a drop ceiling—

"You've been looking better lately," the guidance counselor continues. "Better and better, ever since winter break."

"Yeah, you know, everybody needs a break sometimes right." His eyes scan over the grown-ups. The social worker has the same expression as the guidance counselor. His mom looks worried, and his dad has that expressionless bad cop face.

"Has anything else changed for you since around winter break?"

"Lots of things are changing for me all the time," says Miles, trying to play it off like a smartass as he gestures to his middle.

"Miles," his dad says, but his mom puts a hand on his arm and he doesn't say any more.

The guidance counselor looks at the social worker, who takes over. "You're a really smart kid, Miles," she says. "You've got some real 'street smarts', right?"

You don't know the half of it lady. "Yeah, I guess."

"Your mom and dad, and the school, have been trying to keep you safe, really hard," she says, "but you're managing to get around it somehow, aren't you?"

Miles laughs, because what else can he do? "Get around to do what?"

"Maybe meet with an alpha?" the social worker suggests. Everyone is staring at Miles's eyes, wherever he looks.

"There's lots of alphas here at school."

The social worker folds her hands together. "Miles. It's the job of everybody here at this table to make sure that you're safe. Right now, all four of the adults here are failing that job. None of us are happy with that and we can't let it go on."

"I'm totally safe," Miles says.

"You haven't been honest with us about what really happened during your heat," the social worker continues, as if Miles didn't say anything, "and you're somehow managing to get through all the protections we've tried to set up around you, to a person who is really dangerous to you."

"That's not what's happening."

"What is what's happening, Miles?"

Miles doesn't say anything.

The social worker sighs, and picks up a folder in front of her and takes a pamphlet out of it. She slides the pamphlet over to Miles.

Nest & Nurture School For Omegas At Risk, the pamphlet says at the top in soothing script. There's a picture of a green courtyard with really high fences visible in the background, and three teenagers standing and laughing together. One is pregnant and holding a school book, one is on crutches, and another is holding an infant.

"If we can't keep you safe here," the social worker says while Miles stares at the pamphlet, "then we need to put you somewhere where you can be monitored even more closely."

Miles unfolds the pamphlet.

Barred and alarmed windows. Cameras everywhere. All-beta staff. Daily psychotherapy and parenting classes as well as a 'normal' high school curriculum, whatever normal meant.

"We've really enjoyed having you here at Visions, Miles," the guidance counselor says, "and we want you to stay here with us, but we can't provide as much security and monitoring as Nest & Nurture can."

"Where's—" Miles squints at the address—"Altamont?"

"It's near Albany," says the social worker.

Miles looks at the picture of the barred dorm window and the cameras in the hall and his shock wears off enough for his heart to start beating madly. He'd have to go the rest of his pregnancy without seeing Peter. Without even talking to Peter possibly, because it wouldn't be safe to have the gadget with him.

"It's not too late for you to tell us something now," says the guidance counselor, and when Miles looks up, everyone's got that this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you look of determination. "But this is your last chance, right now. Otherwise, we're going to have to ask your parents to go upstairs with you and pack your stuff to go to Nest & Nurture."

Shit, shit, shit. Miles won't even have time to tell Peter what's happening.

He needs a new story, something that will buy him the rest of today, just the rest of today, at least, even if it'll never hold up—

"It's Ganke's brother," he blurts out, and from then he's just running on adreneline. Whatever comes out of his mouth next will be as much as surprise to him as anybody else.

"Ganke Lee's brother?" the guidance counselor questions gently.

"I didn't want to get him in trouble with his family," Miles says, "his parents don't even really like it that much that Ganke's friends with a black kid, if they knew their other son knocked one up... and I was really embarrassed, Ganke doesn't know and I don't want him to know, it was just a mistake that one time—"

"Slow down, Miles," the guidance counselor says, which is lucky because Miles had no idea what bullshit he might spew next. He's already begging forgiveness of Ganke's parents and brother in his head, because his parents have never been anything but nice to him when he's over at their house to do school stuff and he doesn't think he's ever said anything more to Ganke's brother than "hello". In fact he's not totally sure he remembers Ganke's brother's name. It started with G too, right?

"I can tell you've really been stressed about this," the social worker is saying gently, and Miles tries his best to understand words, "and trying to handle it alone, but these are not insurmountable problems. Nobody has to get in trouble for this, okay? We can work this out, we can get all the families around the table together eventually and I'm sure we can find solutions that everyone can live with."

Nope, no, we definitely can't.

"Let's just calm down for today, okay?" says the social worker, glancing at the other adults. "I think we've made a real breakthrough, I'm just sorry it had to come to this. Let's let Miles go back to his room and calm down, there's no rush. We can meet again tomorrow and talk about our next steps."

Miles hugs his mom and his dad before they go, holding onto them each for too long, even when his dad says he's gotta go back on shift.

"I'm sorry," Miles says, "I just didn't want to get anybody in trouble."

They both say they love him, and Miles says it back.

When Miles gets to his room, he thinks about how he's glad they got to say I love you in person.

It might make this easier.

Miles: I need to come see you NOW. Emergency.

He rummages around his room, getting together anything he might want to have, just in case he can't come back. He already grabbed his webshooters on the way from the guidance counselor's to his room; he'd hidden them inside a hall ceiling tile, way back before he told his parents he was pregnant. He sits down at his desk and starts writing notes, picking up the gadget every couple of minutes to check for messages, just in case he misses the buzz.

Peter: What's the emergency? I'll meet you at my place.

Miles dashes off the note he's currently writing, gets his shit together, and dials the gadget.

Chapter Text

"You running away from home, or something?" Peter says when they get inside the apartment, but even as he says it, Miles can see that not even Peter really means it as a joke.

"They figured out I was somehow getting scented by the alpha that knocked me up," Miles says, dropping his bag next to Peter's couch and sinking into the cushion, "and since they couldn't figure out how I was meeting with you, they decided they needed to send me to some kind of, like, omega jail school upstate."

"Jail school—that's gotta be an exaggeration—"

"It had bars on the windows, Peter," Miles says with heat, his arms crossed over his bump. "In the pamphlet they showed the bars on the windows. I can't live like that."

"Jesus." Peter sits down on the couch too, then gets back up before the couch cushion's even all the way down. "I'm gonna get something to drink, you want something to drink?"

"You got any soda?" Miles says hopefully.

"Eating clean, remember," Peter says. "I got... hold on..." He moves into the kitchen and yells from there. "I got ice tea!"

"Yeah, whatever!"

Peter brings back the ice tea. It's unsweetened and Miles makes a face and puts it back on the coffee table.

"Why you trying so hard to 'eat clean' anyway?" says Miles, glad to have a topic even for a moment that's not about him and all his problems.

Peter pats his gut. "Gotta deal with this," he says, a little sheepish, "I'm not young anymore, and... I dunno, it's stubborn. Even with going out as Spider-Man every day, I just can't seem to get rid of it."

"If you can still fight and save people, then so what if you have a little belly?"

Peter waves it away and drinks the ice tea as if it isn't bitter and nasty. "Not important right now." He looks at Miles side-on. "You're thinking you might not go back, aren't you."

"I don't know... I don't know what I'm supposed to do, man! They're gonna figure out in no time that my new story is even more bullshit than the old one, especially when my kid is born and he's definitely not half-Korean—"

"Why would our pup be half-Korean?"

"Doesn't matter, point is, this story won't hold up. In fact they're probably already checking to see why I didn't come for dinner and then they're going to definitely find out that Ganke's brother has never even touched me."

"You told them the alpha was your roommate's brother?"

"I don't even know where the idea came from! I just had to get out of that room, they were saying if I didn't tell the truth they were gonna take me upstate right away. I panicked!"

"Hey, it's okay," Peter soothes, "if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."

"But it's not gonna work, not if I go back, but... it's not like I can really stay here either, right? I don't have an identity here, and then there's that glitchy problem..."

Peter sighs and puts his hands on his knees. "I thought it might come to something like this. Not exactly like this, but... something, that for some reason or another, your own dimension wouldn't be safe for you. So I looked into some stuff around here."

Miles looks up at him, wide-eyed and hopeful. "You mean you got a plan?"

Peter stands up and goes over to a filing cabinet against the wall, opens a drawer, and pulls a folder out. He comes back to Miles and holds it out to him.

There's a birth certificate, a high school diploma, a New York identification card (with Peter's address on it), a social security card, an insurance card, and even a passport. All with his name—Miles Morales—and the ones with pictures had his picture, or at least someone who looked close enough to him, which was creepy because Miles couldn't remember ever posing for a picture like that.

"It's your high school ID photo with some editing," Peter says, like he's reading Miles's mind. "I borrowed it from your wallet when you slept over."

The birthdate and the SSN and everything, though, those were all different.

"How old am I, according to these?" Miles doesn't really know what year it is, in Peter's New York.

"In this world you turned nineteen on September 11, 2020," says Peter, and he sits back down on the couch. "I figured you'd want to keep the same birthday, so."

"Why nineteen?"

"So that in this universe, you were eighteen when I sired your pup," Peter says bluntly, looking at his hands. "If... if I'm going down on the birth certificate as the pup's sire, you know, if he's born in this universe, if that's what you want, then..."

"You know I'm actually seventeen now."

"I know, but the age of consent in this New York is seventeen, and as long as I was already, you know, lying, to avoid being caught as a statutory rapist, I figured I might as well make you have been eighteen. Safer." Peter scratches his head, looking guilty as hell again. "I'm pretty sure it's also a federal crime to, um, take a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex, and who knows if it counts as crossing state lines, interdimensional travel..."

Miles flips back to the high school diploma. "I graduated high school?"

"I got you good grades and some extracurriculars, too," Peter says, with a smile this time. "If you want to apply to colleges, your grades should be good enough for wherever you want to go, if you can manage the test scores."

Miles's head is swimming and he takes a drink of the nasty tea just to brace himself. 

His running away was really running away—he hadn't even imagined that there was something to run to, some chance of a life where he wasn't being hounded every day by well-meaning people who only wanted the best for him, to the point where they were going to lock him up in a luxury cell just to protect him from the danger they thought he was in...

But he was, he was running to someone, wasn't he.

The same way, when the jellyfish and the heat stripped away everything, he ran to Peter.

And Peter always gave in to him. Always took care of him. Helped him figure stuff out, believed that Miles was capable and could learn...

He slaps the folder closed quickly because his eyes are getting blurry with tears.

"Hormones," says Miles, because Peter's gonna notice, Peter always notices. "The hormones make me cry real easy."

Peter puts his arm around him and Miles sets the folder down on the coffee table and just leans into Peter and relaxes, tears and all.

*

In February, Miles shows up at his door with an overstuffed gym bag, fighting back tears.

From what Miles is saying, his parents and everyone in his life are just doing the best they can based on what they know. They’re trying to protect a kid from being exploited.

Peter can’t figure out any way to clear it up, not without exposing Miles to a whole other set of dangers from having his identity possibly get out big-time. There’s no telling how even the government of Miles’s world might react if they knew his identity, much less villains; and there’s the wrinkle of not just exposing Miles as Spider-Man, but exposing Miles as Spider-Man and an omega.

*

"So I live with you, now?" Miles says, sitting on the bed in pajamas.

"For the time being," says Peter, climbing in bed too. "Had to have something as your current address. We don't have to figure out everything tonight. You had a hard day."

"I know, but... like, tomorrow. What happens tomorrow?"

"I already texted this doctor I know, when you got here," Peter says, "Well, he calls himself a doctor, I'm not sure if he actually, like, went to medical school—" Peter rolls his eyes—"but I'm pretty sure he's better than any regular doctor for what we're dealing with, anyway. Remind me to ask him when we see him tomorrow if he's actually a doctor."

"Uh..."

"Okay, that was badly worded, okay, but he's the perfect person for this," Peter says, "he knows more than anybody I know about dimensional travel and also he can do magic. He sorta does the hand jive and then things happen, it's cool."

"Huh."

*

So Peter has a new... roommate. Ish. Bed partner? How to explain what they were to each other?

For the first time since the heat, they spend the night in the same room without anything occurring but sleep. Back before Miles presented, after they figured out how to cross dimensions on purpose, Miles came to sleep over a few times, starting back when Peter was still in that crappy bedsit... actually, come to think of it, he can remember first getting the crystallized thought “That’s it, I need to move” after one of those sleepovers, because they could hear neighbours having loud sex while the odor of marijuana drifted from the fire escape.

I can’t be exposing Miles to this, Peter thought back then. Oh boy. If he’d only known what he’d be exposing Miles to in only a year’s time.

*

Peter hadn't been kidding around when he said he wasn't the only hero in his universe.

This universe had not only Spider-Man, but whole teams of superheroes: the X-men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers... it was kind of overwhelming, using Peter's computer the next day and seeing all these names.

There were also way more supervillains, though, so maybe it balanced out. Most of the time Miles didn't have to stop anything worse in his universe than a purse-snatcher.

This doctor that Peter takes him to see, Dr. Strange ("I was the youngest person ever to get my MD from Columbia," he says testily when Peter asks if he's a real doctor), is apparently also a superhero.

"How come there's so many heroes here?" Miles asks while Dr. Strange is sitting in a pentagram, complete with candles, not exactly like any doctor visit Miles had ever had before. "Where I'm from, it's just Spider-Man."

"Because this is the prime universe," says Dr. Strange without opening his eyes.

"How come you get to be the prime universe?" Miles objects. "That's not fair."

Dr. Strange does open his eyes for a moment at that, but he's looking at Peter. "He is very young for you."

"Cool it with the mind reading," says Peter, "you know I hate when you do that."

Dr. Strange closes his eyes again and Miles, sufficiently spooked, shuts up.

Miles doesn't find out anything about his placenta or cervix from Dr. Strange, but he does find out that this transdimensional fetus has apparently sufficiently altered Miles's DNA as the carrier that both Miles and the fetus can live in either Miles's dimension or Peter's long-term without the "glitching" that Peter and the other Spiders experienced during the Collider incident.

"Textbook gestational chimera effect," Dr. Strange says, and Miles thinks that the textbooks around here must be a lot different.

*

Miles teleports back to his universe, but not New York, not even New York state. He goes into a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma and buys a prepaid phone and SIM card and then he calls his dad's number while leaning against a telephone pole.

The first time, the phone rings and rings until it goes to voicemail. Miles hangs up and tries again.

"Hello?" his dad answers, sounding more tired and awful than Miles has ever heard from him, even when Uncle Aaron died. Like it's been three years since Miles disappeared, instead of three days.

"Hi dad, it's Mi—"

"Miles," his dad says, "Miles, Rio it's Miles, Miles where are you?"

"Uh." Miles wiggles his toes inside his shoes, wondering why he didn't expect that to be the first thing his dad would say. "It kind of doesn't matter, I'm gonna leave as soon as we hang up—"

"Doesn't matter—it does matter, anywhere you are, even if the alpha's going to move you somewhere else, it'd be a start."

"You really can't track me down, dad," Miles says, getting frustrated, because he's realizing that all his parents are going to want to talk about is how to find him, and they'll never believe it really isn't possible. "You'll just be wasting your time."

"I'm going to find you, Miles," his dad says, sounding angry now, "your mother and I are never gonna give up on you, you hear me? Whatever this alpha's telling you—"

"Listen, dad, would you listen?" Miles says, and his father actually does stop, and at first Miles doesn't say anything, because he didn't really think that would work, so then he has to speak in a rush to stop his father talking again. "Dad, I know you guys won't give up on me, I know that, I just wish, it's, the reason I'm calling, dad, I know you guys must have been worried that maybe I'm dead, and I'm not dead, and, and, I'm gonna call you again, later, sometime... not sure when, but I'll keep calling you like this, okay, so you know I'm not dead, I'm okay—not that you're gonna believe I'm okay but at least you can believe I'm not dead, and maybe that way you won't, you know, hurt so much."

It all came out in a big rush, and when there's silence again, Miles worries that maybe the call dropped, or his father couldn't understand what he was saying or something.

"Hello? You still there?" says Miles.

"Yeah, I'm here," says his dad, and God, his dad sounds so unhappy. "You won't tell me anything about where you are? Or the alpha?"

"I really love you, dad," Miles says as an answer.

A long, long sigh. "I love you too. Always."

He talks to his mother, which is worse, because she's crying so much he can barely even understand her, except that she wants him to come home, and all Miles can say back is that he loves her and he misses her, too, but he can't come home right now.

His parents don't wanna hang up the phone, but it isn't as if they have anything to talk about, it's not like they can chat, while his parents probably think he's being held in some psychopath's basement somewhere, some nightmare serial killer who managed to brainwash their one and only pup. Eventually Miles just can't take it anymore and with shaking fingers he hangs up the phone, drops it on the ground, and sets the teleporter to take him back to Peter's dimension.

*

Miles doesn’t dawdle with his clothes off now, doesn’t shoot Peter pleading looks with his hand on Peter’s knee, like it would be such a huge favour if Peter would let Miles suck his dick but could he please let him suck it, just this once? He emerges from the bathroom already in pajamas, or he goes to bed while Peter is still out patrolling.

Part of Peter hopes that this is the beginning of the end, that Miles has realized what he’s had to give up because of what Peter did to him, and is starting to get rightfully resentful about it. That once the pup is born and Miles doesn’t need Peter’s scent, the transition to Miles having a new, independent existence will be gradual and easy for the kid.

Peter’s already hinted to Miles about college. Every day he debates with himself: should I mention to him that I can retire from being Spider-Man to watch the pup full-time, while he goes to school? Or will Miles experience that as rushing him to become a student before he’s ready? After all, having a baby is a big deal, even with childcare—pairing an infant with starting college can’t be easy. Or, worse, will Miles start trying to insist that this situation isn’t Peter’s fault, that Miles doesn’t want to wreck Peter’s life? Would he start trying to make alternate plans to “spare” Peter from “having” to watch the pup?

In the meantime, at least he can indulge himself shamelessly with all the non-sexual spoiling of his pregnant omega his heart desires. The kid’s favourite ice cream shares space in the freezer with Peter’s green smoothie kits. Peter buys a new video game console and games for it as if he just wanted to do it anyway. Scenting, of course, is a multiple times a day necessity. Also, Miles’s feet and ankles swell a little, so Peter gives him foot rubs.

*

It's weird, but even though they'd had sex every time they met between winter break and Miles running away, at the end of two weeks living at Peter's apartment full time Miles realizes they haven't had sex once.

Peter scents him, a lot, and holds him at night, and when they watch TV together, like they are now, Miles usually ends up with his feet in Peter's lap.

Peter’s rubbing Miles’s foot absently while he stares at the horror movie on the TV. It’s really nice, especially because these days his feet are kind of swollen.

But they're not having sex, and they're not kissing, or anything else that is like lovers.

Maybe that's just natural, Miles definitely has been too depressed to be horny, thinking about his parents and everyone else and how frantic they must be trying to find someone who disappeared without a trace.

It’s all backwards and dumb, because he should be glad, right, that Peter’s being so kind and patient and letting Miles take the lead, but...

It makes it so obvious that it’s been Miles initiating it every time. It makes him remember that Peter doesn’t really want Miles, not like Miles wants Peter, he doesn’t want to choose Miles, it’s just that Miles has figured out how to mash the buttons of Peter’s alpha instincts so hard that he gives in.

Peter sets the foot he was working on back down in his lap and picks up the other one, still staring at the TV.

Miles moves the heel of the dropped foot in on Peter's lap, rubs it lightly against Peter's crotch through his joggers.

"Hey!" Peter exclaims, dropping Miles's other foot and grabbing back at the offending one.

"You're not hard," says Miles.

"Well no shit!" Peter almost laughs, gesturing at the television, where blood is spurting out of somebody's throat. "You think I get hard watching horror movies?! What do you take me for?"

It's completely valid, which makes Miles feel even more stupid about bringing this up and so he digs in stubbornly. "I mean you're not really attracted to me."

The speechless expression Peter gives him this time is really something. His jaw hangs, closes, moves as if to speak, hangs again, and finally says, "What in the goddamn hell are you talking about?!" He looks down at Miles's belly and something clicks, though he still sounds disbelieving when he says, "Is this some kind of body image thing? You think you look fat?"

"No, I don't mean right now, not attracted," says Miles, yanking his feet back out of Peter's lap and planting them on the floor to get up and waddle off. "Forget it."

Peter catches his arm and with his unfamiliar off-balance centre of gravity, Miles nearly wipes out, but Peter catches him, of course, the fucking perfect reflexes bastard, and then Miles is being cradled back in Peter's arms like he's just been dipped in a ballroom dance and he's so embarrassed he could choke on his own spit.

"You think I'm not attracted to you?!" Peter says down at him, still all incredulous, and then his face softens like Miles's face is doing something to him, like what Peter's face does to Miles all the goddamn time. "Jesus, Miles, what am I supposed to do with you?"

Miles doesn't have the slightest clue. He feels so small, being held like this, looking up at Peter like this, and he feels like he shouldn't like feeling that small, but he does, if it's Peter who's the big one. He loves it.

Then Peter leans down and pulls him in and they're kissing, Miles still lost and inexperienced, Peter all desperate and hot and hungry over him, his stubble scratching him, stealing the breath out of him, so that Miles has to gulp air in when Peter breaks the kiss.

"How can you still not understand that I shouldn't want you?" Peter says fiercely. "I fucked your whole life over, I stole you from your parents and ruined their life too, I shouldn't be rewarded, having you in my bed every night with my scent all over you and my pup inside you, and then on top of that, on top of that, I still want... I still want..."

Peter's staring at his neck, now, and Miles feels the hand that's cradling the nape of his neck rub at his scent glands.

"You wanna mark me?" whispers Miles.

"More than fucking anything," Peter says, and it comes out all broken and sad. "I want... I want to keep you, Miles, but I shouldn't, and I shouldn't have told you, but then you come at me and say you think I'm not attracted to you?!" He laughs without a trace of humour. "How do you always worm this shit out of me? How do you always... How is it that I can't ever say no..."

"Didn't... didn't you mark MJ?" The MJ in his world was marked; Miles remembered how she wore her hair off her neck at the funeral, like the scar was the finest piece of jewelry in the world, how the news cameras zoomed in on it.

"No. We... When..." Peter presses his lips together again and says, "No, I didn't."

Well, of course, if they were divorced, if MJ was looking for somebody else, he couldn't have marked her, marking was permanent... "You really like me that much?"

Peter looks at Miles's lips again, and Miles hopes that Peter will just kiss him instead of answering, that he won't make Miles have to hear that it's about taking responsibility and—

"It's way beyond liking, Miles."

Oh, I get it, this is a dream, Miles thinks as he stares up at Peter's eyes.

"I'm in love with you," says the Peter that absolutely cannot possibly actually be Peter but sure does sound and look and smell like him, are you supposed to be able to smell in dreams? "I shouldn't be saying this. I told myself I wouldn't try to trap you, that when you were more used to being in this dimension that I'd help you find your own life, your own friends, watch the pup whenever you wanted so you could go to college and on dates and be young and take your time to find the right person—"

"You're the only person," Miles interrupts, and Peter groans and it must be the wrong thing to say because then Miles is being tilted back up into sitting on the couch, and instead of holding him in a romantic embrace Peter's standing up and pacing like his biology teacher during exams.

"That's exactly the kind of thing that proves you're too young for how I feel about you," Peter lectures. "You don't even know anybody else in this dimension, you haven't lived, how can you make a commitment like that now?"

"Well then why can't we date?" says Miles, and Peter stops and stares at him. "You want me to find my own life and all that stuff and go on dates—why can't you be, like, the first person I date?"

A woman on the television screams really shrilly, and Peter winces, grabs the remote, and shuts it off. "You want to go on dates with me."

"Why not?" Miles challenges again.

"Don't make your eyes all big like that."

"This is the size my eyes always are."

"I know, that's the whole damn problem," Peter mutters. "Jesus. Alright, hell, you win again. We can date."

*

It’s an innocent foot rub that leads to the incredible accusation from Miles that he thinks Peter’s not attracted to him. And not just some kind of temporary pregnancy body image thing, either, as hard as that would have been to accept, but Miles thinks Peter never liked him like that at all.

It’s so absurd and upside-down that in trying to make sense of it, Peter allows it to come out that he’s not only attracted to Miles but seriously in love with the kid, to the point of wanting to pair-bond him.

Is Miles just, like, walking xylazanine to his brain? Maybe some kind of ray weapon that he shoots from those starry eyes of his?

So they’re dating. If you’re cohabitating with someone you’re dating, then that’s not just newly dating, right? That’s boyfriend level. And that boyfriend is pregnant with your kid? That’s partner level.

Peter quietly freaks out about this in the shower for so long that the water gets cold and Miles bangs on the door to ask if he’s alive in there.

Like a lot of couples, when he and MJ split up, there was an unspoken “who gets each friend” sort of deal, and Peter being Peter, he let MJ have all the friends—all the ones who were still alive, anyway. There was really only Strange, whose... friendship? with him was, well, strange, and then Tony Stark, who Mary Jane always found a little irritatingly flamboyant anyway.

Should he... text them?

He should text MJ, at least, right? Because if Miles wants to be taken on dates—God, what a weird thought—it might get in the news.

Peter gets out of the shower.

“Sorry, my mind was wandering,” he tells Miles.

“I made you one of your nasty ass smoothies,” Miles says.

Peter drinks the smoothie and works on composing a text to MJ.

You remember that omega heat you smelled

Nope, nope, not starting with that.

Hey MJ, just if the press gets a hold of it, I’ve started dating someone. It’s pretty serious, we’re expecting a baby toget

Just rub her face in it, right? God. After all those years of telling MJ that they’d have a baby “someday, when the time is right, when I’m ready.” When MJ finally gives up on him—suddenly he’s ready? He’s gonna break the news of all that at once, in a text? Peter can’t stand the idea of smashing her heart like that all over again.

Maybe he can break it to her a little at a time. Today, I’ve started dating again, wanted you to know in case the press reports on it. Next week, I’ve gotten serious with someone, he’s an omega guy and his name is Miles. Two weeks, Miles and I are living together. Three weeks, Miles and I are having a baby.

Part of him mutters darkly that this is just a matter of shoving the knife in all at once or slowly, because I’m having the family you once wanted so badly for us with someone else is not going to be unshocking news for MJ, whether it’s delivered in one text or four texts over the course of a month. The single text might well be kinder.

But Peter just can’t bring himself to do it.

Peter: I just wanted to let you know, if the press reports on it, I’ve started dating again.

He gets a reply from MJ pretty quickly.

MJ: That’s swell Peter but I’m in a Broadway show right now so please look at the clock next time before you text me

Peter looks at the time. 8:30am. Oops.

Chapter Text

At the 32 week ultrasound, Peter gets to be there.

It's not with Dr. Strange, which Miles can't help but be relieved about. It's the same Presbyterian Hospital—more or less the same, in that unsettling way, like everything—as where he saw Dr. Tran in the other universe, but instead of going to obstetrics, the directory in the main lobby has MUTAGENETIC CARE right above NEUROLOGY and NUCLEAR MEDICINE, and that's the button number that Peter presses in the elevator.

The receptionist has green skin and an extra pair of arms. "Mr. Parker!" she says, surprised. "Do you need a walk-in?"

"Nah, we're here for Morales, Miles. M-O-R-A-L-E-S, M-I-L-E-S."

One pair of hands goes clickety-clack on the keyboard while a third hand extends towards Peter and Miles. "You have the insurance card?"

Miles gets weighed, gets his blood pressure taken, and pees in a cup.

Dr. Rosenberg looks like an ordinary human, as far as Miles can tell. "Okay, so, this is your first time at our hospital... or any hospital, as far as the records I've been given."

"Yeah, uh... I guess hospital records don't really go across dimensions like that."

"Not a problem. Probably still not the weirdest thing I've seen this week."

It's a long appointment since they have to go over a lot of stuff, including stuff Miles has never talked with a doctor about, like the whole radioactive spider bite, and Peter seems restless and distracted, fidgeting with one of those little Newton's Cradle toys on the doctor's desk, until the time comes for the ultrasound.

"Is that good? Is that normal?" Peter keeps interrupting. "The doctors in the other dimension didn't know anything about mutations. Is there anything different? Can you tell yet?"

"I can't tell you anything if you don't let me finish a sentence," says Dr. Rosenberg. "Let's focus on the diagnostic purpose of this ultrasound before we move into speculation."

"Right. Right, sorry."

"So there's no placenta previa—covering of the cervix by the placenta—which is good, because that means your risks of excessive bleeding if you go into labour spontaneously are lower," says Dr. Rosenberg to Miles. "It's your body and your choice whether or not to do a trial of labour, but I would recommend a scheduled c-section for a few reasons. First, patients with superhuman muscle strength are at a much higher risk of abnormally strong contractions, which can cause a number of other problems, such as precipitate birth—meaning a birth that happens so quickly, you may not be able to get to medical attention in time for assistance—and also lacerations and associated hemorrhaging. Secondly—"

"That first reason seems good enough to me," says Miles, trying not to think of lacerations and associated hemorrhaging in the context of his asshole.

Dr. Rosenberg smiles. "I'll say the second reason anyway, since maybe it'll reassure you. The second reason is that your healing factor means that we can expect a lot of the risks of abdominal delivery to be substantially lower for you, and your recovery time to be quicker than the usual six weeks, potentially much quicker. I've seen c-sec patients with healing factors look like they've never had a surgery in their lives the next day."

"So we'll go with that," says Miles.

"Informed consent means I have to explain to you the risks that do exist with c-section," Dr. Rosenberg says. "The major risk for you individually is that we have no data at all about how your body handles anesthesia. That's a huge question mark and not something any surgeon wants to figure out on the fly."

"You know how my body does with it," Peter says.

"But your powers are not exactly the same," Dr. Rosenberg. "I wouldn't consider it at all, it might lead to false confidence. What I want you to mentally start preparing yourself for, Miles, is the possibility of a partially or fully unanesthetized surgery. Meaning you'd feel all or some of the pain."

"I can handle pain," Miles says, still thinking it sounds better than blood cascading out of a torn rectum.

"Okay. I'll start getting you booked in for week 37, then; that's full-term. I'll want to see you in the clinic every week, so we can check for any signs of pre-term labour or other risks..."

At the end when the doctor asks if either of them have any questions, Peter blurts out, "Sex is dangerous right?"

"Anal intercourse?" Dr. Rosenberg says, matter-of-fact and unembarrassed. "Shouldn't be an issue, assuming you're free of STIs. If anything, frequent knotting is correlated with reduced lacerations, in the event that a natural birth happened after all. As for oral-genital contact, have you ever had cold sores? If so, avoid anilingus as an initial herpes outbreak during birth can be quite dangerous for the newborn."

Miles gives Peter an I-can't-believe-you-just-went-and-asked-her-that-man look but Peter ignores him and says, "What can I do, is there anything I can do to help him?"

Dr. Rosenberg smiles. "Emotional support, frequent scenting, these are the principal things omegas need from alphas in pregnancy. If sex is a way that the two of you connect, then medically, I recommend it."

*

Peter lets Miles squat on top of him, intertwines their fingers to keep balance while he rides him, says dirty things in a gentle voice. "I can't get enough of seeing my cock disappear into you. You look so fucking pretty when you take it."

Miles has his eyes closed, focusing on the feel of the penis inside him as he makes sharp little noises with his lower lip between his teeth.

"That's it, Miles," Peter says when he hears the whimpers increase in intensity. "Just like that, puppy. Let me see how beautiful you are when you come."

Miles's eyes are squeezed so tightly shut it's disorienting when he does come, and he has to switch from a squat down to his knees and just grind, barely lifting up and down at all, squeezing his anus tight around Peter's penis to get that extra stimulation while his own untouched penis spits out pulses of come.

When Miles stills and opens his eyes, Peter says, "You wanna stop?"

Miles can feel his own come on the bottom of his belly, from his penis being trapped underneath it. He can't see his penis looking down even when he's fully erect right now.

"Um," Miles looks at his right hand, pressed palm to palm with Peter's left. "I don't wanna stop, but..."

"We can switch positions," Peter says. "Do you wanna spoon? Or I can just take care of it myself. I have working hands."

"But I want your knot inside me."

You'd think Miles didn't weigh a thing, the ease and control with which Peter lifts him off, turns him, positions him on his side, and then lines his cock back up and slides in.

"If you say things like that," Peter grunts, "then you're definitely gonna get it."

*

“Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

Miles blinks at Peter from the other side of the booth at a taco joint. “We are out to dinner. I mean, I know I’m pregnant, but I still only need one dinner.”

Peter laughs. “No, not tonight, I mean... Later, someplace nice.” He fidgets with the little bottle of Valentina on the table, pushing the hot sauce back and forth. “I’m asking now because you’d probably need to get nicer clothes.”

“Oh... like, a nice nice place?” Miles picks up a napkin and wipes his face, then looks down, but not at his single remaining taco. He’s looking at his belly. “Um... wouldn’t it be a waste of money to buy a suit that I’ll only fit into for another month?”

“I’m not saying you’d have to get a whole suit,” Peter says. “Maybe just a polo shirt and some khakis? And shoes. For shoes, your school uniform shoes would work...”

Peter can’t help but notice a woman standing waiting for her take-out order raise her eyebrows sharply at hearing the words school uniform shoes. She glances at Miles’s pregnant belly and gives Peter a dirty look. Peter rubs at the back of his neck, feeling his ears burning. Yeah, he deserved that dirty look.

Miles mumbles, “My uniform shoes are kinda tight right now. Plus... I don’t know, man.”

Peter forces his attention back only on Miles. “What?”

“I guess I’m worried I’d embarrass you. I mean, like, you’re talking someplace fancy in the city, right?”

“We don’t have to do it, but there’s no way you could ever embarrass me, Miles. I was just thinking that once the pup comes it’ll be impossible for us to have a quiet dinner at a place like that for a long time, until he’s old enough for a sitter. I just...” Peter hears the woman make a disgusted you-know-I-can-hear-you noise, but pushes on anyway. “If you’re gonna date me, I want to give you, y’know, nice dates. Not just—”

“Hold on a sec, Peter. Hey, mind your own business, lady.”

“I didn’t say anything to you,” the woman says, and then mutters, “Puta cazafortuna.”

This doesn’t mean anything to Peter, but apparently does to Miles, because he says something angry back in rapid-fire Spanish, and suddenly the woman and Miles are talking over each other.

“Hey, hey, hey, your order’s here, okay, watch your language in the restaurant please,” says a staff member, and the lady takes her order and leaves in a huff.

Miles, still pissed, picks up his soda and drinks it.

“Uh... do you want to go?”

“No,” Miles huffs, setting the plastic cup down with a disgruntled thunk. “I still have one taco left.”

“...Do you wanna tell me what that was about, or should we just forget about it?”

“She just called me a stupid golddigger and stuff.” Miles picks up his taco. “Guess she didn’t expect me to know Spanish. I hate that type. Wants to be all up in everybody’s business but can’t stand being called out on it.”

Peter eats a forkful of curtido as Miles eats his taco, then says, “Hey.”

When Miles meets his eyes, Peter continues, “I mean it. I’d never find you embarrassing.”

Miles takes a little too large of a bite to finish the taco, making his cheeks go all chipmunk as he chews it. He hides his face partway with a napkin and laughs once he’s swallowed. “You sure man? I embarrass me.”

That’s because you’re young. It’s on the tip of his tongue. He should say it. He shouldn’t say it. You’re so, so young Miles, and you think you’re a mess, but you’re not. You’re already amazing and you’re only just getting started.

“I guess you gonna say it’s ‘cause I’m young,” Miles says guilelessly.

“It’s partially that,” Peter hedges. “You... I mean, you are young. Things hit harder when you’ve got less experience, and other people’s opinions seem more important...”

“So it’s really true that when you get older you don’t care what people think?”

“Yes and no, I guess. I definitely can’t say I don’t get bothered by what people think. But it’s better than when I was a teenager.”

Miles nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Well... you do have a good point, that it’ll be hard to go someplace fancy with a baby. Probably need new shoes, anyway.”

*

Miles isn't a prisoner in Peter's apartment, but he doesn't know anyone other than Peter and it often feels weird and disorienting to go around in this Brooklyn, so alike yet so unalike from the one he knows, so he tries to keep the explorations he makes while Peter's patrolling within a reasonable distance from Peter's apartment. It seems like it's a pretty safe area, he's not worried about running into trouble, especially since he's still got his spider sense.

His spider sense blares when he runs into a dude wearing a bright red spandex suit with black eyeholes, suddenly just there when he turns a corner, but the guy just says, "Hey!" all cheerful, with his hands on his hips, leaving a good distance between them. "I keep seeing you coming in and out of Spidey's apartment these days! You must be the guy who's put the spring back in his step, right? The wobble in his web, am I right?"

"Who are you?" says Miles.

The man laughs, then cuts it off mid-laugh. "Oh. You're serious. You new around here, bud? A crossover character, maybe? An OC? Don't tell me we're in a fanfic." The man looks around suspiciously, then his body language relaxes. "Aw, hell, I won't judge, even if you're a self-insert. Like I haven't been gagging to self-insert into Spidey's arms for years."

Miles can't follow a word of what the man is saying, and starts to think that maybe this guy isn't a hero or a villain but just an actual crazy person in a suit, and that's what pinged off the danger. There are people walking by unbothered and cars passing but this is New York, it would take a lot more than a crazy homeless guy to make people panic. "Uh, I suddenly remembered something, but it's been nice talking—"

"Deadpool," Peter's voice interrupts, and Miles looks up to see Peter on the roof of a nearby lowrise, looking down. "What are you doing here?"

"Turning up like a bad penny," Deadpool says cheerfully.

Peter sighs. "If you've got something to talk about, we might as well go to my place."

*

"So it is a crossover," Deadpool crows, "that was my first guess! Double points for me!"

"That the only thing you wanted to know?" Peter's got his mask up as they stand in the kitchen. He doesn't look hostile, but he doesn't exactly look friendly, either.

"Guessing was more fun than knowing," says Deadpool. "I wanna guess other things, too."

"I don't really have time for games right now," Peter says.

"But you've been fun lately," Deadpool says, "fun the way you used to be fun before, and he's why, isn't he?"

"Uh," Miles cuts in, "I still don't really know who this guy is. Is he a hero?"

Deadpool and Peter both make an ehhhhh sound and wobble a hand back and forth at almost exactly the same moment, and Miles blinks.

"We're a lot alike except I get to say fuck," Deadpool says.

"Peter says fuck," says Miles.

"So we are in a fanfic. Double points for me again!"

Miles looks to Peter for help, and Peter shrugs. "He's always saying things like that. There's no point in trying to understand him. You get used to it."

"I won't lean on the fourth wall anymore, it's not that sturdy," says Deadpool, and hikes himself up onto the kitchen counter. "Okay, old buddy, old partner, old pal. Word's getting around, you know. Nothing makes word spread faster than when it's 90% speculation. Nobody can really figure out what this pregnant omega you're living with is to you."

"Are you saying that there might be some villain or something interested in me?" says Miles, a little excited at the prospect of action that he can't avoid being involved in after so long.

"No, way worse than a villain. An ex-wife. I got... two, three..." Deadpool counts on his fingers for a moment, then shrugs. "I have ex-wives, which is why I'm not taking on any new wives now, because the wife to ex-wife pipeline does terrible things. Sixty Minutes should investigate."

Miles looks at Peter, but if Peter's face showed any big reaction to Deadpool's words, Miles missed it. Instead Peter just says, calm and rational, "I'm sure we can handle this like adults."

Deadpool gives Peter a double thumbs up. "Good luck with that one then. I've said my piece, so... peace."

Then he opens the kitchen window and tries to get out, but it's pretty narrow so it takes him a little while to squeeze through it, swearing constantly, while Miles and Peter stand there silently watching.

*

Dating Peter is weird. Or rather, it's not that it's weird, but calling it a date feels weird, instead of calling it hanging out. Hanging out with Peter, talking with him, and laughing about stuff, and teasing each other, and eating, and doing things together—all of that just feels natural and right, and adding in more touching and scenting and even kissing just makes it better, especially since they're having sex again in Peter's bed at night.

Like here they are, Peter's taken him to see the Mets' opening day, and it doesn't feel weird to be sitting next to Peter, Miles drinking a milkshake while Peter is eating a hot dog with one hand ("Okay, even I can't eat clean at a Mets game") while his other arm is draped loosely over Miles's shoulder, except when Miles has that actual, all-put-together thought, "This is a date, I'm on a date with Peter, because we're dating," and then suddenly he feels funny all over.

It's both similar and different to the last time he went to a Mets game, in the other dimension. Some of the brands are different, which is always slightly unnerving, including the corporation that paid to name the field, and the apparently "huge movie star" that threw out the first pitch was somebody that Miles vaguely recognized as a supporting character on his abuela's favourite telenovela back in his universe, the one she always had on when she babysat him.

These are definitely better seats than the ones he sat in with his dad. Peter's got them up behind home plate, which Miles is vaguely aware tends to be expensive, but since Peter's apartment is so much nicer now he must be doing okay financially.

Of course the biggest difference between the two ball games was that back in September, Miles spent the whole ball game telling himself he couldn’t possibly be pregnant, whereas now, with just two weeks until his scheduled c-section, he can literally rest his nachos on top of his belly like a shelf.

"Oh geez," Peter moans when their side's batter strikes out and it's the Phillies turn to bat. He pulls on the brim of his ball cap and stretches in dissatisfaction. "I swear, if I'm watching, they always lose. Maybe I'm the jinx."

Miles grins at him. "Hey, there's still a lot of innings left, you can't give up on them already."

"Yeah but if you expect everything to go wrong then you can't be disappointed," Peter says, but he's smiling back.

"Lemme guess, that's the story of your life too, huh?"

Peter takes his sunglasses off, and a thrill shoots up Miles's spine because Peter's gonna kiss him.

"Used to be," Peter says, leaning in. "Hasn't been lately."

Their baseball caps bump into each other and skew as they kiss, and they both start laughing about it.

"You took off your sunglasses but forgot the hats," Miles snickers against Peter's cheek. "Dork."

"I took the glasses off so I could see you better," Peter says.

"Don't get smooth on me now man," says Miles, and then they're kissing again.

They're so much in their own world that they don't even realize they're on the Kiss Cam, until they hear people all around saying words that pop out from background buzz.

"Is that Peter Parker?"

"Holy crap, that's Spider-Man, isn't it?"

"It can't be Spider-Man, that's not Mary Jane Watson."

They look at the big screen and there they are, Miles looking bewildered and Peter with a somewhat annoyed smile.

Oh, right... in this universe a lot of superheroes have their real identities known, Peter told me his was known...

"Act like it's no big deal," Peter says out of the side of his mouth, "have some nachos."

It's truly a testament to the stability of his pup bump that the nachos haven't jostled at all, and Miles obediently grabs a chip and gets to see his blown up face eating it for a few seconds before the Kiss Cam switches to another couple.

*

A couple days later they're at home playing video games when there's a knock at the door, which is unusual, but Miles doesn't sense any danger. There's a faint omega scent.

Peter, though, looks downright hunted as he gets up, and when he opens the door, a rolled up magazine thunks into his chest.

"You are really a piece of work, Peter," this universe's Mary Jane Watson says as she comes in, and she doesn't even glance at Miles, but Miles can't take his eyes off of her. The same curly bright red hair and sprinkle of freckles, but she's older, older like this Peter is older. "Don't you think your text to me was missing something?"

"I told you I was in a new relationship, in case it got into the news," Peter says, holding the magazine in one hand, still all coiled up. "You didn't ask any questions."

"Because there's no way that it would have ever occurred to me to ask if this 'new relationship' was with an omega who's about ready to pop!" she says. "Look at that magazine!"

Peter unrolls it and looks down, and when MJ looks over towards the living room but her eyes don't see him, Miles realizes he's turned himself invisible unconsciously, and decides that his unconscious mind has real good ideas.

"It's a tabloid," Peter says contemptuously, closing the magazine back up after only scanning it for a couple of seconds.

"It's humiliating," MJ says, and it's quiet, really quiet, and now Miles is second-guessing the whole invisibility thing, because now he feels like he's spying on someone who's about to have a breakdown. "It's not just the public—my friends, all the people I meet for work—everybody's laughing at me behind their hands. Spider-Man has a mid-life crisis and trades in for a young, fertile omega. Mary Jane Watson obviously put her mediocre career as an actress ahead of starting a family—"

"You shouldn't pay attention to—"

"I'm an actress, Peter, how many times do I have to tell you I have to pay attention to what people are saying?!"

Peter looks over at Miles and double takes, and then Miles sees him register the dip in the couch cushions and realize that Miles is still there, invisible. Mary Jane is looking too, confused, trying to figure out what's got Peter shook, but when Peter sighs she looks back at him as he says, "You're right. I should have tried harder to keep a low profile. It didn't even occur to me that this would affect your career. I'm sorry."

MJ sighs too and starts walking into the living room, right towards the couch.

"Let's—let's not have this conversation on the couch," Peter says in a rush, getting between MJ and Miles.

"Oh? Where do you propose we have it?"

"Uh... well..."

Miles can't see her, but he hears MJ take another shaky breath in.

"Just tell me this. The pup—is it yours?"

Miles stares up at Peter's broad back and shoulders.

"Yes. That omega heat you smelled—"

"I knew it," she says quietly. "I can smell him all around here. He's probably in your bedroom, right?"

"MJ... I really am sorry."

"So you get the family you wouldn't give me with someone else," she says, cold and brutal. "Good for you, Tiger. Enjoy it."

"MJ..."

She's at the door and gone without another word.

Peter closes the door and leans his head on his forearm against it.

"How come she didn't need to be buzzed in?" says Miles, as if that matters.

"Doorman would have recognized her," Peter says, and then he straightens up, seems to shake himself a little, and comes back down the little alcove into the living room, where Miles is visible again.

"You okay man?" says Miles, and Peter half-smiles.

"I thought we weren't gonna talk about the g-word," he says. Peter sits back down next to Miles, drops the Hello! magazine down on the coffee table, and picks up his controller. "You wanna finish this level?"

Miles doesn't pick up the other controller. Instead he picks up the magazine, and he's thinking that Peter's gonna tell him not to look, but Peter doesn't say anything as Miles opens up to the table of contents and finds the page number for "PDA from PBP! Spider-Man caught canoodling on Kiss Cam at Mets game".

The page has stills from before Miles and Peter realized they were being broadcast to the whole stadium. Them kissing, them cracking up, kissing again, and finally a super awkward still of Miles with some of that bright orange cheese-like topping on his upper lip as he chews nachos.

The weirdest part is the text. They don't name Miles but they describe him as "cute" and "adorable" and write things like "even the notoriously private Parker just couldn't resist showing off his sweetie," which kind of makes Miles want to throw up.

Then there's the stuff that must have made Mary Jane angry enough to come over. There's a little unflattering inset image of her, and they write "while sources close to the former couple insisted the split was amicable, nobody could miss how dejected the web-slinger was after the actress (best known for her role on the short-lived Law & Order: Bomb Squad) left him after nearly fifteen childfree years together. College sweethearts, Parker converted to Watson's Jewish faith and supported her during an often uneven career, but when Parker's financial situation crashed with the bankruptcy of TGI-Spidey's, their relationship seemed to cool, and they officially called it quits in 2017, just after the death of Parker's beloved aunt who raised him."

Then they congratulate Peter on finding someone who has "clearly mended his broken heart" and express wishes for a safe delivery of their upcoming "bundle of joy."

"Penny for your thoughts?" Peter says.

"They make MJ sound like a monster," Miles says.

"Heroes and villains, kid." The couch creaks a little as Peter leans back. "Outrage sells. Guess how they'll spin it if I try to make a statement to defend MJ. Go on, guess."

Miles looks up. "They... they'll probably say you're being such a gentleman, and hate on her even more?"

"Bingo. It'll just prolong the news cycle." Peter sighs and rubs his chin.

Miles looks back at the magazine and closes it, making a face as he tosses it on the coffee table. "I can't believe they called me your 'sweetie.' Ugh."

The controller lightly hits the arm of the couch, and Peter's wrapping himself around Miles from behind, his stubble tickling at the back of Miles's neck, making him laugh and squirm. "That part wasn't so wrong."

"Oh, come on, man—"

"You do taste very sweet," Peter growls, pulling Miles into his lap, and Miles can feel how quickly Peter's getting hard, and he squirms even more for the pleasure of feeling the bulge press up against him more and more. "Maybe I should start calling you sweetie."

"No," Miles laughs, getting wet, wondering if Peter is gonna take him right there on the couch, if it'll make the living room have the same sex smell that their bedroom does. "Not sweetie, man, c'mon, that's too cheesy."

"Right, right, of course, you don't like cheesy at all," Peter teases, reaching into the front of Miles's sweatpants from the side to wrap his hand around Miles's penis. "You only like totally uncheesy names, like when I call you puppy."

"Anh," Miles whines, trying to squirm more, but Peter's forearm is pressing down on his thigh as he works Miles's penis and his other arm is wrapped around Miles's upper chest, keeping him from doing more than making little frantic movements against the alpha's now fully hard erection.

"Puppy," Peter says again, and licks at Miles's earlobe, whispers it directly. "Puppy."

Miles comes, so embarrassingly fast, creaming into his underwear and his sweatpants as Peter laughs at him.

*

“Buddy pal!”

Peter nearly misses his landing. “Jesus, Deadpool, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Oh. The dudes with the guns?”

“No, I’m hunting for Easter eggs—yes the guys with the guns, by the way, duck.”

They duck, and a volley of machine gun fire smashes above their heads.

“Ouchie,” says Deadpool mournfully, and a hole at the top of his mask reveals that one of the bullets must have grazed the top of his head. Peter doesn’t worry about it, though. He’s seen Deadpool shrug off worse. “They seem like some real meanie-faces. Ruining a guy’s egg hunt.” He stands up. “Hey, jackasses! Don’t you know it’s Easter?!”

A few minutes later, the problem is cleared up, but many more of the gangsters are now corpses than would have been the case if Peter had handled it solo, so Peter’s not exactly feeling grateful for the help.

“Creme egg?” says Deadpool, holding a fist out.

Peter takes the offered object, and it’s an honest to God Cadbury creme egg, only slightly smushed. “Where did... you know what, I don’t care. Here, you can have it back, I’m on a diet.”

Deadpool pulls up the bottom of his mask long enough to pop the chocolate egg into scarred mouth. “Thankth fren,” he says with his mouth full.

“It was your egg in the first place. And we’re not friends. Jesus, look what you did to this guy’s face.” Peter turns that particular body—what’s left of it—face down. “What do you want?”

“You’re always playing hard to get,” Deadpool says in a tone of admiration and rests his cheek on his fist, elbow on his other hand. “I just wanna get, Spidey.”

“Oh my God,” Peter groans, and starts walking away, not wanting to have this conversation, whatever the hell it’s going to be, in the earshot of some tied-up criminals who are probably already traumatized for life by the way they just saw their comrades get sliced up by swords and who knows what else. “I had it handled in the first place.”

“But I like helping,” Deadpool whines, chasing after him. “Please please please please please—”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“Hmm, if you put it that way, then, hell no. I’m gonna say just one more time, why are you here?!”

“Because I wanted to tell you about how helpful I’ve been! With people getting ideas about your new sweetie—”

Sweetie is now definitely not a name Miles needs to worry about being called. “MJ and I are handling it like adults, I didn’t need—”

“Oh, not her, nothing that bad, no no no no no. Just some villains.”

Peter stops short and Deadpool runs into his back. He turns around. “Some what?”

“Oh, you know the circles I run in as a merc.” Deadpool points two fingers on one hand down in a “running legs” gesture while rotating the index finger of the other hand around it in a circle. He stares at his own hands in delight. “Whoa, hey, look, I’m actually doing it! I thought this would be like that pat your head and rub your tummy thing. Am I just that awesome? Wait, maybe I can do the other thing too now.”

“Focus. Villains?” Peter waves a hand at the merc.

Deadpool stops rubbing his head and his tummy. “Right, you know, just bounties for Spider-Man’s kid. Some just garden variety revenge, but most of them I think the idea is that you got a pretty sweet set of genes to pass on, and if the pup inherits them, that’s a future super-soldier.”

Peter’s hands form into fists. “Okay. Yeah, you are actually being helpful to me here. Can I get some names?”

“Huh?” Deadpool lifts his hands in the “relax” gesture. “Nah, nah, buddy, I told you, this is just villains, it wasn’t a big deal! I took care of ‘em for ya.”

“You... took care of them? Like... killed them, or what?”

“Psh, it wasn’t hard, they never saw it coming! Here, I took some pics. Here...” Deadpool pulls out his phone and holds it up, starts swiping through photos. “This guy... and his friends... and there was this dude... I never liked this lady, to be honest... also this.” It’s a selfie of Deadpool doing a v-sign in front of a burning compound of buildings in some tropical location. “May, uh, may have started one of them ‘international incidents’ with this one, but how important can an ambassador be, really.”

“You... eliminated everyone who was trying to kidnap my kid?”

“Oh, sure, man, what are friends for? It’s what I do best, my dude. Not like handling an ex-wife. Brrrr.” Deadpool shivers.

Peter blinks. “...Thanks, Wade.”

Deadpool’s big eye holes stare at him for a moment, silent, then he begins to jump up and down with excitement. “Oh my God! Oh honey! I always knew we were friends, but did we just become best friends?!”

“We’re not fri-”

“New profile pic!” crows Deadpool and crowds Peter into a selfie. “Thanks! We look amazing! See ya later, best pal!”

Peter’s phone buzzes as Deadpool disappears over the edge of a roof.

@Deadpool69 tagged you in a photo.

Peter’s masked but still obviously bewildered face next to Deadpool’s triumphant, slightly blood-splattered one.

@Deadpool69: LIVING WITH MY BITCHES HASHTAG LIT @SpiderManOfficial

Chapter Text

“How come you haven’t asked me about baby names?”

Peter, who just turned out the light, flips it back on and squints at Miles. “You wanna talk about it now?”

“Well I thought you’d ask before now,” says Miles, referring to the fact that tomorrow morning is the scheduled c-section.

“I didn’t want to try to take things over.”

“Asking isn’t taking things over,” says Miles, “if we’re dating, and I'm having your pup—”

“Okay.” Peter runs his hand through his hair. “Do you have a name picked out?”

“I haven’t really… the name I’m thinking of, I dunno what you’ll think of it.”

“Shoot.”

“Well, um, first, since we’re not married, I was thinking the kid can have my surname, maybe… that’s, um, that’s what my parents did, cause they didn’t get married until I was two or three. Plus, like… I’m the only Morales I’ve got over here, so, I dunno, I just thought it would be nice if my pup was one too.”

“Sure,” Peter says, and he doesn’t look surprised or upset or disappointed, although he’s hard to read because he already looked tired when they started talking. “That makes sense, when you’ve had to leave behind everything.”

“But, um, that doesn’t mean I don’t want him to be connected to you too, and… and also, also in honour of the other Peter Parker, the one in my world, I was thinking about calling him Parker, cause that’s a name too, right? I mean like, people use it as a first name.”

That does surprise Peter. He looks down at Miles’s bump. “Parker Morales. Parker Morales…” He looks back up at Miles’s face, and he smiles. “I think I like it. Especially because… yeah. I don’t want to forget about that other me, either.”

Miles grins, then pauses. “Hey, if there was another you in my universe, then… is there another me here?”

“I looked into it, a little,” Peter says, “a long time ago, when I came back from the Collider, when we were still figuring out the teleporter. I couldn’t find anyone that was definitely you, but there are so many variables… your counterpart in this universe could be older, or younger, or a different sex, gender, dynamic… or for whatever reason, it’s possible that you don’t have a counterpart in my universe. There’s no simple, obvious Miles Morales born anywhere in this New York City in the last fifty years. I checked Miles Davis too, since that’s your dad’s surname, but uh, that was a little more difficult because of the jazz player.” A beat. “You don’t think you might be an alternate universe version of a jazz musician, do you?”

“We have Miles Davis in my universe,” Miles says, “so that’s out.”

*

It’s the night before Miles’s scheduled c-section and Peter can’t sleep.

It actually surprises him, because fortunately, and maybe even incredibly, given the amount of shit he’s seen, he doesn’t often have trouble sleeping. And he hadn’t thought he was going to have trouble sleeping this night, either, except Miles told him about what name Miles wanted to give the pup.

Parker Morales.

Just like learning that the baby was a boy, and then seeing a picture of the ultrasound, and then being in the room during an ultrasound and actually seeing the pup move on video, had each progressively made this more real to Peter, putting a name on the kid—the one that is coming out of Miles’s body in less than twelve hours—has progressed it again.

Peter looks at Miles. The blankets are hiding his body, but still. There’s genuinely an entire new person in there, mere hours from breathing on his own. A child named Parker Morales.

He’s not just going to be Peter Parker, this time tomorrow. He’s going to be a dad. Parker Morales’s dad.

Or, wait... maybe Miles wants to use the name dad. They never talked about that,either.

Miles did everything for this kid so far. Peter’s contribution was getting his rocks off a couple of times. Miles should absolutely have first pick of the parent names.

Peter gently shakes Miles awake, because suddenly the question of what name he’s going to go by seems like the most important thing ever.

“Huh? Whazit?” Miles says, putting a hand up to block Peter.

“Do you want Parker to call you dad, or what?”

Miles opens his eyes briefly then closes them again. “Donchu wann’ be dad?” he says, still groggy.

“You should get to be called whatever you want,” Peter says. “And I’ll go by whatever you want too.”

“Y’can be dad,” Miles says, and then yawns something that Peter can’t make out around the yawn.

“Huh?”

“M’tired,” Miles says.

“No but this is important,” Peter insists. “What do you want to be called, Miles?”

For a moment Miles’s face is still, and Peter thinks he’s gone back to sleep, but then one of the kid’s arms shifts under the blanket. It grabs Peter’s hand, moves it onto the swell of his abdomen gently.

“Papa,” Miles says, not opening his eyes, but smiling. “I wanna be...” Another little yawn. “Papa.”

Inside Miles, Parker kicks against Peter’s hand, but Miles doesn’t react. He must be used to it... nearly nine months he’s been growing Parker inside him...

Peter’s heart swells again with sheer admiration and awe. “I love you, Miles,” he says, and his heart seizes a bit. Oh wow. Oh my God, this is the first time I said actually I love you out loud, what a big moment.

Miles doesn’t react.

“Hey.” Peter shifts his head forward and nudges against Miles’s forehead with his own. “I just said I love you the first time, you can’t sleep through that.”

“I can so,” Miles yawns. “’m tired.”

“Geez,” mutters Peter, but he’s smiling too.

*

Peter scents him thoroughly before they prep him for surgery, cleaning his abdomen and the site for the epidural. Peter gets to be in the operating room with him, too.

“You’re grabbing onto my hand so tight,” Miles complains, but more as a joke. “You know you’re supposed to be holding it to support me, not to keep yourself standing, right.”

“Sorry.” Peter relaxes his hold so much he’s barely holding it at all. “You’re doing great.”

“They haven’t done anything yet.”

“You’re still doing great.” Peter tightens his grip a little bit. “Everybody’s doing great. Yep.”

Miles’s other hand gets a little device where he can push a button to add more anesthetic.

“We’re gonna hope for the best and plan for the worst,” the anesthetist says. “Unless I take it away from you, feel free to push it anytime you feel something that feels like actual pain. You should still be able to feel some sensation like tugging or pressure even when fully anesthetized, but if it starts to become painful, hit it. If you’re using too much and the risks of the analgesics become an issue, I may have to take it away from you. Please refrain from using your super strength on me if I have to take your pain relief away.”

“I know it’s your job, man,” says Miles.

But it turns out not to be an issue.

At 8:04am on April 19th, Parker Morales gets pulled into the world to take his first breath. Peter is nearly breaking the bones in Miles’s hand again as he stares.

“Do you want to cut the cord?” someone asks Peter.

“Can I?!” Peter says to Miles, so excited that Miles wants to laugh but is nervous about the prospect of doing so with his stomach cut open.

“Yeah, sure. Pretty sure if you can handle a goober you can cut a cord.”

Alphas always get to hold pups first, so they can scent them, but Miles doesn’t feel jealous at all as he watches Peter, sitting shirtless with the pup in the corner of the room, while the surgeons finish sewing him back together.

Peter is so happy. It’s just pure, pure happiness, in this moment. He’s not thinking about anything else but that he’s got a healthy pup in his arms, Miles can tell.

It makes everything else seem worth it.

*

There’s a little curtain going across Miles’s chest, and from behind it, a doctor lifts a tiny baby.

It feels like time stops. Peter has forgotten how to breathe. He’s not sure his heart is still beating. Miles digs into his palm with his fingernail, and Peter realizes that he’s gripping the omega’s hand like a vice again.

They put some kind of suction tool to the baby’s face, pull it away, and the baby makes a distressed, liquidy noise.

“Time of birth, 8:04am,” someone says, and someone else says, “Do you want to cut the cord?” looking at Peter.

“Can I?!” Peter looks down at Miles for permission, and Miles has this big grin on his face.

“Yeah, sure. Pretty sure if you can handle a goober you can cut a cord.”

“Okay, we just give it a minute or so for it to stop pulsing, and then you cut it. You can get ready to scent him in the meantime,” says a doctor.

“How do I do that, what do I do?” Is he babbling? Peter feels like he’s babbling.

“Just take the gown off. This is why we told you not to wear a shirt.”

The doctors are being amazingly patient with how stupid he’s being. Peter’s gonna send them all fruit baskets.

He fumbles with the ties of the surgical gown and gives it to somebody or other, and then he’s handed something that looks like a weird pair of scissors and told where to cut through what looks like a clear rubber hose. It actually takes more than one attempt to snip, more of a saw than a clean cut.

“Okay, chair over here, this way, Mr. Parker, and you can hold your son.”

The baby is still crying, shrill, and it’s weird that such an objectively terrible sound can, in this moment, cause no reaction in him but pure euphoria.

Parker nestles against Peter’s chest, his legs froggied under his body, like he’s not ready to stop being in the fetal position yet. Peter puts a hand onto his tiny back and starts scent marking him, and Parker’s little cries soften and stop.

Peter’s lips part in a soundless wow. Parker is so small. He’s technically not preterm, they told him that earlier, but good God. Peter feels like the baby would fit in one hand. In fact with his wrist against the baby’s bare bottom, his fingertips are brushing the back of his little head.

Speaking of which. Oh my God. It turns out that “soft as a baby’s bottom” was actually based on truth, because Parker’s skin is like rose petals. And the texture of the light fuzz on his scalp! Oh wow! And he’s so warm and he has his own little baby smell, Peter can smell it under his scent mark and it’s amazing. It makes him want to scent mark Parker even more, because that baby smell is just too good. People have to know this baby is claimed.

Peter hasn’t gotten very many moments of pure, unadulterated joy in his adult life. He’ll never forget this one.

Once they get Miles stitched up, a nurse shows Peter how to support Parker’s head while transferring the newborn to Miles’s chest.

“He’s amazing, Miles,” Peter says, suddenly feeling guilty for hogging what felt like the first ten hours of their son’s life while totally ignoring the person who’d just given birth to him. “Thank you so much. He’s perfect. You’re both perfect.”

*

When they get home from the hospital a few days later, once he’s got Miles settled in on their bed with Parker and a tray table with drinks and snacks, Peter goes rummaging in a box he hasn’t opened or even thought about in years.

It feels strange to be handling his camera and lenses again, but he’s never had a subject he wanted to photograph more. He takes pictures of Parker awake, asleep, feeding, crying, getting his first bath, wearing the official Spider-Man footie pajama with matching hat set, and lots and lots of pictures of Parker and Miles snuggling up together.

Miles takes lots of pictures on his phone too, of course. He gets a picture of Parker and Peter both asleep on the bed together, face down, bum up in the air, and makes it his lockscreen picture.

When Parker is a week old, Peter gets prints made of about twenty of them, hanging a dozen all over the apartment, and giving the rest in a folder to Miles, who wants to mail them to his parents in the other universe.

Miles dials the gadget and steps through the portal, and then it’s Peter alone with Parker for the first time.

They’d picked a time when Parker was asleep in his bassinet. Peter sits cross-legged on the bed looking at his son. The little aqua pacifier in his mouth twitches a little before sliding out, leaving a little string of drool. Parker’s mouth wibbles and his brows squinch up as he blindly turns his head seeking the nipple again, and Peter quickly puts the pacifier back in. Parker settles.

First solo parenting test: passed! Peter feels inordinately proud.

*

When Miles gets to the front of the line at the post office in Atlanta, the worker gives him a strange look for a moment before smiling.

“How can I help you?” she says.

“Um, I want to mail these,” he says, putting down a bunch of pictures, “but I don’t know what envelope is right, so they don’t get bent, or how much it is to mail it.”

She takes the pictures and coos, which he can’t blame her for, because the top one is a picture of Parker in Spider-Man footie pajamas complete with a little knit hat, and he does look like the cutest baby ever. “Well isn’t this darling! Can I have a quick look, honey? Since it’s slow. I just love newborns.”

“Sure,” he says, unable to be mad that someone thinks Parker is adorable.

The postal worker grabs a stiff mailer and hands it to him with a pen. “You just fill out the address on here while I look, and then I can weigh it and find out the cost. You mailing it within Georgia, honey?”

Miles clicks the pen. “Nah, to New York.”

“Still shouldn’t be too expensive,” the worker says, flipping over another picture. “Ohhhh, this one is of the two of you together!” She smiles at him. “You and your alpha must be very happy to have such a healthy pup.”

“Uh, no, no no no,” laughs Miles, “he’s my nephew, my nephew. I’m just sending the pictures to my mom and dad since they couldn’t come down to Georgia while my sister has her baby.”

“Well aren’t you a good brother,” says the postal worker. “New parents need all the help they can get, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” says Miles, hoping that Peter is doing ok, his first time alone with Parker. He reaches for the pictures since he’s finished writing the address, and the postal worker lets him take them and put them into the mailer.

“Okay,” she says, looking down at the address, “let me just take this in the back and get it weighed, and then I’ll come back to ring you up. Don't go anywhere, honey.”

She disappears, and Miles gets that niggling weird feeling again, because he’s pretty sure he can see the scales they use for letters right in front of them. He goes on tiptoes to try to see any further through the door she disappeared through, rocks back on his heels, and his gaze shifts restlessly over the inside of the post office and its many official posters advertising stuff like “the new American Summer series of forever stamps” and information on renting a PO Box and then freezes, because there’s a big poster with MISSING KIDS at the top.

ENDANGERED RUNAWAY
MORALES, MILES, BORN 09/11/03
AGE NOW: 17
SEX: MALE     DYNAMIC: OMEGA
HAIR: BLACK    EYES: BROWN
HEIGHT: 5’6” (167cm)     WEIGHT: 150lbs (68kg) (PREGNANT)
MISSING SINCE: FEBRUARY 2021     LAST SEEN: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
BELIEVED LURED BY UNKNOWN ALPHA WHO SIRED HIS UNBORN PUP, DUE DATE MAY 2021. LAST MADE CONTACT VIA PHONE CALL FROM OKLAHOMA FEBRUARY 2021, MAY CROSS STATE LINES AGAIN.

And there’s his high school ID photograph again. Miles never expected that thing to get so much play.

There are a few other unfortunate missing kids on the big poster and at the bottom, “Don’t hesitate, call!”

That’s 100% what the postal worker is doing, especially when she saw that he was sending photos of a newborn infant to a Rio Morales in Brooklyn.

Miles drops all the cash he brought with him on the counter and books it.

*

When Miles comes back, Parker’s still asleep, which is good because Miles is a mess. He tells Peter about seeing a missing kid poster about himself in the other dimension.

Peter lays down with Miles and scents him and pretty soon Peter has both of his beloved ones asleep, one on either side of him.

It’s not fair, it’s not right. Miles’s parents did nothing wrong, Peter did everything wrong, but where is Miles now? In Peter’s bed, and his parents don’t even know where he is, how he’s being treated, if he’s even alive from moment to moment.

Miles should leave him. He should take Parker and go back to his own dimension, with the people who deserve him, with the people who treat Miles right. Now that Miles has given birth successfully, the major danger to his health has passed, and he doesn’t need Peter’s scent anymore. Peter should tell him to go.

Peter’s not going to tell him to go.

Peter pulls Miles a little closer, breathes in his scent, and hopes fervently that the multiverse keeps allowing him to get away with being a horrible man.

*

“Are you still in Georgia?” is the first thing his dad says when he calls a week later from San Diego, and Miles sighs.

“No, dad,” he says. “You’re really making them waste time that they could use to find other kids. I’m calling from California but I am not going to be in California anymore as soon as I hang up.”

“What does he do? What does he do that he can move you so much?”

It really must be driving his dad crazy, not just as a father, but as a detective. Miles knows that other police departments go all in when the victim is a police officer or relative of one. But every single lead would have gone nowhere. “Dad. I called because I wanted to know if you and mami got the pictures. Since, uh, I couldn’t really mail them, exactly. I left the money at the counter, but I don’t know if she mailed it, or… or if she gave it to the police.”

A short silence.

“Yeah, we got ‘em,” his dad says gruffly. “Thanks. I saw you wrote ‘Parker, April 19th, 7lbs 1oz’ on the back of one of ‘em. He… the pup looks real healthy. That’s good.”

“He is,” says Miles. “He came a little early but he’s really healthy.”

“Parker’s his first name?”

“Yeah.”

“After Spider-Man.” His dad doesn’t even say it as a question.

“Yeah,” says Miles, thinking of two men, very similar but very different. “Peter Parker’s my hero.”

“Your mom wants to talk to you.”

Chatting with his mother is much easier, because she actually does chat with him about baby stuff, unlike his dad who can’t leave it alone trying to trick leads out of Miles.

But then his mom hits him straight up.

“Mijo,” she says, and God, Miles already has a lump in his throat at just that word, “is your alpha really kind to you? He’s not hurting you? Usa el español si él no lo entiende.”

“Él no está aquí, but he’s not hurting me at all. Lo juro, mami.” Miles swallows, but he can’t get the lump to go away. “Estoy muy feliz con mi alfa.”

“Now that you’re a parent, you understand, right?” his mother says, and oh, Miles does understand.

“I do, mami,” he chokes out. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this. Lo siento mucho por eso.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she pleads, “I’m sure we can find—”

“Hey,” Miles hears his dad say, “don’t tell him we’re gonna let that rapist off the hook.”

“I don’t care!” his mother hisses. “I told you I don’t care! I just want Miles back!”

“We’re gonna get him back, and we’re gonna make that bastard pay.”

“I gotta go mami,” Miles says because he can’t take it anymore. “I love you both.”

“Don’t hang—” his mother says but Miles is already hanging up.

*

Parker is basically bald when he’s first born, but little wisps of black curls start to come in quickly. When he sleeps, he’s always got his eyes shut tight and his mouth in a frown like he’s really gotta concentrate on being unconscious. When he’s awake, he opens his eyes really big, and Peter says his eyes are just like Miles’s.

He sleeps in a crib on Miles's side of their bed. The apartment is crowded with baby stuff, now; it was amazing how many people wanted to send gifts to Spider-Man's kid. Peter's already talking about how they need to move to a two bedroom, or even get a house, maybe in the same neighbourhood in Queens where Peter grew up.

Miles thinks about his universe's Aunt May and wonders if she still has that spider gear down below her shed, if she knows that he's gone missing. She must, right? If he was on a poster in Atlanta, it must have gotten a ton of attention in New York.

Endangered runaway.

"Our family doesn't run away from things, Miles."

"Something wrong?" Peter says, and Miles jerks out of his brooding. They're walking through the park together—or wait, is that a date? Does that count as a date? Do you have to hold hands, for it to be a date? Miles has had his hands in his pockets this whole time, should they be holding hands? 

"Hello in there," Peter says, and Miles realizes he still hasn't responded to the first question.

"Sorry," he says, taking his hands out of his pockets and reaching one for Peter's. "G-word stuff."

"Ah." Peter takes his hand and looks down at his chest, where Parker is strapped into a carrier, fast asleep. They'd gone on this walk in the first place because Parker was crying and wouldn't settle. "I don't know if I'm any good at that stuff, but do you wanna talk about it?"

Peter's hand feels so secure. "I was just... sometimes I feel guilty because I went through that whole, y'know, thing, learning that I couldn't run away, great responsibility blah blah, and now here I am, I've run away, probably for good, and my universe doesn't have any heroes now..."

"That's not how I remember it."

"Huh?" says Miles, not following.

"Wanting to run away was never your problem," Peter says, "it's mine. You didn't hesitate from the start, to try to take over from the other me. You wouldn't leave me alone, trying to get my help, even when I disappointed you over and over. You were so stubborn and determined to keep your promise to save the world, even when it was so dangerous and you couldn't control your powers... you know, when I got my powers, I had already gotten pretty good with them by the first time I had a run-in with any kind of crime. My first opportunity to stop a crime was just a thug with no powers, I could have done it with just one flick of my wrist, but..." Peter shakes his head. "Well, you know the story. I didn't."

Miles doesn't know what to say.

"So me and the g-word, we go way back," Peter says, tilting his head up and looking at the trees. "My initial instinct is still always to try to avoid responsibility. I mean, you remember how I was with you, how my first reaction to seeing a terrified kid begging for my help was to swipe the goober and leave. If you hadn't been so stubborn, your universe would have been toast. Run away? You've always run towards responsibility. Once you make a commitment, that's it. And you made a commitment to Parker. All by yourself, when I was still trying to pretend nothing happened, when you couldn't tell anybody the truth and it was a stupid idea for a thousand reasons, you made a commitment to have Parker. And that's so like you." Peter gives him a sideways smirk. "It's admirable. Frustrating as all hell, but really admirable."

Miles doesn't know what to say to that, either, so he pretends the scenery to their right is really fascinating. It's not the way he thinks about how he's done. When he remembers everything about getting bitten and the Collider, what he remembers most is being terrified, feeling incompetent, and wanting help. He remembers feeling like he was too stupid and weak to figure out, even with tons of help, the things that Peter Parker—all of them—and the other Spider-People had figured out on their own. He still cringes when he remembers how he wasn't smart enough to put the USB stick in a safe place while he tried, and failed, to figure out how to use his powers. Then there was the idiocy of trying to lug both the computer and the monitor until Peter pointed out they didn't need the monitor. Miles was pretty sure he was the dumbest Spider-Person in any universe, not excluding Peter Porker, who wasn't even a person.

"There's just one thing I don't get. All the bad and cowardly things I've done have always rebounded on me. It didn't seem to matter how much good stuff I did, it was never enough to make up for my failures. But now... now the worst thing I ever did, the most inexcusable failure... has ended up with me getting to keep you and Parker. A whole bunch of people who never did anything wrong are doing the suffering instead. And I can't even be... the g-word... because that wouldn't be fair to you or Parker. So I'm supposed to just... let myself be happy?" Peter laughs, in a confused way. "Figure that one out, because I can't."

"I don't think you're a coward," Miles says. "Yeah, you were kinda grumpy at first—" Peter snorts. "—but right from the beginning you were always trying to protect me. You even wanted to stay behind so I wouldn't be in danger, even though you knew that meant you would glitch to death."

"Yeah but I had accepted a long time ago that I would go out that kind of way, and it's not like I had my life ahead of me anymore. Don't give me any credit for that."

Miles lifts up the hand he's holding, puts it palm side up, mimes putting something into it, and folds the hand closed.

"What the heck?" Peter says, as Miles walks backwards in front of him, facing him.

"I just gave you credit," Miles says, folding his arms behind his head.

"Miles..." Peter laughs, despite himself. "That was dumb."

"You're laughing!"

"It's still dumb. And you're gonna trip trying to walk like that."

Miles sticks out his tongue, but goes back to his previous position and lets Peter take his hand.

"There, I gave you the credit back."

Miles swings their joined hands lightly. "Seems like as long as I don't let go, then it's joint credit."

Peter laughs again. "So, what, you're gonna just not let go of me for the rest of my life?"

"Yep," Miles says cheerfully.

Peter smiles like he's trying not to. The sun is shining and his pup is adorable and Miles thinks everything might actually be okay.

"You know, when you're my age, I'll be in my sixties."

Miles snorts. "So we'll both be old, so what."

"That's... hey, forty's not that old."

"Then there's no problem!"

"Jesus," says Peter, but his grip on Miles's hand is firm.

Chapter Text

“That was funnier than I thought it would be,” Miles says after their guest leaves. He’s changing Parker’s diaper on the floor, and Peter steps on the pedal of the diaper bin so that Miles can toss the old one in. “Yes! Three points.”

Peter takes his foot off the pedal. “What’s funny about it?”

“Well, first of all, his ‘little baby welcoming gift’ being the use of a whole freaking island for a month. What’s a big gift to him, then?”

“Probably if he gave us the island to keep.”

“And then even funnier was how Mr. Stark kept saying kid, but he meant you,” says Miles, grinning. “It really threw me the first time. I was like, is he talking to me? And then you answered. So that was wild. Did he know you when you were little?”

“Not little. I was about your age when he met me as Spider-Man, a little older as Peter Parker. He’s about twenty years older than me and we met when I was about your age, so I guess he just never dropped the habit.”

Miles fastens the new diaper, snaps the onesie closed, and puts Parker’s pants back on, then picks the baby up. Before Miles even gets Parker a foot off the ground, the baby releases a off-white mouthful of spit-up onto himself. Miles sighs and lowers the baby back onto the changing mat and reopens the wipe container. “Could you grab me a clean shirt please?”

As Peter goes to fetch clean clothes for the pup, he thinks about the similarities and differences between Tony’s relationship with him, and his with Miles. The age gap was about the same, wasn’t it? It really is wild, like Miles said.

Tony was an uncle figure at a time when he desperately needed one, and he’d been a young man for whom an uncle figure was even more meaningful than a father figure. At that time—strange to think of it now—he’d been the annoying, mouthy teen of the hero landscape in New York, acting like he didn’t need anybody’s advice or help.

He has a kneejerk revulsion to the idea of him and Tony ever having made their relationship sexual, and at first it’s just fresh ammunition to fire at himself. God knows Tony was no angel, especially when it came to fucking anything that would hold still long enough, but even he had kept boundaries with Peter. Peter must really be depraved, fucked in the head...

“Can I get that shirt sometime this year?” Miles calls, and Peter snaps out of his reverie over Parker’s dresser and grabs a shirt at random.

“You get lost or something?” Miles says as Peter comes up with the shirt.

Peter doesn’t say anything, merely methodically works the neck opening over Parker’s outsized head. Miles helps poke Parker’s skinny arms into the sleeves.

“Does he have kids? I didn’t want to ask, in case it was touchy, but he seemed pretty confident with Parker.”

“Yeah, he and Pepper have a daughter,” Peter says. Right, Tony was always telling him to just relax and not worry so much when Peter was agonizing about having kids with MJ.

“Of course you’re not ready, kid, nobody’s ready. It'd be one thing if I thought you really didn't want kids, then I'd support you, but it's not that and I think you know it. Jesus, back in the day I was always telling you to wrap it up and that kids were a buzzkill, but that was mostly ‘cause you’re an alpha and I figured otherwise you’d have a baseball team by twenty-five.”

“Stereotypical, Tony.”

Tony often brought up Peter’s alpha dynamic... Tony was a beta and Peter figured out pretty early that there was some long-standing... thing, there, with Tony. Probably connected to Tony’s other father issues. The alpha father disappointed in his beta heir was another stereotype.

Omegas going into heat and alphas overcome by their instincts was another stereotype. Maybe stereotypes had a little more applicability in his life than he was comfortable with.

“What do you think, Parks?” Miles settles on the couch with Parker belly-down on a receiving blanket on his chest. “Should we just let Daddy brood? You and me can hang out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter admits, making to sit on the other end of the couch.

Miles lifts his feet so Peter can set down and then settles them in Peter’s lap. “You know, we got an established precedent about foot rubs in this family.”

“I give ‘em and you get ‘em?”

“Yep.” Miles meets Peter’s eyes. “Something you wanna talk about?”

“G-word,” Peter says. “It’ll pass.”

“There’s always free-range, organic, all natural baby therapy,” Miles offers. “Skin to skin time? How about it?”

Peter grunts, but then he lets go of Miles’s foot and pulls his shirt off, and Miles undresses Parker down to his diaper and brings him over to nestle against Peter’s chest.

“You like that, huh? You love Daddy’s smell, doncha Parks. Don’t blame you. He smells sooooo good.” Miles is pressing against Peter’s side, putting his face to his throat, breathing against it.

It’s fucking idyllic, is what it is.

But the weird thing is, even the guilt, as strong as it is, can’t seem to win out anymore against the love he feels for Miles and Parker, the happiness he feels being with them and seeing them happy. He’s ruined so much, he can’t ruin this for them.

“Parker’s the one who smells good,” Peter says, smiling, “which is pretty crazy when you think about how much time he spends covering himself with vomit and feces.”

“Ewwwwwww,” laughs Miles.

*

Noir: ATTENTION PETER B PARKER STOP HOW THINGS YOUR UNIVERSE QUERY NAZI MENACE CONTINUES DESPITE PUNCHES STOP HOPE NO NAZIS YOUR UNIVERSE

Peter: Hi Peter. You know, there’s no need to use all caps or conserve your words on this gadget, it’s not a telegram... I mean, you can still write that way if you’re used to it, I guess. Things here are actually pretty good. Minimal Nazis, though I hate to admit we still have a few of the scum.

Noir: RECOMMEND LEFT HOOK KIDNEY PUNCH NAZIS STOP DIFFICULT ADMIT BUT MET REAL DOLLFACE NAMED MARY JANE STOP EXPECT TROUBLE BUT STILL GOING DIZZY

Oh boy. Peter hopes that Noir isn’t about to ask him for love advice, especially if it’s about wooing his universe’s Mary Jane.

It seems like he should come clean about Miles, since Noir knows him too. Noir will probably be absolutely horrified at Peter’s actions, but at least that means Peter won’t have to give advice.

Peter: I know you know I was trying to reconcile with my MJ, but it didn’t work out. I’m actually with Miles now. Miles Morales, from Earth-1610. There was an incident with his first heat. To make a long story short, he gave birth to my son on April 19.

Noir: CHEERS ON MANACLES STOP HUMDINGER KID LUCKY BREAK TYING HIM FIRST HEAT

Peter has to read it several times to understand that Noir is... whole-heartedly congratulating him. Although he seems to have misunderstood and thought that Peter pair-bonded with Miles...

Peter: Well, we’re together but we’re not bonded. Don’t get me wrong I’m taking responsibility for the pup no matter what, and I’ll be with him as long as he wants, but he’s so young... he may change his mind later.

Noir: STRANGE UNIVERSE STOP OMEGA NEEDS GOOD ALPHA PAIR STOP OMEGA HERO TIMES THOUSAND STOP THINK ABOUT IT

Peter is about to roll his eyes reading the old-fashioned belief that “an omega needs a good alpha in a bonded pair” but the following phrase, asserting tersely that “for an omega who’s a hero, that’s true times a thousand” actually gives him pause.

It’s true that even now being an unbonded omega is a liability in combat. There’s a reason why Miles’s spidersuit had maximum strength scent filtering even before he presented, just on the chance that he might present as an omega unexpectedly. All an alpha villain has to do with an unbonded omega is give a command. Now alpha commands aren’t perfect mind control—they’d be even more deadly if they were. The further the command is from what the omega would willingly do, the easier it is for the omega to fight the compulsion off. But it still has to be fought off. Even when Miles had that jellyfish pollen in him, Peter still remembered seeing Miles struggle against Peter’s commands briefly.

Being distracted by commands at critical moments in a fight isn’t just a theoretical danger, either. Peter has used commands to distract omega villains himself, although he never felt good doing it and only did it when he couldn’t think of another option; Eddie Brock once told him straight out that alpha commands were one of the things that made him go craziest with hate, and Peter couldn’t fault that.

A bonded omega, on the other hand, could completely ignore all alpha commands except for their own alpha. But. Those commands would be nearly impossible to shrug off, even to the point of obeying orders to do things the omega would never willingly do, without hesitation.

Miles being in danger from alpha villains because he can’t ignore their commands is a serious problem. But the idea of Peter having life-or-death power over Miles is horrifying in its own way. He didn’t want to think he would ever exploit such a power... but he also still found it hard to believe that he behaved like he did during Miles’s heat. Could he really be trusted like that?

Not to mention that when a bonded omega loses their alpha, they have to go through a long, painful period of physical withdrawl from their mate’s scent marking, an ordeal that can last years, that sometimes even kills omegas—not directly, but by making other health conditions worse. Peter is forty, twenty-three years older than Miles. Peter had been worried about leaving MJ a widow when he was in his twenties—and considering what happened to the 1610-him, he was right to worry.

Peter’s already seen Miles with his lips tinged blue from his body’s unfulfilled need for Peter’s scent. How can he possibly consider making that a certainty again?

It’s a lot to think about, and it’s not something he wants to discuss with Noir. He decides to give Noir some half-truths to settle the issue and move on.

Peter: Our universe has medications and scent blocking technology to help omegas live more comfortably. But I appreciate your point. Now that I think about it, in 1934 or whatever it is, omegas in your universe have no suppressants or anything... I guess it’s actually pretty progressive that you still think Miles can be a hero.

Noir: SOME HUMANS INNATELY LESSER IS NAZI TALK STOP ANYONE CAN BE HERO STOP PUP NAME QUERY

Peter smiles.

Peter: Parker Morales. No middle name. Sometimes we call him Parks.

Noir: ACES TELL HIM LOVE FROM UNCLE NOIR STOP WILL PUNCH NEXT NAZI FOR PARKER

Peter: That’s genuinely the best baby gift we’ve gotten. Thank you.

*

Peter accepts an offer in the mid six figures to shoot an ad for a car company. It features him in the spider suit driving an SUV while saying crappy, humourless lines that someone else wrote for him like “they’re gaining on us” and “phew, that was close” before revealing that he’s just attempting to get to be first in line at a drive-thru coffee place. Pan to a car seat in the back, and then Peter lifting his mask to drink the coffee. “When my kid doesn’t sleep, my Honda Hero saves the day.”

It’s terrible but it’s also a downpayment and then some even on a detached home in Forest Hills, which is definitely no longer the middle-class lifestyle it was when Uncle Ben bought the house Peter grew up in. The house they buy is a pretty new build, no front yard, high fences in the back. It has three stories and the master bedroom has a whirlpool tub, which is the height of luxury as far as Peter is concerned.

And they set it up to have the headache parts of packing, moving, and unpacking done by professionals while they’re up in New Hampshire on Tony’s little private island in Lake Winnipesaukee.

*

"You drive like an old man," Miles complains mildly and bites into a beef stick they bought at the last gas station.

"I do not," Peter says testily. "People just don't know how to drive in Massachusetts. You know what they call them? Massholes."

"You're going the speed limit. Pretty sure even the other old men are passing us."

"It's called the speed limit because it's the limit," says Peter. They're driving in a rented SUV, heading for their first ever family summer vacation in New Hampshire. Well, it's half a family vacation, half an opportunity for Miles to put his Spider-Man costume back on and get a feel for everything again, with the privacy of being on a literal private island that they're borrowing from a friend of Peter's, Tony Stark, who's both a hero and a billionaire.

That had been another unsettling, weird reminder that they were in an alternate universe. In his universe, Tony Stark had been a billionaire too, but a notorious one who died ignominiously while on a trip to some hellhole despotic country to sell more weapons, part of yet another stupid war that Miles had needed to learn about for modern world history class.

"Even my dad doesn't drive the speed limit on the highway." Miles says as he reaches for the Coca-Cola he has in the cup holder. It's almost as good as the Koka-Soda from his own dimension. "Even my abuela—"

"We'll still get there in plenty of time," Peter says, checking his mirrors.

"Yeah but the longer we're driving, the more time we have to spend with Parker in the car seat, and when he wakes up he's gonna start screaming again."

Peter grunts, but Miles sees the speedometer tick up a little.

*

It’s surreal, living like this. There had been plenty of times when he and MJ were rich on paper, but they had always lived that very minimalistic city life, spending money only to fly MJ out to auditions in California or wherever. Then investing his money had seemed like a reasonable, concrete thing that he could do to demonstrate to MJ that he was making moves to get to them to a stable financial base to raise a family. He still brooded over how every investment was a progressively bigger disaster that he never saw coming. Especially TGI Spidey’s. How could it go so wrong? People loved the cereal...

A pair of spandex gloves cover Peter’s eyes. “Guess who,” says an overly deep faked voice.

Peter laughs. “You know, that’s a question with even less possible answers than when we’re in Brooklyn, puppy.”

The hands let him go, and Peter turns around. Miles is hanging upside down from the tree that Peter was standing under, wearing the black suit with the spray painted logo again.

“Gotta admit this feels great,” Miles says. “Parker still asleep? I found a path you can go from island to island for a crazy long time. There’s this one thwip-thwip that’s a liiiitle dicey, but I made it.”

“Yeah, he’s still asleep.”

“You wanna have a swing around then? I can stay here.”

“Nah.” Peter looks out at the water and islands and the distant main shore, then looks back to Miles. “It’s pretty, but I’d rather spend time with you.”

“Oh!” says Miles, the eyes on his mask going real wide.

Cute.

“Um... hey, maybe this is weird to ask, but... could we do... you know... the spidey-kiss thing?” Miles sways a little in the air and adds anxiously, “I understand if it’d be too weird.”

Because of MJ is unspoken but they both understand it.

“It might be weird to be the one on the ground,” Peter says, to acknowledge it but also bypass it. “I can’t pass up an opportunity to kiss you, though.”

“Wait—in this universe, you were the one in the air?”

“Uh... yeah?” Peter blinks. “Why... how would MJ be hanging in the air when I’m on the ground?”

“She was hanging from a ladder, in the comics in my universe at least.”

“A ladder...” Peter shakes his head. “Your universe really is the weird limp fry of the multiverse.”

Miles starts to say something but cuts it off immediately as Peter steps forward and reaches up to tug down on Miles’s mask, pulling the whole thing down, so that Miles’s beautiful mouth is revealed and the eyes of the mask are far enough up that Miles is effectively blindfolded.

Peter puts a hand on either side of Miles’s face, dragging it out, letting Miles anticipate the kiss without knowing exactly when it will happen.

He leans in. The suit and mask block Miles’s scent, an important safety feature, but with his throat exposed now and Peter up so close he can smell the omega sweetness of him. Instead of starting with a lip kiss, Peter goes up on his toes to press a bite that doesn’t break the skin to the side of Miles’s neck instead.

“Ah,” Miles cries out, surprised, and opens his mouth again, maybe to say something, but Peter covers it with his own, lets Miles suck on his tongue instead.

When Peter finally steps back, he admires the erotic art he’s created of Miles’s lips, all marked-up and sucking in air.

“Peter,” the lips gasp out, “Peter, take me inside, please.”

Miles could fix his mask back down or take it off, of course, he could go wherever he wants on his own power... but he’s asking to be babied, and Peter wants nothing more than to baby him.

“Of course, puppy,” he says, taking him in a bridal carry, leaving the mask in its semi-blindfold position as he carries him into the vacation house.

They have to be quiet, with Parker sleeping in the bedroom. Miles drools around his own fist as Peter fucks him over the table, Miles naked except for the blindfold-mask, Peter fully dressed except for pulling his cock out of his jeans.

There’s no quieting the slap of skin against skin, the creak of the table legs protesting against the force of Peter’s thrusts, the wet noise of Miles’s hole swallowing his cock, or Peter’s harsh breaths.

Knotting, to their mutual regret, is not possible, so Peter makes the best of it and fulfils another fantasy, pulling out to let his cum mark up Miles’s back and ass.

“Gorgeous,” he whispers as Miles stays bent over and panting, Peter’s cum glistening in cloudy lines, clear slick drying on the inside of his thighs. “So, so beautiful.”

*

The big challenge of their month in New Hampshire is not Miles relearning how to be Spider-Man—that really had turned out to be just like getting back on a bike—but food, because neither Peter nor Miles really know how to cook.

In Brooklyn, provided you have money, that's not a problem, because even if you're trying to "eat clean" like Peter's still insisting he's doing, the options for take-out, delivery, and meal services are endless. But unless they wanted to bring a private chef with them—which they both really didn't—that stuff didn't really exist up here.

"'How hard can it be to cook,' he said," Miles snickers, as Peter comes back from dumping some inedible mess into the compost.

"Did you know corn flakes were originally a health food?" Peter says, grabbing a box. "It's true."

"Bab bab bab," says Parker, pushing himself up on his elbows on the blanket.

"I thought carbs were the devil to you," Miles says as Parker rolls over onto his back, and then rolls over again onto his front to reach out for the rattle Miles is holding. "Here you go Parks, good job."

"Maybe Kelloggs is right and keto is wrong," Peter muses, pouring himself a bowl. "I mean, this damn flab still isn't going away, so..."

"I like your belly the way it is," Miles says. "It's a perfect pillow. Parker likes it too, doncha?"

Parker works his teething gums over the silicone handle of the rattle with satisfaction. 

*

They celebrate Miles's "20th" (actually 18th) birthday the only way possible to do so with a baby who isn't yet five months old: an evening spent trying to get Parker to fall asleep and stay asleep in his own room in their new house in Queens, a concept that the pup has not yet accepted.

Peter has the brilliant idea of webbing the crib by the corners to the ceiling, turning the whole thing into a giant cradle, which finally does the trick of making Parker settle. They both hold their breaths when Miles stops pushing the crib-cradle and lets its momentum slowly dissipate. Parker still doesn't stir. Neither of them breathe until they've safely closed the nursery door behind them.

"Phewwwww," says Miles. "Well. Whatcha wanna do now?"

"That's my line," says Peter. "It's your birthday. You wanna have your cake first?"

Peter has to sing Happy Birthday to him as a solo, which is just the best, because he's so embarrassed about it. The candlelight plays off the red on his cheekbones before Miles blows out a couple of tealights because neither of them thought to buy actual birthday candles.

They eat the cake. It's just a little six inch one, dark chocolate with strawberries, that Miles picked out himself from the cooler of the local supermarket. "Really committing to the colour scheme, huh," Peter said when he saw it.

"Gotta think about my brand, man," Miles says. "Maybe someday when I get famous as a hero they'll make an ice cream bar of my head, chocolate and strawberry. It'll blow your popsicle out of the water."

"Don't remind me about that thing." Peter shudders. "Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put gumballs in something frozen. I've probably indirectly caused so many kids to break their teeth."

*

"Well, birthday boy," Peter says in a tone that has Miles starting to slick up already, "ready for your present?"

Miles swallows. "Sure, I love unwrapping presents."

Peter grabs the baby monitor. "It's in our room."

Miles gets even slicker when Peter closes the door and says they should undress, but then he gets a pang of disappointment as Peter starts talking about the weather, of all things, and opening drawers, like they're just gonna put on pajamas and go to sleep. Even when Miles is totally naked, Peter doesn’t make a move to touch him. If, after all that anticipation, Peter's present to him is a set of pajamas...

"...forecast, but the barometer's falling. Look out the window, do you see any dark clouds?"

Miles turns from staring with disbelief at Peter's face to looking at the window, which only shows cracks through the blinds anyway. "Peter, it's already dark ou—"

Whap.

"I thought I taught you to watch the hands, not the mouth," Peter says, his breath hot on the back of Miles's neck. Miles seizes up in shock and arousal as Peter wraps one arm around him while the other slowly, lazily twirls in front of Miles’s eyes the large wooden paddle with black leather wrapping that apparently had just lightly struck him across his bare ass. How had Peter managed to take that thing out, get it ready, and hit him without Miles noticing at all, not to mention not triggering his spider sense...

Oh. Of course. It didn't ping my spider sense because Peter doesn't really want to hurt me. Peter would never hurt me.

Miles is feeling so warm and loved and flustered in Peter's arms at this realization that he ends up wanting to make a joke, to tease Peter back, and picks totally the wrong one. "You know I was fourteen when you said that to me."

Peter instantly lets go, which was not what Miles wanted. "Oh, fuck, now you made it gross."

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Miles says quickly, "I just thought it was funny!"

"It's not funny. Not to me. That part... that part isn't funny."

Yeah, the mood's definitely not funny now. When Miles turns around, that familiar guilt is in Peter's eyes again, and Miles wonders if they'll ever really be free of it. Peter's holding the paddle and looking at it like a murderer with a bloody knife who has ten cops pointing guns at him.

"You know, before my heat, I never felt... I didn't think... you were never, like, grooming me or anything—"

"I didn't see you that way back then," Peter says, "but I shouldn't have seen you that way when you were sixteen, either. Whether you were in heat or not. Fuck, you're only barely legal today, I still shouldn’t—"

"Peter," Miles interrupts, taking a firm hold of Peter's face, a flat palm against each side, forcing him to look him in the eyes, "don't do this on my birthday. Okay? No g-word, not today."

Peter's sorrowful brown eyes stare back at his stubborn ones, and he sighs, and the eyes crinkle into a weary smile. "Right. No g-word." He taps the paddle gently against Miles's chest. "Unless you want to make that the safeword. Nothing would break the mood faster, right?"

"Safeword, right," says Miles, excited and nervous, and releases Peter's face. "Um... I really like this as a present. I really, really do."

Peter chuckles. "I could hardly believe it the first time I saw you leave your browser open to that website. Then you kept doing it. So I bought this. I almost didn't go through with it, because about a week ago you stopped? Did you give up because you thought I wasn't getting the hint?"

"No, I knew you would get the hint," Miles says, embarrassed, "I just thought, since you hadn't said anything, that you didn't want to."

"I don't know about whether I want to, exactly," says Peter, and he's looking at the paddle again, but his gaze is more measured, calculating. "I've never done any kind of, uh, impact play before. Really, I haven't done any kind of BDSM stuff with anybody, except web-bondage, because c'mon. That's just a given."

How natural it was to web Peter's hands down and close his mouth during the jellyfish-heat-madness flits into Miles's mind, but he's already come close to wrecking this once and he's not gonna do it again. "Oh? So you're just... gonna try it because I wanted to?" That's not bad, honestly. That's kind of sweet in itself.

"Not exactly... it's more... tying someone up with webs is predictable, I do it all the time, I know it's not gonna hurt anybody. Before you, all the people I've had sex with, none of them had powers. I... uh..."

While Peter trails off, still looking at the paddle, Miles is trying very hard not to be jealous of "all the people" Peter had sex with before him, a concept that he had naively not even considered, other than the obvious MJ, who was more than jealousy-inducing enough.

"I maybe like to give it rough more than I should," Peter says very quietly, and that certainly snaps Miles out of thinking about anything  other than getting it rough from Peter. "I was always nervous about my strength hurting someone as it was. When I was younger, uh, sometimes I did do more than I intended, accidentally. No lasting damage, fortunately. To add in anything more deliberate... I never let myself even consider it."

"But I do have superpowers," Miles says, totally unnecessarily, since they both know it, but Miles is anxious to draw a big highlighting circle around this one area where he is undeniably a better lover for Peter than "all the people" Peter has had before. "I can take anything you give me, Peter."

The paddle’s under his chin, then, tipping it up a little. Miles isn’t as short as he was when they first met, but Peter’s still got a height advantage over him, especially when he actually stands up straight, like he’s doing now.

“Can you, puppy?”

“Yes.”

Peter reaches with his other hand and grips Miles at the nape, not enough to make him go totally boneless, but enough to remind him that Peter could. “Yes, what?”

“Yes... sir?”

Peter scruffs Miles onto the bed, makes him flop on his belly, loose and helpless. “Wrong.”

Smack. To the top of the right thigh, not hard. It’s the wrong place, Miles thinks dazedly, he wants to be hit higher...

Another smack, to his bottom this time, and it’s the right place, but it isn’t hard enough. “Yes, what? Speak, puppy.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Miles moans, and gets rewarded with Peter putting his hand to that recently smacked ass, caressing it lovingly.

“That’s right, omega,” Peter croons, and he moves his fingers towards Miles’s crack, starts to play with the slick that’s already dribbling out, drawing lines and streaks with it over Miles’s butt and thigh. “I’m only Alpha to you right now, puppy. Your alpha.”

God does that sound good. “Yes, Alpha!”

“Such a naughty puppy you are... smell how dirty you’ve gotten my fingers.” The bed under Miles’s left hip dips as Peter kneels next to him, shoving his hand under Miles’s face.

Miles immediately opens his mouth and takes Peter’s fingers in, suckles them, laves them with his tongue, and Peter lets him for a moment, but then the paddle comes down on his ass again, the hardest yet.

But it’s still not hard enough.

“Did Alpha say you could do that?” Peter says, his tone aloof, digging his fingers deeper into Miles’s mouth, making him gag a little on them before pulling his hand away and wiping Miles’s spit off on his own back, a little cool sticky patch between his shoulder blades.

“No, Alpha. I’m sorry, Alpha. I just wanted—”

“Oh, I know what you wanted.” Peter’s voice is dark. “But what you need is discipline. Put that ass in the air for Alpha.”

Miles gets up on his knees quickly.

“Higher.”

Miles tries to lift his butt higher.

“Higher.”

Miles pushes way up on his arms and legs so that he’s in a downward dog position, his butt as high as he can get it.

Peter clicks his tongue. “Now that’s just silly. C’mon now, puppy. You really need Alpha to put his hands on you and show you?”

It makes it sound so bad and so good at the same time. “Yes, please, Alpha.”

Peter sets the paddle down at the head of the bed, right in Miles’s line of vision. His touch is rough and impatient, pushing Miles’s knees down and heels up until he’s basically in a four point crouch at a starter’s block. Miles can hold it, but it’s not a very stable position in general, especially not on a soft mattress.

“There we go,” Peter says, and Miles watches him pick up the paddle. “You can hold that position for Alpha, right puppy?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Oh, you can? Let’s just check that.”

Smack.

Oh, now that was hard. Miles’s butt is stinging as he hurriedly raises himself back into the crouch from being knocked forward onto his knees.

“You sure you can hold that position? You couldn’t even keep it for the first one.” The alpha’s voice sounds skeptical, not concerned.

“I will, I can Alpha, please—”

Another smack, just as hard as the first, but this time Miles manages to brace against it.

“Good,” Alpha praises, and Miles could preen under it. “That makes one. Do you think we can get to ten?”

“Yes, Alpha, I’ll be good for you,” Miles promises, and lets out an excited little gasp as the paddle smacks into him again.

“Two.”

They make it to seven before Miles wobbles and drops down to one knee from a blow. He quickly gets back into position, but Peter counts ‘one’ with his next blow, and Miles lets out a soft whine.

“Excuse me?” Peter says.

“Nothing, it’s nothing, I’m sorry, Alpha, I’m not complaining, it’s not you, I’m just disappointed and—”

Smack. “Two. Just focus on getting it right.”

Peter isn’t even hitting all that hard, but Miles fails again on five, and the next time he gets to seven again before he buckles. This time he doesn’t immediately get back in position. Not only his butt, but his thigh muscles and his feet and even his arms are complaining bitterly about holding such an uncomfortable position for so long. He whimpers.

He can’t do it. Such a low number and he can’t do it at all. Miles really feels humiliated.

“Oh, baby,” Peter says, and Miles chokes back a sob, pushes his face into the sheets. “It’s okay, puppy, really, if you can’t do it. You just need to tell Alpha. Can you do that for me?”

“I c-can’t—” he hiccups and sniffles, he feels pathetic. “I’m sorry, Alpha, I tried, I can’t do it, I’m n-not good—”

“Puppy,” Peter interrupts him. “You were so, so good, baby.” He lays his hands very lightly on Miles’s sore bottom, smooths out his hands to his hips and tugs up gently, supporting all of Miles’s weight in his strong hands as he pulls Miles where he wants him, slots his hard penis between Miles’s ass cheeks and slicks it up, sliding back and forth, and Miles moans through his tears as the head of Peter’s penis bumps into his balls gently. “Such a good omega for Alpha, doing just what I asked.”

Half of Miles wants to protest that he’s not good, that he didn’t do what Peter asked, he couldn’t, but the other half just wants Peter’s penis inside him and that half wins easily.

Peter lets go with one hand but he has no problem keeping Miles exactly where he wants him with the other. Gently, so softly, he pulls Miles’s cheek just a little, and Miles feels the air hitting him where he’s hottest and wettest. “Oh, just look at that. You’re so wet, puppy, it’s dripping onto my cock, I can see it... is that all for me?”

“Yes, Alpha, only you, only ever you, Alpha.”

A finger slides into him, two, three. It’s so good, it’s not enough.

“That’s it, open up for me,” Peter murmurs, and the head of the alpha’s cock pushes against his rim, forces his asshole open even wider, makes Miles take it all the way until Peter’s pressing against his sore bottom. “Look at that, look at that. God, you’re beautiful.”

It hurts and it hurts more when Peter starts to move, making sure his hips smack hard with every stroke of his big penis into Miles’s asshole. Miles whines and he whimpers and he clutches at the sheets under him and then he’s coming, already he’s coming, it hurts and it feels incredible and he wants it to stop and never end.

“Perfect,” groans Peter, “Oh, you’re perfect for me, Miles.”

“Alpha,” whimpers Miles.

“Be as loud as you want, baby. Call me Peter, if you want.”

“Peter,” Miles immediately seizes on this permission. “Peter, Peter, I love you, Peter, feels so good—”

Peter’s thrusts speed up. It’s pain-pleasure from the impact against his tender flesh and pleasure-pain from being stretched open and bullied deep inside, relentless torment when he’s just come, and Peter’s gonna force him to come again.

“Oh, baby, I’m already so close,” Peter moans. “It’s like your little pussy was just made to take my cock.”

“I-I’m close, ah, I’m c-close too!”

“Again?” Peter snarls. “Fuck, you’re gonna come again already? Then do it on my knot, puppy, come now.”

He says those last two words in command, and Miles’s body obeys instantly, coming and milking out Peter’s creamy load inside him until Peter’s knot brutally plugs him up, keeps it all in. A hand reaches up to Miles’s nape and rests there, ready to scruff him if he freaks out, but Miles breathes in and out and it isn’t necessary, even if he whimpers a little more than usual.

When Peter’s knot goes down, he makes Miles drink water. They take a bath together in the big whirlpool tub in the master bedroom’s bathroom, the one that made Peter say, “Yep, this is the house, we’re buying this” before they had even seen the basement or the yard. Miles sits in Peter’s lap so the jets aren’t hitting his skin directly.

“You did so good, Miles.” Peter nuzzles his neck. “You were amazing. I love you. Just relax, I got you.”

“You were good too,” Miles yawns. “Thank you for the present.”

“Felt more like a gift for me,” Peter says. “Everything with you is.”

“Then gimme another present tomorrow,” Miles says, and Peter laughs.

*

A few days after he turned 18 in his original universe, Miles steadies himself and uses the teleporter, this time to Pittsburgh. It was raining in the other world's Queens, but in this world's Pittsburgh it's a brisk and beautiful autumn day, and Miles exits a store with his new prepaid phone and sits on a park bench looking at the trees.  There's a playground nearby, but it's a schoolday and it's empty except for a mother and her kid, older than Parker, maybe three or so; the pup is ignoring the playground equipment entirely, instead squatting and solemnly poking at the dirt with a stick, while the mother reads a paperback book.

He’s there to call his parents, but it’s been such a long time that it feels especially daunting. After the close call in Georgia, Miles decided he had to wait until he was eighteen to risk going back to his home dimension. He didn’t like leaving his parents in the dark for over four months, but he just couldn’t risk not being able to go home. At least as an adult, he has a lot more rights.

Miles brushes off a maple seed that hits his jacket and thinks about picking up armfuls of maple seeds as a kid and throwing them into the air, laughing and watching the little helicopter wings whirl around; or standing under a tree, craning his neck back until he was dizzy just from the position, trying to catch a falling leaf or seed from a tree at the park.

He looks at the other trees and tries to identify them—that wiggly alien shape one is oak, right?—but as a procrastination tactic it's not very effective, and he finally dials his dad's number.

"Hello?" his dad's voice says, anxious or hopeful, hard to tell.

"Hi dad, it's Miles."

"Oh thank God, Miles. Don't hang up, hold on, I'm still pulling over."

It's not like the dad he knows, to pick up before he's fully pulled over. His dad has been graphic about the horrors of crashes caused by drivers on phones, ever since Miles could remember.

"Hello? Miles? You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here, dad. How—" Miles stops himself from asking how are you just in time. "Howwww are the Mets doing?" He winces and puts a hand to his forehead.

"Haven't been paying attention," his dad says. "Listen... listen Miles, we know, okay? Me and your mom, we found out about Spider-Man."

Miles almost says you found out I'm Spider-Man? but just in time remembers one time that Spider-Man Noir was telling him about "the oldest tricks in the book," in such a way that it sounded like The Book was definitely an actual, physical book, one which Spider-Man Noir definitely read cover-to-cover until it fell apart.

"Now kid, suppose somebody comes up to you and says, 'I know all about the dingus—'"

"The what?"

Peter Porker cut in. "The dingus, kid, the thingamajig, whatever's giving you the business!”

Spider-Man Noir nodded. “So, you may think you’re in for the kiss off, hearing 'I know all about the dingus, the game's up,' but it could be a trick. Never admit you ever heard of a dingus until they drag it out of you by the short hairs."

"I definitely never heard of a dingus, man."

So instead Miles plays it real cool. "Huh?"

"Ms. Parker invited us to come and see her, Miles, not long after you called about the pictures. At first I thought maybe, the things she was saying, the grief about her nephew had made her crazy, but... then she showed us her shed."

Oh my God, thinks Miles, he knows about the dingus.

"She had that old, too small costume still there, and... Miles, I was angry as hell, but..."

Another maple seed falls on Miles's knee, and he lets it lie.

"The past's not important right now," his dad says. "Ms. Parker said she thought you might be in one of the other dimensions. She... she told us about the glitching, Miles."

"I'm not glitching, dad," Miles says quickly. "It's a long story, but I'm not."

"So you did go to another dimension."

Miles takes a deep breath. "Yeah."

"I know it would have been hard for us to believe, Miles, but why..."

Miles hears his dad take in a deep breath.

"No, I said it ain't important right now. Okay. You... can you tell me now, Miles? Who this alpha is? Why you ran?"

Miles's knee is trembling and it makes the maple seed slip off. "I... I don't know dad."

"What don't you know?"

"You're gonna be really mad."

"Miles, I want you to listen to me, and listen to me good." It's his dad's alpha voice.

Over the phone, it doesn't have the same nervous system effect, but it's still associated with powerful memories from the past: stuff like his dad yelling at him not to run into the street, to step back from the edge of a pool, or that one scary day when they were having ice cream from a truck in their neighbourhood and they heard gun shots from nearby. His dad commanded, Miles, run home and don't stop for nobody, and Miles ran, he ran even though he was crying, he ran even though his dad was running the other way, towards the sound of gunfire.

"Your mom and me, we love you so much," he says, and it's weird to hear an alpha voice sound so choked up. "Sure, whatever you're gonna tell me is probably gonna make me mad. I'm already plenty mad about all of this. But there is no way, no way in hell, that there is anything you can tell us that would make us stop wanting to see you. Okay? It's not gonna happen. Especially your mom. And there's no way that it could hurt us more than we been hurting already from not knowing where you are and what you going through."

"Parker's sire is the Peter Parker from another universe,” Miles forces out in a rush, then takes a deep breath. His dad doesn’t say anything, and Miles goes on, “He was helping me learn to be Spider-Man and... and I lied to him that I was a beta, and then I went into heat..." says Miles, and he can't bring himself to continue. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for his dad to scream at him.

When his dad speaks, it's angry alright. "I see. Okay. I see, Miles. This is a grown alpha we're talking about, right? A grown man."

"Yes," Miles says in a small voice, not wanting to specify just how grown. His dad is already this angry just thinking that Miles's Peter Parker is 27 or so, like theirs had been.

"I know we can't undo what he did," his dad says, low and furious, "but an omega heat does not make an alpha completely lose his damn mind. Okay? It doesn't make the alpha forget right from wrong. Any decent alpha would help an omega in heat get to safety, not take advantage of them. Okay? I thought I taught you better—"

"It wasn't just the heat, dad," Miles interrupts, burning with shame, because now he's got the awful choice of either letting Peter unfairly shoulder all the blame of what happened, or admitting to his dad what he did because of the jellyfish, and blanketing over all of it is the almost suffocating embarrassment of having to talk with his dad about sex in the first place. "There... I don't know if you'll believe me, but I swear I'm telling the truth, there was this jellyfish alien thing and its pollen..." Miles searches his mind for that impressive-sounding scientific way that Peter had described what the jellyfish did, but can't remember it. "It messes with your head. Like a lot, a lot. And I didn't just lie to him about being a beta, I snuck into his apartment and..." He just can't say it. "...surprised him."

"So what you're saying is you were both intoxicated," his dad says, unimpressed. "Intoxication is still not a defence to statutory rape, Miles."

"I know, dad, but it's what happened. Do you think it would do me any better to have Parker's sire in jail?"

"Yes," his dad snaps, "it's what he deserves under the law."

Miles's stomach is roiling as he tries to figure out what to say. The seconds tick by.

His dad speaks again, a little subdued this time. "But I guess you knew I'd be like that, huh? I guess that's why you didn't tell us anything. Why you ran."

"Yeah, but dad, it turned out to be much better for me and Parker, I promise. See, in Peter’s dimension there's other people with superpowers like me, and people know about superpowers. I got to see doctors that know about powers, and that's why I had a c-section, because they said it can be dangerous for people with super strength to give birth naturally. Peter was the first to worry about it, too, he found me the doctors.” Miles wants to point out anything that makes Peter look good. "He's taken great care of me dad, I promise. He's taken responsibility."

His dad grumbles. "You know I always hated that great responsibility line."

"Yeah, I know dad."

A long pause.

"Wait... so you telling me my grandchild's name is Parker Parker?!"

*

They step out of the portal and Miles checks over Parker, who’s strapped to his front in a carrier. Not there’s any reason to think that travelling across dimensions wouldn’t be safe for the baby, especially after what Strange said about Parker being native to both dimensions, but the parental instinct to doublecheck is strong.

Parental instinct is what Peter’s about to have to confront.

A gust of wind knocks some golden leaves loose from a tree and blows the ones already on the sidewalk around as they walk. Miles nudges shoulders with him. "My dad is not gonna kill you, Peter.”

Peter has his hands in the pockets of his best suit. He’d picked what to wear based on what he’d wear if he was on trial. No, not on trial. Sentencing. “I’m not worried he’s gonna kill me. I’m worried I’m gonna look at him and wish I was dead.”

“Well if looking at him makes you feel like that, then just look at Parker and you’ll remember you’re happy to be alive.”

Peter half-smiles at his son, who is awake and looking around curiously, adorable as usual with a little knit bobble hat. “I know, I know. One afternoon sweating bullets is nothing compared to what your parents—”

“No g-word!”

Peter shakes his head. “Today is gonna be all g-word. You might as well call it Griday.”

Peter has had to deal with some mild judgment before now—Fury’s cold warning, a few dirty looks from strangers when they were on dates, Tony laughing at him over the phone—”You robbed the cradle to fill a cradle, huh kid?”

But that was all people who didn’t know the full story, who thought Miles was or at least might have been legal. Miles’s dad will be the first who truly knows that Peter’s a rapist, and his own son is his victim.

It’s basically going to be a few hours of the punishment he’s always deserved, and then he’ll go back to having the happy life he doesn’t. How can he complain about it?

*

"My dad is not gonna kill you, Peter," Miles says, in a joking way, but it isn’t really a joke, as they walk with Parker through Miles’s Brooklyn towards his parents’ house.

“I’m not worried he’s gonna kill me. I’m worried I’m gonna look at him and wish I was dead,” Peter says, his hands in his pockets. He’s dressed in a suit and tie with a wool coat, a lot nicer than the first time he was in this dimension, but he’s ruining the effect with how nervous and guilty he looks. Any jury in either dimension would convict him.

“Well if looking at him makes you feel like that, then just look at Parker and you’ll remember you’re happy to be alive,” says Miles, and is glad when Peter smiles and relaxes a very small amount.

“I know, I know. One afternoon sweating bullets is nothing compared to what your parents—”

“No g-word!”

“Today is gonna be all g-word. You might as well call it Griday.”

Peter goes out of his way to honour Miles’s dad as the alpha of the house, hunching his posture with his head bowed, looking at mouths instead of eyes, keeping his mouth shut, not letting his scent out at all. He doesn’t even react when Miles’s dad scents Parker without asking—an overtly hostile challenge.

Miles, on the other hand, is pissed. “Dad!” he exclaims, grabbing his pup back with so much enraged omega energy that even his dad immediately releases the baby to him. “You can’t just scent somebody’s kid without asking! He’s never even been scented by anybody but Peter before!”

It’s a tense moment, and Miles’s mother immediately launches herself in to fix it. “I made your favourite, Miles.”

“Mami, really? But pasteles are so much work, you didn’t have to do that,” Miles says, but his mouth is already watering.

His mother holds Parker and plays with him at the table, encourages the six-month-old to try little bits of the masa. Peter sits with his head bowed and the back of his neck angled towards Miles’s dad, and only begins eating when Miles’s dad pushes back from the table. It’s really hardcore, super old-fashioned wolf submission, and it’s definitely not mollifying Miles’s dad at all.

“Have you had pasteles before, Peter?” Miles’s mother says.

“No, ma’am,” Peter says, and Miles’s dad lets out a loud huff. “It’s delicious, thank you very much.”

That’s the only thing Peter says until Miles says they need to go, because it’s not good for Peter to be in this dimension for very long. In truth, it would take longer than just a few hours to start experiencing the glitching, but the tension is still so thick you could cut it with a knife... no, more like you’d have to hack at it with an axe.

His father grunts. “Well. Thanks for coming.”

Only in the absolute loosest sense is this at all directed at Peter, but Peter seizes the opportunity anyway to reply to the house alpha, his body bowed. “Thank you for allowing me in your home, sir. I am so, so sorry about everything that happened. I can’t justify any of it, but I can’t change it, so I’m going to continue to do my best to take responsibility.”

Miles sees his dad’s nostrils flare, and his mother hurry to grab onto his elbow. “Taking responsibility would have been turning yourself in to the police.”

“Dad—” says Miles, but Peter just bows lower.

“Y’all better go now,” his dad says.

*

When Miles’s mother lets them in, and the afternoon continues on, Peter thinks that Miles’s father probably thinks Peter’s strictly submissive and silent behaviour is an attempt to gain his approval, but it isn’t. It’s simply the only possible way that Peter can behave, here in the apartment where he snuck in the window and fucked Miles the third time.

It’s still an ordeal to his instincts, especially when Mr. Davis scented Parker without asking permission, right in his face. It’s a denial of Peter’s position as Parker’s father; in the old days, a challenge to take his pack away from him.

But Peter keeps himself still, even as his instincts howl further at Miles’s distress and anger.

I’m more than my instincts. He’s scenting my son without asking? Parker’s his grandchild, it’s expected for him to scent mark Parker, asking is just a formality. Whereas I invaded his home and stole his son—Miles’s innocence, his future, his entire life. The difference in level of insult isn’t even close.

At the end of the visit, when Peter seizes a technicality to speak to Miles’s father, he doesn’t expect forgiveness and he doesn’t receive it.

 “Taking responsibility would have been turning yourself in to the police,” Mr. Davis says. The other alpha’s scent is harsh and rankles at the back of Peter’s throat.

When they get back to Peter’s dimension, Miles disappears upstairs to put the pup down for a nap.

Should he have turned himself in to the police? Leaving aside the question of the police in what dimension... it is what he should have done. The right choice, rather than the easy one.

He’s supposed to be a hero. Kids dress up as him.

The couch dips a little. “Um, thanks for coming with me.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“I thought it went ok. I mean first time is always the worst. Maybe he’ll mellow out about it someday.” Miles’s voice is tentative, appeasing. “You don’t have to go back, if you don’t want.”

Peter looks up at that. “It shouldn’t be about what I want. What do you want?”

Miles’s eyes... oh, they have to be that big in order to hold that much love, probably. “I don’t think I can get everything I want. Nobody can, right? But when you let me be with you... then I got what I want the most. Really.”

Peter can’t look at Miles’s eyes for longer than a few seconds without smiling, even in a circumstance like this. “I believe you.”

“C’mere.”

Miles pulls him into a closed mouth kiss, holds him close, parts his lips with his tongue and steals the breath and objections and everything out of him, everything except Peter’s love for Miles. Slowly, with deliberation, Miles pulls on Peter’s head to lead his lips onto Miles’s mating gland.

It smells so good, it smells like it’s worth giving up anything and everything to obtain. “You know what you’re doing to me.”

“I’m ready for it when you are.”

Peter can never say no to Miles. Miles isn’t even in heat right now, biting the gland wouldn’t create a mark, yet Peter’s lips part anyway and he mouths at it, plays at pressing his teeth into it. Miles’s body goes relaxed and loose in Peter’s embrace.

Jesus. Peter’s not worthy of being trusted with this, no way. Even so, it takes every bit of self-restraint he has to come up with even a way to ask Miles to wait.

“This time next year. If you still want it this time next year, I’ll mark you.”

Miles sighs, and Peter prays to whatever entity will listen that Miles doesn’t push him on this “next year” thing. His self-control gets a reprieve, because Miles simply says, “I love you, Peter.”

“Love you too, puppy.”

*

Back in their own dimension, Peter flops on the couch without even loosening his tie.

“I’m gonna take Parks up to his room and feed him, see if he’ll go down for a nap,” Miles says, and Peter nods.

When Miles comes back down, Peter’s sitting up with his shoulders bowed and his hands clasped. He took off his tie, at least.

Miles sits next to him. “Um. Thanks for coming with me.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.” Peter’s voice is flat.

“I thought it went ok,” Miles says. “I mean first time is always the worst. Maybe he’ll mellow out about it someday.” A beat. “You don’t have to go back, if you don’t want.”

“It shouldn’t be about what I want,” says Peter, lifting his head a little to look at Miles. “What do you want?”

“I don’t think I can get everything I want,” says Miles. “Nobody can, right? But when you let me be with you... then I got what I want the most. Really.”

Peter smiles, reluctantly. “I believe you.”

“C’mere.”

They make out, slow and leisurely, and Miles deliberately turns himself so that Peter’s lips will skim towards his mating glands.

“You know what you’re doing to me,” Peter says into his skin.

“I’m ready for it when you are.”

Peter’s mouth opens, his teeth tease over the gland, but they don’t break the skin, even as Miles slumps into Peter’s arms, his eyes almost closed with the hypnotic pleasure of it.

Peter tucks Miles’s head onto his shoulder, breathes in and out deeply before saying, “This time next year. If you still want it this time next year, I’ll mark you.”

A year sounds like a very long time, but it also sounds worth it, completely worth it. “I love you, Peter.”

“Love you too, puppy.”

Chapter Text

Gwen: so when i said 15 months was a pretty significant age gap

Gwen: did you take that as a challenge

Miles: Heyyyyyyy Gwen... it’s been a while... you’ve heard some stuff, I guess?

Gwen: don’t hey me

Gwen: i heard it from noir

Gwen: he just mentioned it like it was nbd when we were talking about something else

Gwen: apparently in his dimension 17 and 40 is a totally acceptable age gap so that’s gross but whatever

Gwen: not that its my business

Gwen: be gross if you want

Gwen: but i’m gonna be mad at you guys for not telling me yourself for a while

Miles: Do you want baby pictures?

Gwen: ofc i want baby pictures are you kidding

Gwen: depending on how cute they are i may reduce the amount of time i’m mad at you guys

Gwen: also i get to be Aunt Gwen

*

At Thanksgiving they go back to Earth-1610, but not to see Miles’s parents this time.

They stand at the doorstep of a house in the other Forest Hills, Miles holding Parker, Peter gripping a tub of orange chrysanthemums, his camera bag at his hip. His Aunt May always said living flowers were a better gift than cut ones, so...

The door opens, and the inside smells like turkey and pumpkin pie. The television in the front room is playing the parade. “Peter, Miles, it’s so good to see you, come in.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Aunt May,” Peter says, offering the flowers as they step in, but Aunt May has her eyes on what Miles is holding.

“And a special hello to you, young man,” Aunt May says, while Parker regards her warily. “It’s so nice to meet you, Parker. Now I have some toys for you over here, if you’d like to take a look at them.”

Peter just keeps standing awkwardly by the door, looking around, while Miles gets Parker out of his winter coat.

The room itself looks very similar to how it did before they nearly knocked the house down brawling with Kingpin’s goons. Everything’s been replaced, but the taste of the person doing the replacements was the same, so it’s still all gentle florals and twee ceramics behind glass doors. A photograph of an unsettlingly blond version of Uncle Ben still has pride of place next to the stairs, and there are pictures of the blond Peter everywhere too. Some of the photographs are off in other ways—blond Peter played football instead of basketball, which must have been really funny to watch before the spider bite, when he was a nerdy weakling. At least nobody tackled in basketball.

There’s a picture of Parker hanging up, which throws him for a moment, until he realizes that by itself, there’s nothing incriminating about it. It’s just a black and white picture of a sleeping newborn baby’s face; it’s only because he took the picture that he immediately zeroed in on it.

Parker can sit up unassisted now, and Miles sets him up on the blanket that Aunt May has set up on the floor where the coffee table used to be. There’s a nubby silicone ball, some board books (Baby’s First Thanksgiving says the one on the top of the stack), a cloth baby doll, and one of those wooden cube activity centres. Aunt May offers Parker the doll while Miles stands back up to take off his own coat.

Parker accepts the doll, regards its face intently, then opens his mouth and begins nomming on the doll’s forehead.

“Beautiful flowers, Peter, thank you.” Aunt May comes back to take them from him. “Are they from this dimension?”

“Uh, yeah.” He unzips his coat and hangs it on the hook next to Miles’s.

“I know the perfect place for it upstairs, but it’s a bit of a reach for me,” she says. “Be a dear and come help me, Peter?”

Peter isn’t fooled. He hangs his head as he follows Aunt May up the stairs.

Aunt May scruffs him the moment the door is closed behind them upstairs and Peter lets out a whine at a pitch he hasn’t released in years as he drops to his knees.

“Well I’m glad at least your body knows who’s pack alpha around here,” Aunt May says. “Now I know the other me did not raise you to take advantage of a first heat, Peter.”

Oh God. It’s not his Aunt May—it’s not—but the smell is the same, and the voice, and it doesn’t matter because if his Aunt May was alive she’d be just this disappointed in him—

There’s a sigh, and then the hand on the back of his neck is turning gentle and gathering his crying face against her chest, scent marking him. “I suppose I should have let you explain first. I just get so dang mad, Peter, you know me—or you know the other me, I guess.”

He can’t help a watery chuckle at that. He did know her—he does.

“It just about gave me a heart attack when I saw that poor boy’s face on the news, missing and pregnant. And his poor parents, they had no idea. I still love you, but you’re not off the hook,” she says sternly. “Explain.”

So Peter does, as awkward as it is to explain to this alternate dimension version of the woman who raised him. At least Aunt May has always been difficult to shock and willing to ignore popular opinion—had to be, as an alpha woman who had a beta man as the love of her life. As soon as he mentions the narco-medusa, Aunt May clicks her tongue.

“Those things. I helped clean my Peter off the first time he tangled with one, before we knew what it was about. Then I went on a date with Liv—didn’t know she was Doc Ock then,” she adds, probably anticipating Peter’s disgust at the idea of his aunt romantically involved with the supervillain. “It was quite an evening. If it got on both of you when Miles was in heat—”

“It doesn’t excuse that I went back to his dimension the next day. To his room in his parent’s apartment,” Peter says, glad he’s looking at Aunt May’s floral blouse instead of her eyes. “And the rest of it... I... I really did something terrible this time, Aunt May.”

There’s a long silence, and then Aunt May says, “I wonder if it went down the same way, in your universe. When you told me about what led up to Ben’s death.”

Peter’s almost glad he’s already crying as she strokes his hair.

“You—my Peter, that is—you had your stuff packed...”

“I was sure you were going to kick me out,” Peter chokes out.

“And I said we’re family, and that’s more than any mistake can change, no matter what.”

Peter makes a muffled noise in his aunt’s cardigan.

“It’s more than a little thing like you being the Peter from another universe can change, either,” she says, still soothing his hair. “You’re still Peter, and I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too Aunt May.”

“So now that we’ve got that cleared up, tell me the rest of it.”

Peter explains the fallout with his universe’s MJ, Miles’s attempts to struggle through his pregnancy alone, and Peter’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to support him without crossing the romantic/sexual boundary again, until Peter finally gave up on even trying.

“I love him. I’m sure my love is bad for him, but I just keep... when he’s with me I can never stop myself, but I can never figure out how to push him away without him getting hurt worse. I know it’s pathetic, but I just can’t say no to him, ever. I keep waiting for him to figure out that I took advantage of him... he asked me to mark him, and the best I could manage was to ask him to wait a year. And my life... everything in my life is so great right now, and every way that I’ve changed, I’ve done because of him. I feel like a vampire, like I sucked my happiness out of him. He saved me but it cost him his entire dimension.”

Aunt May sighs. “He’s eighteen now, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Just eighteen. Two months ago,” Peter says numbly.

“It’s like I always told you, you can only go on from where you are.”

“My Aunt May worded it slightly differently, but I remember it.”

“You did make some bad choices. But you don’t have those choices to make over again, they’re done. You have new choices. And what I would say to you about these new choices is... keep your promises.”

*

Peter uses the bathroom and washes his face before he comes back downstairs.

“I was just telling Miles that Parker should call me Aunt May too,” Aunt May’s voice calls from the kitchen when Peter stands in the doorway between the front room and the dining room. An oven door opens and closes. “I know I’m great, there’s no need to dwell on it.”

You okay? Miles mouths at him when Peter glances towards the front room, and Peter nods with a genuine smile and calls towards the kitchen, “You need help with anything?”

“I’ve been doing Thanksgivings for decades, you just sit down and watch the parade with Parker.”

Parker is indeed staring entranced at the television’s depiction of a gigantic Snoopy balloon slowly making its way down 6th Avenue. He’s still got the doll in his mouth—one of the feet this time.

“Unless you’re one of those parents that doesn’t allow TV,” Aunt May adds. “Miles didn’t say anything, but maybe he was trying to be polite. You can turn it off if you don’t want it on.”

“It’s fine with me,” says Miles, sitting on the plastic-wrapped couch with a glass of eggnog and a tray on his lap with cheese and crackers. “You should get some eggnog, Peter.”

So Peter gets some eggnog, because he does do cheat days, and watches the parade, and then they all sit down at a table set with roast turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and pumpkin pie. They bow their heads and clasp their hands while Aunt May thanks God “in His mystery” for continuously bringing good things out of bad.

Parker is still new to solid food and it’s his first time having mashed potatoes. He goes nuts for them, both as food and as face mask, and Peter gets some great pictures. Aunt May tells funny stories about her trials and tribulations in online dating, Miles talks about the research he’s been doing into various colleges, and Peter recounts the time he was chasing a minor villain who could produce sticky goo and got stuck to the top of his own Spider-Man float and rode it all the way to Herald Square before he was spotted by a television camera.

Peter’s not sure about God, mysterious or otherwise, but he feels thankful anyway.

After dinner, Parker lets Aunt May hold him and even falls asleep in her arms while Miles is looking through photo albums of the blond Peter, Peter mentioning stuff that is the same as his memories while asking Aunt May about the stuff that’s different.

In addition to his preference for playing football (badly) and rooting for the Jets and Islanders rather than playing basketball (badly) and rooting for the Nets and Mets, blond Peter was apparently even more academic than Peter B. While Peter B went to work for the Bugle after getting a bachelors in physics, the year blond Peter died he was getting ready to defend his doctoral thesis in chemical engineering.

“My Peter never really found an artistic outlet,” Aunt May says thoughtfully. “Photography... yes, I remember Peter mentioning that he wanted to take a photography elective but it didn’t work with his schedule. He took a metal shop class instead.”

Wonder if that’s how he managed to make that crazy lair of his.

“Um, Aunt May,” Miles says, a little shy about using the name still instead of Ms. Parker, “I just wanted to make sure you know, Parker isn’t just named after my Peter. He’s named for your Peter too.”

“That’s very kind of you.” She looks down at Parker with a sad smile.

“Would you... Aunt May, would you like to scent Parker?” Peter asks.

“I’d be honoured.”

*

“Joy to the world I keep saving, maybe I could get paid, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm ehhhh, da da da da da dayyyy, and literally I don’t get paid, uh hmm hmm uh hmm hmm get paid, the stuff to make web fluid is not free, okay?”

Peter snickers while Miles half-sings his own... special lyrics to the instrumental “Joy to the World” playing on the stereo while they trim the tree. Peter also hung lights on the front of the house during the day—a trivial task with spider powers.

The omega was apologetic when he asked mid-December if they could have a tree and the other secular traditions of Christmas for Parker, saying that he knew it was kind of last minute, but Peter was quick to inform him that he’d go along with whatever.

They’re not getting many “silent nights” these days. Parker, after giving them false hope through November of sometimes sleeping through the night or only waking once, has been waking twice or more a night and playing Napfighter II every day.

Miles looks tired but determined to get the tree done in one go, even though there’s still a week until Christmas. The Christmas lights are already plugged in and lit, casting a gentle multicoloured glow against his face as he clings casually to the wall to hang ornaments at the top of the back. “The tree smells really good,” Miles comments, “I’m glad we got a real one. Toss me the star?”

Peter throws it to him, and Miles crawls up onto the ceiling to affix the star to the top of the tree, then crawls across the ceiling to drop himself down next to the light switch.

Miles flicks off the lights, and they enjoy the quiet glow of the Christmas tree in silence for a moment.

“I kind of wish Parker was awake to see it,” says Peter, and then the baby monitor warbles with an ambiguous baby noise that might just be a loud sigh or could be the start of a crying jag.

“You jinx it, you get it back to sleep,” Miles jokingly warns Peter as they both stare at the monitor, but the machine settles back into white noise.

“Phew,” says Peter, and glances at the clock. “You wanna get ready for bed?”

“It’s not that late yet. Could we just sit on the couch and enjoy it for a bit?”

“Sure.”

The stereo is still playing instrumentals of Christmas music. Peter rests the side of his face against Miles’s hair and drapes his arm across his shoulder.

“It was kind of a hard day,” Miles says, surprising Peter. “I know I kinda bullied you into doing all that Christmas decorating today. I just wanted my mind off things.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were upset,” says Peter, irritated with himself for not realizing it was more than tiredness. “The decorating was fine. I enjoyed it too.”

“You know how I was saying before that I should get Parker registered in the other universe and just generally deal with the legal stuff over there. Well, I did the last of it today. Got Parker’s birth certificate and social security card... oh, right, I should give them to you to put in the fire safe.”

“Oh...” Peter knew Miles went out with Parker that morning while Peter was doing the outside lights, but he’d assumed it was for the usual weekly playgroup, not extradimensional travel.

“I dunno. I don’t really wanna talk about it exactly... I mean, they approved it and stuff, so Parker has identity papers if he ever wants to go to that dimension, and they've officially closed my missing person’s case, but... I dunno. I had the documents mailed to my parents’ place and my dad was there, sleeping, ‘cause he’d had a night shift the night before. He wasn’t mad or anything... he was... really glad to see us...” Miles stays silent for a bit, looking at the tree. “It was hard.”

“I didn’t smell him...?”

Miles sighs. “When he asked if he could scent mark Parker, I got irritated and I said, ‘Oh, when it’s just me, you remember to ask?’ I wish I didn’t. He just looked sad, he didn’t say nothing. I tried to tell him he could do it after, but then he just said it was fine. It was dumb. It’s not like I get to see him that much...”

“You can go there anytime you want,” Peter says, and then forces himself to add, “you can even live there, if you want.”

Miles instantly gives him a glare. “I don’t want. You stop that.”

“Well it’s important to me that you remember it’s an option.”

Miles lets out an irritated breath. “I know it’s an option! You think I wanna go back to being without you?”

Peter stares, and Miles’s glare softens.

“Don’t you know how good it is, being with you?” he says, turning himself on the couch to more face Peter. “This other stuff with my family, and all that—it sucks, it really sucks, yeah. I wish it was different. But not being with you... I tried it, man, sucks doesn’t describe it.”

Peter laughs despite himself, but says, “If you’re talking about when you were pregnant, that was just physical dependence on my scent. It’d be different now.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Miles says, stubborn and confident. “My heart’s dependent on you now, okay. And don’t forget you said you’d mark me if I still wanted it next October. You promised. So quit it with telling me I can leave.”

“I didn’t forget,” Peter says, heart thumping at Miles’s words. He tries to fight it but his lips keep twitching up into a smile.

“What’s so funny?”

Peter lets the smile win. “‘My heart’s dependent on you.’ Cheesy puppy.”

Miles presses on Peter’s chest with his palms, raises up his chin loftily, as one with the moral high ground. “Romance isn’t cheesy.”

“No?” Peter leans in under the chin to kiss Miles’s neck.

That stops the words, for a while, at least until both of them have lost their pants and Miles is bouncing in Peter’s lap with his back to him, Peter pressing hot kisses against his neck.

“Peter, Peter, talk to me.”

“You like how I talk to you when I fuck you, puppy?”

“Yes! Yes, Peter, please!”

“So needy,” Peter growls, “just look at how desperate you are to ride my cock, you naughty thing. But you need me to talk to you too, huh? Is my cock fucking your little pussy good, baby? Is it rubbing you deep inside?”

“S-so good!”

“Miles,” Peter groans, “God, I love you Miles. Best little pussy... all for me... you get so wet for me, only me, right?”

Miles grabs Peter’s arm, hugs it to his chest. “Only you... it’s only ever gonna be you... ah!”

“Wanna give you my knot so bad, puppy. Wanna get you stuck on my cock, make you take it all. You want it?”

Miles comes instead of answering in words, and the extra stimulation takes Peter over the edge anyway, pulling Miles tight against him as his knot swells.

They both pant together for a minute in the afterglow, before Miles says sheepishly, “This position’s a little awkward, right?”

“Mm. You can fall asleep if you want.” Peter grabs at a throw blanket. “I’ll carry you upstairs when it goes down.”

“What if Parker wakes up,” Miles says, eyes already fluttering closed.

“You know his screams are better than a cold shower when it comes to making my knot go down,” Peter points out. “I’ll deal. You get some sleep if you can.”

Miles yawns something that might be okay.

*

On Christmas, Peter is nervous but trying not to show it, sipping his coffee, while Miles opens his gifts: a drafting table and stool.

“I have the receipt, if it’s not what you want,” Peter says as Miles stares at it, not saying anything. “It’s just, uh, I’ve seen you all hunched over with your sketchbooks, and I know you’re flexible—heh—” He can’t help a brief amusement at his own unintentional innuendo. “—but, you know, you had one before, and we could fix up that room in the third floor, the one with the skylight, to be a studio...”

“It looks good,” Miles says, then smiles at Parker, who crawled over to investigate and is trying to get his dam to pick him up. Miles shifts from his knees to a cross-legged sit and pulls the pup into his lap, then looks over at Peter on the couch. “I was actually thinking... did you, like, figure it out, what I was thinking about doing?”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Well, I know you were kinda thinking I should, like maybe next fall, enroll in a college. Do the college thing, but... I was thinking about what I want to do with my life that fits with being a hero. Something that I enjoy, that is flexible, that won’t be too difficult to combine with something so unpredictable. I mean, high school wasn’t easy for that, and I can’t imagine that college is, not to mention most ‘normal’ jobs, but... maybe if I could do something with art, freelance, but... I’m not saying I don’t do anything to learn, because I know I could learn so much more, about art, and anatomy, and stuff.”

As he talks, Parker pushes at Miles’s shirt, and Miles absently lifts it to allow the pup to nurse.

“So... are you thinking about enrolling in art school?” Peter says, pushing away the distraction. Even though he’s seen Miles do this hundreds of times before—literally every day, since Parker was born-it still hits some instinctive button in Peter and makes him want to grin like an idiot. He’d been taken aback by how much he liked seeing Miles nurse; he had never really felt any particular way about seeing other people feed their babies, just like he had never felt any particular way about seeing other people pregnant. But when it was Miles who was pregnant or nursing with his pup, he just couldn’t help but feel deeply, deeply satisfied.

“Not enrolling,” Miles says, looking at the drafting table box again, unaware that Peter’s inner thoughts are drifting along such stereotypical knothead alpha lines. “More like taking a class at a time, not necessarily from a college, either. I mean, this is New York, the art scene is huge... although I’m kinda intimidated at the idea of trying to get ‘into the art scene’...” He smiles sheepishly. “I know for sure I want to take anatomy and life drawing, so maybe I’ll start there. Like, the more tools I give myself, the better, right? Hey, none of that. You play with my shirt if you wanna pinch something.”

This last is directed at Parker, who had a bad habit of more or less fidgeting with Miles’s skin while nursing, in a way that Miles found irritating at best.

Peter grabs one of Parker’s small toys and comes over to place it in the baby’s hand and keep it occupied.

“Thanks,” Miles says, giving Peter one of his adorable smiles.

“God, you’re cute,” Peter says without thinking.

“Geez,” Miles laughs, tilting his face up for a quick kiss, “did I do something?”

Peter kisses him. “You’re just always cute. Probably because I’m head over heels in love with you.”

*

“What would Spider-Man be in Spanish?” Peter says.

Miles rubs his nose. “El Hombre Araña, I guess.”

“You’d better write that one down,” Peter says, handing over the pencil.

They’re brainstorming a name for Miles to use, since they’re both going to be working in New York. Spider-Man and Also Other Spider-Man doesn’t seem like that great of an idea, especially because it’s probably inevitable that the press will come up with their own distinguishing name, and it might not be a flattering one. Anything rather than Spider-Boy, when Miles is already older than when Peter debuted as Spider-Man.

“How about a kind of spider,” says Miles, opening Google on his phone. “Like how I called you Hobo-Spider-Man. That was pretty clever.”

Peter looks like he wants to object about how clever Hobo-Spider-Man was, but Parker, who at ten months old can crawl very fast when he wants to (and he usually wants to) and pull himself up on furniture,  is making another attempt to climb a baby gate.

So far, Parker hasn’t displayed any spider-powers, but from his genetic make-up, it could happen at any time, and his current fascination with attempting to climb has his parents very nervous.

“Let’s just leave that alone kiddo,” Peter says, scooping up Parker and then patting his butt. “And let’s change your diaper.”

When Peter gets back, he sits Parker in his high chair. “How’s it going?”

“Did you know there are over forty-five thousand species of spider?”

“That’s a lot of names to go through,” Peter says, clipping a bib around Parker’s neck. “Tarantula’s already been used by a villain, by the way.”

“Awww,” says Miles, crossing something out. “Well, that still leaves some cool ones. Wolf Spider... Recluses are pretty deadly...”

“Recluse Spider sounds more like me five years ago,” muses Peter.

Parker makes the more baby sign impatiently.

“It’s coming, it’s coming, I gotta cut it up Parks.”

“Huntsman, that has potential... something called Armed Spiders, apparently...”

“‘Oh my God, that spider has a gun,’” Peter deadpans, setting a little plate of sliced grapes and hard boiled egg yolks in front of Parker. “There you go Parks, can you sign thank you? Thank you... you’re welcome, Parker.” He sits back down next to Miles.

“How about... Orbweaver?” Miles says in a dramatic way, spreading his hands. “That one sounds kind of mystical.”

“Anything sounds mystical if you say it like that,” says Peter, and does jazz hands himself. “Banana Spider.”

Miles cracks up. “Hey, if you’re not going to take this seriously...”

“But Orbweaver is pretty good, actually,” says Peter. “Write it down, at least.”

*

It becomes obvious through recurring incidents ("What do you mean, President Kennedy was assassinated? Don't you mean President Reagan?") that Miles has a lot to learn about this universe's history if he's not going to give himself away as coming from another reality.

Miles, as a very recent full-time high school student, had just had a lot of the facts of his universe drummed into his brain, whereas Peter had never been super interested in any of the "arts" subjects even when he was in school, and hadn't thought about most of it in years. They could only really discover where their universes differed through trial and error. A lot of times when Miles recited something from his history, Peter would say "that sounds about right" and then they'd later discover that it was totally off. So instead of trying to learn from Peter, Miles hits the local library for history textbooks. Of course, it has blind spots.

"Don't worry man, I'm sure they just thought I was dumb," Miles says to Peter when they're at some charity event, their first "official" debut as a couple, after Miles caused a flummoxed silence in a little group of VIPs when he said, "Yeah, sounds like when the Notorious B.I.G. almost got killed," in a conversation about a recent shooting.

"People shouldn't think you're dumb," Peter says, looking irritated. "You're not dumb."

Miles does little swirls with his index fingers around his head. "Keep 'em guessing. If people underestimate you, that's the advantage."

Peter snorts, but he says with his eyes a little narrowed, "You know you're not dumb, right?"

Miles shrugs, wishing Peter didn’t notice so much so often. "I mean, 'not dumb,' that's not exactly saying much. But sure."

"You're really smart, Miles.”

Miles laughs. "Not compared to you. Anyway. Sure sucks that Biggie died in this universe. My uncle loved his music. My dad didn't like that he let me listen to it, though."

Peter looks like he wants to continue arguing about it, but then some other people come up to schmooze and the subject gets dropped.

For recent superhero history, on the other hand, Peter is the only possible source, since a lot of it is still top-secret. When Peter talks with him about the importance of trying to keep his identity low profile as long as possible, Miles is confused, because he thought one of the few things he did understand about this universe was that people knew who Spider-Man was.

"It's complicated," says Peter, "there was a war, a civil war, about whether heroes should be allowed to have secret identities. There were good people on both sides."

"There was a superhero war?!" Miles says, eyes shining.

"Hey. Miles," Peter says, getting serious in a way that makes Miles feel very young in a bad way, "I know war sounds exciting, but some really awful things happened. People died, lots of people, and not just heroes who knew what they were risking. People who weren't doing anything wrong, people who just were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even kids..."

Peter explains the two sides of the Civil War: the pro-public identity and government registration side, and the pro-secret identity and independence side. He's measured and gives each side's argument in their own words, letting none of his own opinion out.

"So which side were you on?" Miles says.

"I—" Peter stops. "Actually, I'm curious. What do you think I did?"

Miles thinks about it a moment. "Did you... avoid taking a side as long as you could because you didn't want to get involved and have to fight against friends on either side? And then finally you joined the government side, because that was, like, the default, so it was, like, the least choice-y choice?"

Peter stares at him. "Jesus Christ, Miles." He shudders a little.

"What? What's wrong? Was I that off?"

"No, you were absolutely spot on. How did you... it took me so long to decide what to do, I agonized over it. How did you get it just like that?"

Miles says, "I just tried to think about what you would do, I guess? I dunno. I don't know much about this world, still, but I do know you pretty well, I think."

Peter's still staring at him.

"You're starting to freak me out a little with the staring contest thing."

"Sorry. It's just... yikes." Peter rubs his temples. "The mortifying ordeal of being known."

"The what? Is this another history thing I missed?"

"It's nothing."

*

It’s a pretty, unusually warm day in early April. It’s only the second time Miles has gone for a patrol in his new hero identity as Orbweaver. Peter took Parker to toddler gym hour at the rec centre and then came home for a snack and a nap. Peter’s trying out the clothesline in their backyard, hanging up blankets and sheets, when his spider sense goes off.

He leaps up to the second floor, Parker’s bedroom, forces open the window and darts inside just in time to catch the pup when he loses his balance at the top of his crib and topples off.

“Parker!” he says harshly. “What were you doing?!”

Parker screws up his face and wails, and Peter instantly feels like an even worse father. Parker is a baby, he doesn’t understand danger, it’s in his nature to try to explore his world, to learn to crawl and climb and walk.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Peter soothes, shifting the pup in his arms, sitting up on the floor and rubbing Parker’s back, scenting him. “It’s okay, you’re fine, Daddy caught you. Daddy’s not mad, I just got scared. But you’re okay. We’re okay.”

Parker keeps crying but more quietly, clutching onto Peter’s shirt with his chubby fists, getting drool and snot all over his shoulder.

Peter looks at the bars of the crib, the thing that’s supposed to keep his kid safe when he’s sleeping, with some chagrin.

When Parker started getting into making climbing attempts, they bolted all the furniture to the walls and tried to keep an extra close eye on him, but Peter hadn’t even considered that Parker would climb his crib. In hindsight, how stupid could he be?

Okay. Okay, time to calm down. Beating himself up about this is no help to anyone. He caught Parker. And even if he hadn’t, yeah Parker might have gotten a little hurt, but babies, and even more toddlers, take little falls every day, and most of them are fine, the human race wouldn’t be around if they weren’t fine. And Parker may even have a healing factor, he might be even more resilient than a typical pup.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Peter says aloud again, to himself as much as to Parker. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Chapter Text

Not all the tabloids favour Spider-Man.

“WATCH OUT MISS MUFFET, HE’S TWICE YOUR AGE” screams a headline on the Daily Bugle the Sunday after Miles and Peter get legally married, something Peter had attempted to do discreetly, purely for the legal protections (especially regarding hospital rights), but the Daily Bugle had apparently sniffed out a copy of the marriage license.

Miles had gone to the library to meet up with Peter and Parker (they were at Toddler Story-Time) and gotten sidetracked in the newspaper area at the sight.

The inside article was as full of terrible puns and forced references as it was nasty jabs.

“Peter Parker Pumpkin-Eater had a wife and couldn’t keep her,” it began, “but now the bozo better known as Spider-Man has managed to catch a new omega half his age in his web. The forty-one year old Spider-Man may be New York’s most notorious costumed freak, but poor little twenty-year-old omega Miles Morales was too naive to be frightened away when along came a Spider-Man, trying to get in his tuffet.”

Miles’s jaw dropped and he had to reread the line a couple of times. His tuffet?

“Forest Hills in Queens now has a spider infestation as the couple has bought a house and is playing at happy family with their son. Even though their little spiderling turned one in April, New York’s laziest ‘hero’ only got around to a legal marriage this past week, and there’s no sign of a spider bite on the omega’s neck.”

And they actually had a picture of the back of his head! It sends an awful violated shiver up his spine, the idea of somebody aiming their camera at him for this purpose, to sell a picture speculating about something so private.

“The current Miss Muffet may be enjoying his curds and whey for now, but New York divorce lawyers are no doubt eager to see what happens when Spider-Man climbs up someone else’s spout again.”

“I thought you were going to meet us at—ohhhhhh,” Peter says, pushing Parker’s stroller up to Miles and seeing what he’s reading. “Jesus, they put that on the front page? Slow news day.”

“Can they seriously call me Miss Muffet?! Is that legal?” Miles closes the newspaper and smacks it down. “It’s—that’s omegaphobic, first of all—”

“Yeah, they have zero shame,” Peter says. “C’mon, let’s go have lunch.”

“I’m not a little girl,” Miles seethes, gripping the handlebars of Parker’s stroller. “I can’t believe people are still misgendering omega men like it’s a joke in 2022. Why were they so over the top nasty in what they wrote? I thought that article before was mean to MJ, but at least that was all passive-aggressive and indirect. They straight up called you a bozo, Peter!”

“The Daily Bugle has always had it out for me specifically.” Peter shrugs. “I, uh, I worked for them for a while, actually, back before my identity was public. I made some good bank taking pictures of myself as Spider-Man for them... so when it came out that I was Spider-Man the whole time, Mr. Jameson—the owner—I think he actually gave himself a heart attack, he was so angry...”

“So that means he’s gotta come after me and Parker too?”

“What did they say about Parker?” Peter says, in a different tone. The contrast in Peter’s attitude, in a weird way, reassures Miles. Like that Peter expects Miles to be strong enough to shrug off insults and lies, but people messing with their pup is a different story.

“Nothing bad really. They called him a spiderling.”

“Oh, that’s kinda cute.” Peter relaxes, and for today, at least, the staff of the Daily Bugle have cheated death.

*

“Peter... Peter, wake up, please.”

The blanket lifts off of Peter as he opens his eyes and starts getting his bearings, blinking at Miles’s face illuminated only by the dim light of the moon through the window. “Miles? Wa’s wrong?”

“Need you.” Miles pulls away and turns his body, and two things jump to the front of Peter’s groggy mind: Miles is naked, and Miles is slick.

Peter breathes in sharply, instinctively checking for the scent of heat, but there isn’t any. So... Miles is just horny? Well, Peter’s never going to complain about being woken up for that. He sits up, rubbing his face a moment to encourage himself to wake up faster, and his eyes widen to see that Miles already took up the omegan lordosis position for being mounted: hips tilted up, knees open, spine curved, arms folded under himself, his chin resting on the mattress.

Peter’s half-awake mind swirls with memories of the first time—how his hands taught Miles’s ignorant, heat-crazed body this exact position, spreading his knees open, tilting his hips up, pushing his shoulders down, murmuring to him; how he worked Miles’s virgin asshole with his fingers, getting him loose and wet. How they wrestled and Peter repeatedly pinned and play-mounted him, how whenever Peter released the pin Miles would scratch, bite, and whine, trying to grab onto him, wordlessly and unconsciously asking for something he didn’t yet understand, until he finally started crying from frustration.

At that moment, Peter let go of Miles entirely, their only point of skin-to-skin contact the head of Peter’s cock against Miles’s hole, and the omega went absolutely still in this same, perfect lordosis posture. And Peter’s fevered brain thought: He’s ready.

“Miles,” Peter says in the present moment, or intends to say, but it barely comes out at a whisper. His mind can’t remember he feels guilty about taking Miles in his first heat; it’s too busy wishing that Miles was in heat again. His mouth is watering and his gums feel weird, almost tingly.

Peter wants to bite.

His hands fumble at the drawstring of his pants. “Just a moment, puppy, stay just like that for me.”

Miles whimpers, and Peter nearly rips his underwear getting it off his ankles. When he throws the clothing away it hits something in the room and knocks it over, but he’s already pressing his hips against Miles by then, rubbing on him, balanced on one hand while putting the fingers of the other inside Miles, rubbing his gland to encourage him to get even wetter.

“Peter, hurry,” moans Miles, turning his face to the side and trying to look up at him.

“Shhh, I’m here, I’m gonna give you what you need. Just relax, yeah? That’s it, get even wetter for me.”

Miles’s hole tries to hold onto his fingers with a wet squelch as Peter pulls them out and rubs the slick onto his cock.

“Ah,” pants Miles as Peter starts to press his dick inside him, inch by inch, “ah—ah—ah... haa... ah—”

“That’s it baby,” Peter groans. “Fuck, you’re incredible. Taking it so tight every time, letting me fuck your little pussy open. This what you needed? My thick cock fucking you just right?”

The omega’s slick passage is hugging tight onto his cock. Every thrust of his hips pushes a breathy moan out of Miles, blending with the slap of Peter’s hips against his ass.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, mmmmmm...”

“Mmm, fuck yeah, puppy. I’ll give you my cock any time you need it. Fill this little pussy up, keep you satisfied. Make you come so hard.”

Peter lays his body down across Miles, indulging his instincts and biting down on a big pinch of skin and muscle where the neck meets the shoulder. It makes Miles’s knees give out and slide apart more. Peter’s weight presses Miles down into the mattress as he keeps fucking him, humping him, running his tongue on the flesh he’s gripping in his mouth and thinking Mine. Mine. Mine.

“Hnnngh, Peter,” Miles chokes out when Peter finally lets go of the bite and swipes his tongue across the bruised flesh.

Peter snarls a little, frustrated. It’s not enough, he’s not in Miles enough, he wants to bite, to mark, but he can’t. Miles is so good, so fucking good, perfect... he keeps pushing his hips down against Miles over and over, moaning at the intensity of how good it feels to be inside his omega, thrusting as hard as he can as if he could somehow get even deeper.

He’s pushed over the edge when Miles whimpers “Coming... ah, alpha,” biting down again on Miles’s nape again, jamming his hips in as his dick pulses with his own orgasm and then his knot starts to bulge. Miles is all pliant and soft under him, just like he should be, because Miles is his.

Peter breathes over Miles’s neck as his heartbeat gradually begins to slow down. Miles is breathing fast, his eyes closed, and the sheet beneath his face is wet, from tears or drool or some combination. Peter opens his jaw and sniffs, relieved not to smell any blood, at least.

“Baby,” Peter says softly, “you doing alright?” He presses a kiss against the base of Miles’s skull, breathing in the mix of Miles’s natural scent and the honey-almond creaminess of the product Miles uses on his hair. “Gimme a minute and I’ll turn us over.”

“It’s okay. I like... feeling you on top of me,” Miles says, his voice sounding a little embarrassed at saying the last bit.

Peter chuckles and licks behind Miles’s ear. “You won’t be happy in the morning if I sleep on you like this all night, puppy.”

“Won’t be happy in the morning anyway,” Miles mutters, then hurriedly, “Never mind.”

“So something is wrong. Something happen on patrol?” Peter gives Miles a few moments to respond. “Baby, you know whatever it is, I bet I’ve been there too.”

“I messed up, okay? I’m... I don’t know.” Miles huffs a little and turns his face to the other side. “There was a fire in a mid rise and I didn’t... I really messed up. I thought I should start with the people at the top but...”

“Oh, Miles.” Peter rubs soothing circles on the back of Miles’s arms. “Fires are really unpredictable. Every person you didn’t rescue would have been just as screwed if you hadn’t been there, you know that, right? And I’m guessing there were people you did rescue, am I right?”

“Not enough.”

“Not enough...” Peter nuzzles Miles. “Oh, puppy, I know. It’s really hard, especially when you’re sure if you did something different you could have saved more.”

“I could have. What if people could’ve gotten down themselves but they stayed by the window because they thought I was gonna save them? They were there and then something just...” Miles sniffs. “I just... I got home and I was showering off the smoke and it just wouldn’t stop playing in my mind, man. And then I just suddenly wanted you so bad... Is that fucked up or what?”

“Jesus,” Peter snorts. “You’re gonna make me laugh.”

The corner of Miles’s mouth tweaks up a little. “It feels really weird when you laugh when we’re tied.”

“I’ll bet.” Peter kisses Miles’s neck again. “It’s so hard when you can’t save somebody, I know. I bet it’s even harder for you than for me, because you’re a better person than I am.”

Miles blows a raspberry.

“Haven’t you made that sheet wet enough?” Peter mock-scolds.

“You made me get it wet lots of places.”

Peter can’t help laughing again, and he feels Miles twitch a little around his knot.

*

IT’S ELECTRIC! ORBWEAVER ZAPS TERRORISTS! screams the headline on the Daily Bugle at the newsstand where Miles is buying an overpriced bottle of water because Parker threw his sippy cup out of the stroller somewhere in the last twenty blocks and the summer day is scorching hot. There’s also a blurb: Spider-Man, bug off! Orbweaver is the only arachnid hero we want. Editorial inside.

Miles wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t like that the Daily Bugle loves Orbweaver, because he’s pretty sure it’s just for the opportunity to blast Spider-Man in comparison. Because of the trash paper’s determination to make Orbweaver into Spider-Man’s replacement, everytime he takes questions as Orbweaver from journalists, there’s always some about Peter, which is very awkward.

“Orbweaver, what do you think about Spider-Man?”

I’m crazy in love with him. “He’s a huge role model to me as a young hero.”

“Don’t you think Spider-Man should hang up the suit and leave crime-fighting to the new generation?”

Maybe he should, but I’d rather chew glass than tell the Daily Bugle that, you ungrateful assholes. “I’m sure Spider-Man can handle his own decisions.”

“You want a straw?” says the vendor, jolting Miles out of this recollection of the last time he’d been surrounded by journos outside a police station after dropping off a webbed up criminal.

“No, if I give him a straw he’ll tip the bottle anyway and pour it all over himself,” Miles says, “but thanks.”

The vendor chuckles and gives Miles his change. “Good taste on his hat, by the way. Lots of people like this new hero Orbweaver, but I prefer the tried and true heroes myself.”

Miles laughs awkwardly, looking at Parker’s Spider-Man sunhat. “Well, we can support them both, right?”

*

“Hey! Miles! C’mere! I want you to meet somebody.”

Peter looks really delighted as he calls Miles over, so Miles excuses himself from the boring conversation he was faking interest in at this fancy event to celebrate the new leader of SHIELD, one of those hero-government agencies in this universe, and walks up to Peter with a smile.

“Flash, this is my partner Miles. Miles, this is Flash, we went to high school together. He used to push me into lockers.”

Miles shakes the hand of the chagrined Flash, blinking. “Uh-huh?”

“One time he threw my new bike into the East River. You remember that?” Peter says, still bright and cheerful.

Flash laughs sheepishly. “Yeah, I was a total shit... Um, Peter—”

“You were bullied in school?” says Miles, so surprised that he can’t stop himself from interrupting. He vaguely remembers that the Spider-Man comics in his universe featured a bullied teenager who became Spider-Man, but he always assumed that was totally made up, especially when he saw who was behind the mask. Every Peter Parker he had met had been athletic, gorgeous, and charming—not exactly a typical bullying target.

“Oh, mercilessly,” Peter says, his hand on Flash’s shoulder. “So I give him a little of his own back by making him incredibly uncomfortable at these events. A fun tradition, isn’t it Flash? Hey, do you remember when you threw my glasses into the urinal and then after I fished them out you told everyone that I had Piss Glasses? People called me Piss Glasses right up until graduation, even when I wasn’t wearing glasses anymore.”

“Yeah... yeah I remember that... um, Peter—”

“Peter,” says a voice that wipes the gloating smile right off of Peter’s face, “it was twenty years ago.”

Peter freezes. Miles concentrates on not turning invisible this time as Mary Jane Watson, looking stunning in an evening gown, walks up to them.

“I was trying to tell you, if you didn’t know,” Flash says, still looking uncomfortable, “Mary-Jane and I reconnected, and we’ve been dating.”

Peter looks at MJ, and MJ looks at Peter.

“I’m very happy for you,” Peter says, stilted, but not insincere. Stiffly, he pulls his hand off Flash’s shoulder. “Flash is, uh, he’s a good guy these days. Joking aside.”

“Thanks, Peter,” MJ says, looking a little bit too professionally calm. “I heard you tied the knot, but no wedding this time?”

“It’s not the right time... We mostly got married for the benefits for Parker, anyway.”

“Could I talk to you, Ms. Watson?” Miles blurts. The other three look at him, Flash puzzled, MJ a bit aloof, and Peter apprehensive.

“I don’t see why not,” MJ says. “Mind if we find a place to sit? These shoes look great but they were a mistake.”

Peter’s trying to warn him something with his eyes as Miles passes but he can’t figure it out so he decides to worry about it later. They find a bench that’s a little removed from the main bustle.

“So,” MJ says.

“I am so, so, so sorry Ms. Watson,” Miles says, and he sees it take MJ completely by surprise. “The things that happened—I’m really sorry. Peter—” Miles swallows, trying to think how to say it. “I’m really happy with Peter, but I’m still so, so sorry, Ms. Watson.”

“God—don’t call me Ms. Watson, first of all, I already feel old sitting next to you. Call me Mary-Jane, or MJ like Peter does.” She tilts her head, considering him. “You’re different. Different than I expected, I mean.”

Miles gives her a somewhat timid, apologetic smile.

“Really different,” she muses, as if she’s half-talking to herself. “God, I should know better than to believe what tabloids write, though.”

“I’m not always this, um,” Miles gestures, unable to come up with a good word, and not wanting to say the words that do come to mind, like ashamed, “but like... I know it was messed up, what happened. Peter knows it was messed up. He feels so guilty about it.”

“Oh, that part I assumed. Peter is the guilt version of Russian dolls.” She takes a sip of her drink.

Miles can’t help cracking up a bit at that. “Yeah, he can be. I make him keep it to a minimum.”

“Do you? That’s not bad, then.” MJ smiles at him, then she sighs. “You know, I’ll tell you a secret. I was half-hoping that he’d ask why I didn’t tell him I was dating Flash, so I could bring up again that he didn’t tell me you were pregnant by him. That was petty of me. And I accuse him of not being able to let go.”

“Peter really does want you to be happy.”

“Yeah. He’s... a wonderful man, when it counts.” She finishes her glass. “Well. Maybe in another world, right? In this one... I hope you two are happy.”

Oh, of all the ways for her to phrase it. When most of Miles’s guilt is because he came from another world and forced a relationship that never should have happened.

MJ must see how stricken he is, and shows her own inner generous nature when she adds, “Don’t dwell on it too much. Peter and I were already on the rocks... well, when you were probably still in middle school... so it’s not like you’re to blame for us not working out. And you’ve got a kid together, now, so... I don’t suppose you have some baby pictures on you, by the way?”

Miles is never shy about showing off Parker.

“Awww, he’s got Peter’s original nose,” MJ gushes. “Good for him. Keep him away from drones.”

*

Peter glances at his ringing phone and double-takes.

Call from: MJ

“Okay, you keep working on that tower bud, Daddy’s gonna take this call,” Peter says, standing up.

Parker looks up curiously with a wooden block in each fist as his father hits the accept button.

“Hello?”

“Hi Peter. It was nice seeing you at the party, and meeting your partner.”

“Yeah... yeah, hey, congratulations, uh, again, on... on you and Flash... being a thing,” Peter says, anxious and already floundering. Even with how much he loves Miles, he never stopped loving MJ and wanting her to be happy.

“Well, that’s actually why I’m calling. Flash and I bonded, and we’re expecting a baby in March.”

Relief floods Peter. The fear that MJ had wasted too much time on him and now wouldn’t be able to have kids before she got too old for them had been gnawing at him. During the two years between coming back from Miles’s dimension and Miles’s heat, he knew now that he had pushed too hard and too fast, that from MJ’s perspective his turnaround from kid-and-bonding-phobic sadsack to “stop taking your suppressants, because I now want to mark you and have a kid, even though I literally divorced you rather than do that, surprise! I’m a new man, MJ!” had been too sudden and inexplicable to be trusted.

She hadn’t bought it; she didn’t even agree to date him, at first, saying she wanted to see where things went with the person she was dating. It was more than a year, when that relationship didn’t work out, that she agreed to give Peter a second chance to even date, and they had only agreed on exclusivity a month before Miles’s heat.

“That’s wonderful,” Peter says, “really, I wish you and Flash all the best. Tell Flash I won’t tease him anymore about high school.”

MJ laughs. “Thanks, I’ll pass it on. How’s your little one?”

“Oh, he’s good, he’s good, he’s—trying to shove blocks into the vents, hold on.”

*

When Miles turns 19, his official legal ID in the new universe claims he’s 21. Like it’s a real fake ID.

“Basically saves the trouble of driving up to Canada, which is what I did on my 19th,” Peter said when he proposed that they try introducing Miles to alcohol on his 19th birthday.

Between having a strictly letter-of-the-law cop father and a nurse mother, plus living in a dorm where drugs and alcohol were one of the absolute strictest forbidden substances, and then living with Peter who was sticking to an “eat clean” prohibition on alcohol, Miles really hasn’t ever had any kind of alcohol.

This is also the first time the two of them leave Parker with a sitter overnight. Their chosen sitter is a very serious and well behaved teenager from the Xavier Institute’s Manhattan campus, with a paralyzing power. In the event that Parker picks the night that they’re away from home to suddenly manifest powers, especially since they don’t know what powers he might have, a paralytic power to keep him in one place until back-up can arrive seems like the wisest choice.

So here they are, at a bar on Long Island (“Have you seen the prices in the city? I want to celebrate your birthday not blow a house payment”), starting with the most basic: a pint of Brooklyn Lager in front of each of them and a shared plate of fries. It’s going to be a one day reprieve from Peter’s dietary restrictions.

“Cheers,” says Peter, they clink glasses, and drink.

Miles puts his glass down first and makes a face. “Oh my God. It does taste just like it smells. People drink this on purpose?”

Peter puts his own glass down and laughs, reaching for a fry. “No worries, kid. Nobody likes beer when they first try it. I’ll finish yours and we’ll order you something else.”

Miles grabs a fry too and Peter waves over the waitress.

“Not a fan of the beer?” she says with a smile at Miles, who grins sheepishly.

“He likes Coke,” says Peter, “so let’s try him with a Jack and Coke.”

“You got it. You want me to take this one away?”

“Nah, I’ll finish it for him.”

*

“It’s not...” Miles considers his words. “I could probably finish this if I had to? It kind of burns and tastes weird, but the Coke helps.”

Peter frowns, rubs his chin, and reaches for the Jack and Coke. “Okay, not beer, not Jack and Coke, another direction... how about a Pina Colada?”

“Piña Colada.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“You said Pina. It’s got the tilde on the n, it’s Piña.”

“Is it that big of a deal?”

“Yeah, gringo, unless you think there’s no difference between cannon and canyon.”

“Huh. Okay, fair.”

*

“Okay. Okay. This will work, it will definitely work... we’re on Long Island... gotta try a Long Island ice tea. You can’t taste the alcohol. Eeeeeverybody knows that.” Peter’s not slurring or swaying. It probably wouldn’t be obvious to someone who didn’t know Peter like Miles does, but Peter is definitely getting affected by the alcohol.

Miles rests his cheek on his hand. “I don’t get that. Like, if you can’t taste the alcohol, then why you ordering it? You never hear somebody say, ‘Oh, let’s order this ice cream sundae, you’ll love it, it doesn’t taste like it has any ice cream in it.’ Because ice cream is actually good.”

“Two Long Island ice teas,” Peter says to the waitress, who is actually just walking by on her way to another table, but she gives him a thumbs up.

“Two?” says Miles. “You having one too?”

“Yeah, why not? I only had one beer,” Peter says, then slurps the dregs of the piña colada out of the bottom of the glass noisily through a straw.

*

“And could you call us a cab?” Miles says as he punches in a tip for the waitress on the debit machine.

“No problem,” she says, then hesitates, looking between the two of them. At nineteen, Miles has gotten to a respectable 5’8” in height, not that much shorter than Peter, but Miles is well aware that he’s got skinny arms that look like they’d struggle to pick up a cat, let alone someone as built as Peter. “Uh, you gonna be alright getting him out to the cab by yourself? That last drink really hit him hard, huh?”

“I’m good,” Peter says without lifting his face from the table, making a thumbs up and then not bothering to lower it back down, like he’s playing Heads Up Seven Up.

“We’ll be fine, thanks,” says Miles.

When the cab gets there, there’s a lot of impressed faces and somebody whistles when Miles effortlessly lifts and cradle carries Peter out of the bar.

“Is it time for bed?” Peter says with his eyes closed.

“Yeah, as soon as we get to the hotel, man.”

*

Miles carries Peter piggyback from the cab to the hotel, glad that they’re not going back home to show the poor babysitter the Amazing Spider-Man amazingly drunk, but annoyed that a couple years abstention from alcohol had made Peter such a lightweight that Miles is gonna have to spend his 19th birthday flicking through the hotel TV channels while Peter snores with his legs under him, butt in the air, in that weird sleeping position that both him and Parker like to do.

He therefore dumps Peter on the hotel bed without much special care, forces his shoes off without bothering to untie them first, making Peter grunt in his sleep, and heads to the bathroom.

Miles texts the babysitter, uses the toilet, washes his hands, checks the sitter’s return text—everything’s cool and Parker’s asleep—and opens the bathroom door, nearly running straight into Peter’s naked body.

“Hey,” says Peter, grinning and leaning on the doorframe.

“Don’t steal my lines,” Miles says, his heart calming down from the minor scare. “You woke—” His gaze catches on Peter’s jutting cock, and chokes on his words a moment. “—u-up.”

“Yeah, I did,” says Peter, grabs Miles’s lapels and pulls him against himself, kissing him and grinding his hips against him. “Want you, puppy.”

“Yeah,” Miles gasps, “I can tell—let me take it off, don’t rip it. Let’s go to the bed.”

Peter sways a little as he walks, crashes onto the bed and rolls to watch Miles from his side. “Think I’m a bit drunk.”

“You’re a lot drunk,” Miles laughs, making a pile of his clothes.

“Can I still fuck you?” Peter says, his hand moving to his cock and stroking it. “I want to fuck your little pussy so bad right now.”

Miles pauses for a second as he pulls off his shirt, again a little shocked. It’s not like Peter to be this forward or blunt until they’re well into having sex.

It’s a little exciting.

“Yeah,” says Miles, kicking his underwear away and advancing on Peter. “It’s my birthday after all.”

Peter’s eyes light up with recognition. “Right! Right. S’why I’m drunk.”

Miles laughs, goes to push Peter down so he’s lying on top of him, and gets surprised again when Peter uses his movement against him, rolls them over together so that he’s pinning Miles instead, slotting his hips between Miles’s thighs, grabbing between them so that their cocks rub against each other.

Miles isn’t used to this position, either—usually Peter either mounts him from behind or Miles rides him. Now that he realizes this—realizes it as best as he can, anyway, with Peter frotting on top of him like this—he’s not sure why. Mounting is alpha instinct, maybe, and it makes sense that Miles ends up riding him in those times when Miles is taking more initiative...

“You feel so small when you’re under me like this,” Peter growls. “I probably shouldn’t... like it as much as I do.”

“I like how big you are,” Miles says immediately. “Especially—”

“Especially...? Dot dot dot?” says Peter, delighted as Miles squirms. “Touch me. Show me where you like me big.”

Miles hesitates, then puts his hands to Peter’s shoulders.

“Hmm? Just there? No where else?”

Peter’s not the only one who can tease. Miles puts his hands on the pudge of Peter’s tummy with a grin.

“Oh, oh, you want to fight? Is that what we’re doing, we’re gonna fight?” Peter teases back and starts wrestling with Miles, tickling him whenever he pins him.

Drunk, Peter would be easy to evade, but Miles doesn’t wanna get away. He deliberately puts up his hands towards the headboard, giving Peter an easy opening to web them both down. It backfires on him when Peter then starts tickling his armpits.

“Hey—” Miles laughs as he writhes against Peter. “Stop, stop man, I didn’t put my arms up for that—”

“Then what did you mean by liking me big, Miles? Seems like your hands are tied, so maybe you can use your words.” Peter stopped tickling, but he skims a finger lightly from Miles’s armpit down his ribcage which causes its own undulating sensation.

Okay. If he’s caught, he might as well commit. “Your cock, Peter.”

He sees Peter’s eyes widen and jerk up to his face. “Say that again.”

“Your cock is really big, Peter,” he says, trying to look flirtatious about it.

A slow smile spreads on Peter’s face. “You love my cock so much, huh?” He raises his upper body a bit, puts his hand between them to shift his cock on Miles’s belly. “Can you feel how far up your body my tip is, puppy?” He puts his finger to the precum at his tip and draws a line on Miles’s skin with it, like a notch. “That’s how deep I fill you, baby.”

Miles licks his lips. “Please give it to me.”

A thumb rubs across his lower lip. “Your mouth begs so pretty,” Peter says huskily. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous looking up at me like that. But I don’t want this over so fast, when I got you tied down like this. Wanna show you how sexy you are to me.”

With that, Peter moves his head down between Miles’s thighs, and Miles thinks he’s going to get rimmed, because Peter loves doing that, but instead his hips jerk in surprise as Peter’s mouth takes in his tip.

Peter lets him slip free to chuckle, “You already trying to fuck my mouth kid?”

“N-no—” God, why is this embarrassing? When they’ve already done so much else... “I didn’t think... you don’t have to s-suck...”

“Think I owe you some apologies, Miles,” Peter says, his big hand grasping Miles, not too tight or too loose. “I’m always telling you, you don’t have to suck my dick. Now I know, that’s a dumb thing to say. Because I do want to, puppy.”

Miles moans helplessly as Peter takes him in his mouth again. Peter’s the alpha, alphas don’t suck dicks, hell male alphas in porn with male omegas often don’t even touch the omega’s dick. Come from my cock or not at all is a common taunt in the porn Miles has seen, he’s already thought he’s so lucky that Peter—that Peter—oh God, Peter’s actually gagging—“Peter!”

There’s a bit of moisture still in Peter’s eyes as he pulls off. “You make this look a lot easier than it is.” He presses a kiss to the side of the head of the cock, looking a bit regretful. “Think I better try again another time when I’m less likely to, y’know...”

“Barf?”

Peter laughs. “Yeah, bit of a mood killer if I did that.” Still, he presses another kiss to the shaft, then to a little mole next to Miles’s hip bone. “Wish I could make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

The idea of feeling better than Peter makes him feel seems impossible. ”You make me feel really good, like...” Miles swallows. “Really good, so...”

Peter’s kissing his body again, his stubble a little scratchy on his belly. He puts two fingers to Miles’s hole and Miles breathes out as he lets them in, lets himself be stretched.

“Mm!” he whimpers when Peter starts doing slow, long strokes across his prostate and omega lubrication gland.

“That’s it, puppy,” Peter encourages, “get so nice and wet for me, Miles. All ready for me to fuck your little pussy full. Make it drip for me, baby.”

His body is eager to obey. Miles can feel little warm trickles starting to flow down his crack as Peter keeps rubbing him inside with his fingers. “Ah... ah, Peter...”

When Peter pulls his fingers out, he puts them in his mouth and sucks on them noisily. It’s embarrassing. It’s even more embarrassing how much Miles likes seeing Peter enjoy tasting his slick.

“Fuck, I wish you could see yourself right now. Gotta fuck you in a place with a mirror on the ceiling sometime. See how sexy you look. Just look at those goddamn thighs.” Peter is pushing the thighs up and apart gently, tilting his ass up and open, ready for fucking. “You could kill a man with these. That’s how I wanna go, okay?”

Miles laughs, but his heart is beating faster, because Peter’s got the head of his cock resting against the puffy bud of his asshole.

“Breathe a little slower, relax,” Peter coaches. “That’s it... here, just one finger again, baby. Don’t be nervous, you can do this.”

“I’m not nervous,” Miles protests, and Peter raises an eyebrow at him, because Miles is clenching around his single finger. “Not... it’s not nervousness, I’m just excited, I just want it so bad. I can take it, I promise I can take it. Please.“

Peter still looks skeptical but he’s also licking his upper teeth and lip, a notorious alpha tell for sexual excitement. Miles can get him if he can just push those buttons. There’s one he’s never tried before, a really embarrassing one that he was worried might backfire. Now, when Peter is tipsy and might not remember clearly if it’s a fail, is the perfect time to chance it.

“Alpha, you know I can take it.” He pitches it higher, just this side of a whine, tilting his head as best he can to expose his neck. “Want you to put a pup in me, alpha, breed me full—ah!”

The whine becomes a crying out because Peter has replaced his finger with his cock, all hesitance about Miles’s nerves gone. Peter grips him by the waist, his thumbs meeting over Miles’s belly button. “Omega,” Peter snarls, his expression feral, his thrusts brutal, “this what you need, omega? Need your alpha’s cock to pump you full?”

Miles can’t say yes, he can’t form words at all, he has no control over the noises he’s making, no control over anything, as Peter fucks him just how he wants it, uses his body rough and deep.

“Fill this little belly up. God you’re so fucking gorgeous, can’t wait to see you heavy with my pup again. Get you in heat and fuck your little pussy raw, baby. Put so many knotloads of come in you.” Peter’s hands are feeling him up all over now, tweaking at his nipple, rubbing on his hip bones, pulling Miles’s calf over Peter’s shoulder to let Peter kiss and lick it, and his thrusts are irregular but so deep, knocking the breath from Miles every time he feels Peter’s hips smacking into his bottom. “Mm. You like that? You like thinking about my seed sloshing around inside you?”

The slower pace lets Miles’s head clear a little, enough. Peter’s got him all folded up beneath him. “Yeah, I l-love it.”

“Fuck yeah I’ll breed you again,” Peter huffs, beginning to shift back into a rhythm again. “My pretty boy. All mine. Taking me perfect, mm.”

Miles’s eyes close as he groans with it, focusing on the feeling of how the ring of his anus is stretched so helplessly wide around the big cock that’s fucking him. It feels like it’s gonna ruin him every time, like he’s getting split apart, but even if it did ruin him, he couldn’t say no, it feels so good.

“No, don’t close your eyes,” and as Miles’s eyes flicker open the alpha rises up on his knees, pulling Miles’s butt up easily with one hand while the other hand tilts Miles’s head up off the pillow, forcing him to see Peter’s cock thrust faster into his body, to watch how obscenely stretched his asshole is around its girth, how the slick lets him glide in, no resistance. “Watch, puppy. Look how perfect you take me.”

The rhythm of Peter’s thrusts is making Miles’s own penis slap lightly against his stomach, a little pat pat pat in tandem with the guttural noises Miles is making as he’s fucked. “Unh! Ngh! Mm! Mm! Uh!”

“Wanna make you watch yourself come. Splash that pretty tummy all over.” He moves his thumb to Miles’s mouth and Miles eagerly begins to suckle at it. “Mm, fuck. Yeah, yeah, that’s it, come on.”

Because Miles is whimpering as he sucks, as he comes, as his cock spits jizz up onto his torso just like Peter asked for, milky white spray.

“Sweetest boy. Taking his alpha’s cock so good.”

*

When Peter finally comes, it comes abruptly, Peter stopping mid-dirty phrase to just go “Oooohh fuck!” and suddenly flop down onto him, grinding into him, and as his knot swells Miles suddenly realizes that this may not be an ideal position, especially since Peter’s knots can last a long time.

But it’s too late for that now, especially since he’s sure Peter is well past being able to think of anything but plugging his omega’s pussy shut, keeping all his come inside. Peter has his forehead heavy on top of Miles’s, panting, and the alcohol scent fills his lungs. Miles winces a little at the smell.

“Sorry,” mutters Peter, suddenly sounding both way more tired and way more drunk. “’m heavy.”

“Nah man, your breath just stinks a little,” Miles says, and Peter chuckes and moves his face to the side, kisses at the back of his jaw, by his earlobe.

“Sorry. Can’ brush.”

It only takes a determined tug to free his hands, though the web fluid leaves a sticky residue. Miles grabs at a pillow to put under his butt and help with the awkward angle.

“Let’s just get...”

Peter snores.

“...some sleep,” Miles says, and pats Peter’s back.

*

“...freckles...” mutters Peter.

Miles feels a little dip in his stomach. He hasn’t been able to fall asleep with Peter still tied on top of him like this. “What about freckles?”

“Maiz freckles,” he slurs. “Shhh. He’ll hear.”

“Hear what about his freckles?”

“Maiz...” Peter yawns, “S’cute freckles... can’ tell ‘im... ll’think I mean MJ...”

Miles rubs at his face. He had never really thought of the little specks on his cheeks as freckles, just as... little specks.

“Love’is frecks,” Peter says against Miles’s neck. “S’cute.”

“What else you like about Miles?” Might as well push his luck.

A sleepy chuckle. “Ev’thing... big eyes... s’n’fair... always... win...” Peter breathes in and lets out a happy sigh, hugging Miles like he’s a stuffed animal. “Smells s’good. Love ‘im. Soooo—” yawn—“much.”

Miles feels like he’s gonna melt right into the hotel mattress. Peter’s gonna wake up in the morning in a puddle of liquid Miles.

*

“Ohhhhh my God. Ohhhhhh my God. Turn that light off.”

“It’s the sun, Peter,” Miles says dryly. He’s sitting on a little windowseat with his phone, having just pulled the curtains open. “I let you sleep as long as I could, but c’mon, man, I know you’re gonna wanna take a shower before we have to check out and get back home to Parker.”

“The sun? The... what...” Peter looks around blearily, then suddenly sits up. “What did I do last night?”

“You don’t remember anything?” says Miles, a little disappointed. He was glad if Peter didn’t remember confessing his love for Miles’s freckles and other mushy stuff, but if he’d forgotten everything, that was a little disappointing.

“Uhhh...” He puts his hand to his forehead. “There’s some, but... I think I also had some dreams...” Peter peels the blanket off the rest of the way and looks down, noticing that he’s got dried sex residue all over his genitals and thighs. “Oh, wow. Obviously not all dreams, then...” He looks up at Miles, who smiles back at him innocently.

“You were sweet, man, don’t worry,” Miles assures him. “A gentleman. I had a great birthday.”

“Okay, then...” Peter walks off to the shower.

Once the door is closed, Miles sighs and reaches under him to grab the ice pack he had housekeeping help him rig up with ice from the ice machine, a towel, and a plastic bag. Best to get rid of the evidence before Peter figures out that Miles’s definition of “a gentleman” is a little different.

*

Peter comes down the stairs for breakfast and groans when he sees two foil helium balloons, spelling out 42, tied to the top of one of the chairs. Parker is kneeling on the chair, grabbing at the strings to make the balloons jerk around. “God, Miles. You’re going to make me look at that before I’ve even had my coffee? I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you,” Miles says, giving him a morning kiss on the cheek as Peter grumpily comes into the kitchen to get himself a mug. “Happy birthday viejo.”

“Hmph.” Peter pours himself the coffee. “What else did you get me? Prepayment on a nursing home? A cemetary plot?”

“It’s a surprise,” Miles sing-songs.

“Not sure how I should feel about that.”

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a year.”

Peter’s brow furrows and he sips the coffee.

Miles can’t keep his hands off the back of his neck as they sit at the table eating breakfast: oatmeal with cinnamon and brown sugar and milk on the side for Miles and Parker, while Peter has a couple of low carb egg muffin things that he zapped in the microwave with his coffee. Usually Peter reads the paper while he eats, but today he just glances at the date of October 14, 2022 and turns it over.

“Oh,” Peter blurts out at last.

Miles makes eye contact and his fingers freeze on his scent gland as he watches Peter inhale sharply, pupils dilating.

“Ahdone,” says Parker, pulling impatiently at his bib.

“Just a sec, Parks, don’t get oatmeal on your clothes.” Miles hops up to free their pup from the high chair.

Peter’s drinking coffee again, practically chugging it, colour visible above the mug on his cheekbones until he tilts his head back to get the last gulp.

“Um—I already arranged it with my mom, I double-checked this morning, she’s gonna watch Parker in the other dimension until Sunday, whenever we wanna pick him up,” Miles says.

Peter puts the coffee mug down and closes his eyes, putting his hand to the bridge of his nose and pinching it. “What’s the plan if Parker picks this weekend to start climbing walls or turning invisible?”

“She texts us.”

“And if we’re tied?” Peter says bluntly.

Miles is having a hard time splitting his focus between Peter’s objections and their squirming son’s resistance to having his face and hands wiped clean. “If she doesn’t hear back right away, then she texts Gwen, Gwen already said she’d help. I have a couple of other people, you know, back up the back up—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Peter interrupts, still sitting there hunched over the table like he’s in some mild pain with his eyes closed. “It’s not like we have time to think of other options, because you’re already started heat, right? How exactly did you time that?”

“Welllll I was actually hoping it would start tomorrow, but... Forty-two’s always been a kind of... well I don’t know if I’d say lucky number, uh, significant number, maybe, to me, so, with your birthday...” Miles doesn’t know exactly what to make of Peter’s reaction. Peter said that if Miles still wanted to be marked in a year’s time, that he’d mark him. It’s been a year, minus about a week, but same difference, right? “So, uh—I’ll just run Parker over to my mom and—”

“No.” Peter gets up from the table and starts back towards the stairs.

“What do you mean, no? You just said—”

“I’ll take Parker to your mother,” Peter calls without even looking over his shoulder as he starts up the stairs.

Miles quickly sets Parker down in his playpen to chase Peter up the stairs, ignoring the toddler’s whine at captivity. “But I’m already showered and dressed and—”

Peter whirls at the top of the stairs and suddenly cages Miles in against the wall, and Miles’s eyes widen as Peter’s scent pours over him, aggressive and sharper than usual.

“I know. I know you showered,” Peter growls, and his eyes, inches from Miles’s, look almost black. “You washed off my scent and then you wanna go outside, away from me? You think I’d let that happen when you’re smelling like this?”

It’s very early heat, Miles is pretty sure he barely smells of it at all, even Peter didn’t notice it at first, but... this possessive slam into the wall is making Miles feel some kinda way.

Peter leans in even closer, resting his forehead against Miles’s, still scenting him, even though you’d never be able to tell Miles was even an omega anymore under the thick layer of scent that’s already on him. “You will stay here, in my house, in my bed, and wait for me.”

It’s not a command, but it doesn’t need to be. Miles has never wanted to obey an instruction more.

“Yeah,” Miles breathes, “yeah, I’ll be waiting for you.”

Peter breathes in and out, and then seems to recall himself. He pulls back, flexing his long fingers as he gives himself a little shake, and glances down the stairs, where Parker is working himself up into a good howl about being not only caged but abandoned.

“You have condoms this time, right? Maybe get those out,” Peter mutters, looking at Miles’s feet, and heads to the shower.

*

When Peter demanded that he be the one to take Parker to Miles’s mother in the other dimension, he was only thinking about his need not to let his omega in heat out where some other alpha might touch him, or hell, even just smell him.

He was not thinking about what Peter taking Parker would involve: Peter, standing on the doorstep of that low rise apartment building, Parker on one hip, about to have to see Rio Morales again and hand Parker off to her, knowing that she knows that Peter is going to head back to his own dimension to marathon fuck her nineteen-year-old son.

Parker pulls his hat off again and Peter snaps out of his freeze to pick the hat up, then pushes the buzzer.

Okay. Miles arranged this with her... she’ll be surprised, but she’s a nice woman, too nice, really. Maybe I’ll... say sorry, again. No, probably best if we both pretend like this is totally normal and—

The door opens and it’s Jefferson Davis standing there.

“Oh, it’s you,” the cop says, his face stern and cold.

“I’m... I’m just bringing Parker over for Ms. Morales... is she here?” Peter manages, dropping his gaze.

“Hmm.” Miles’s father backs up enough for Peter to squeeze inside and go up the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you.” Miles’s mother voices the same words, but her tone is mostly simple surprise. “Parker! You remember Abuelita? Abuelita made cookies, let me get you a cookie.”

“Sit down on the couch,” Miles’s dad’s voice comes from behind Peter, and when Peter glances back, he says, “to give Parker a chance to settle in.”

“Right... sir,” says Peter, leaving Parker’s bag on the hall table and going to sit on the couch and take off Parker’s coat and shoes, which thankfully provides something to look at and do with his hands.

Miles’s mom reappears with the cookie, and Parker lights up and begins making the sign more with his hands. “Cookie!”

“Abuelita brought you a cookie, Parker, let’s say ‘thank you.’ ‘Thank you, Abuelita,’” says Peter. Normally he would do the sign for thank you as well, but somehow can’t bring himself to do it in front of Miles’s parents. It’s too... even though it’s something he does every day, in this context it feels like trying to show off what an exemplary parent he is.

“So.” Officer Davis is sitting in the arm chair, shuffling a little bit to face Peter directly. “I got some questions.”

Miles’s mother says something in Spanish, and Officer Davis makes a waving gesture like she doesn’t need to worry.

Peter keeps his eyes on the man’s mouth. “Yes, sir.”

“How old are you exactly?”

“I turned forty-two today.”

“Forty-two today, huh? Rio doesn’t turn forty-two until January.”

“I know the age difference is a problem in itself,” Peter says. “Even aside from how and when we... began.”

Parker wiggles down from Peter’s lap, having spotted a transparent box of building blocks.

“Last time he was here, Miles said that at the beginning of his heat he drugged you and tied you down.”

“Jeff! Parker está oyendo,” Rio hisses, gesturing to the pup.

“Oh he’s too little to understand. I need to know this. Is it true?”

“Um... ah...” Peter doesn’t know where to look now. Why would Miles tell them that?! “Technically yes, but...”

“So why’d you keep him after that, then?”

Peter keeps his eyes on a small chip in the floor. “I... didn’t intend to... Miles is... Once we started... I know I’m too old for him, but...”

What is he supposed to say? Your son looks at me with those big shining eyes and suddenly I can’t say no to anything; he’s smart and funny and strong and sweet and the sex is goddamn fantastic?

“Jeff, what are you trying to accomplish here?” his wife says.

“Well, this is it,” the alpha growls. “He’s gonna mark our son, and before he does, I wanna know how he can justify it. Hey, look me in the eyes.”

Peter does, gripping his knees, but keeping his gaze steady. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know why Miles decided to tell you now about... that part of his heat. But don’t misunderstand. We’ve... between us, we’ve agreed not to argue anymore about whose fault it was, but if Miles made it sound like I wasn’t responsible for what I did, I disagree.” 

“My son thinks he loves you enough to throw away his whole damn life. Are you worth that?”

“No, but I love him too and I won’t stop. I can’t,” Peter says without hesitating. “I love him, and I promised him last year that I’d mark him if he didn’t change his mind after a year. I’m going to keep my promise, sir.”

They keep eye contact for a few moments. Not wanting it to turn into a staring contest, Peter deliberately blinks and turns slightly. “Ma’am, there’s a package of diapers and a box of wipes in the bag, six outfits, and four sets of pajamas. Thank you both so much for taking care of Parker for us. I hope he isn’t too difficult for you.”

“Oh, we’re going to have lots of fun, I’m sure. No matter how difficult it is, we’re always glad to see Parker.” Miles’s mother says. “Isn’t that right, Jeff?”

“That part is right,” the other alpha says gruffly.

“I should get back to Miles.” Peter gets up and squats down to kiss his pup. “Bye-bye Parker, Papa will come get you soon.”

*

His ass starts to twinge and ache inside while Peter’s gone.

Not a problem, Miles thinks. He’s not the same kid he was when he was sixteen, still in denial that he was an omega and definitely in denial that relief for these urges would mean sticking things inside of his ass. He’s very familiar with how it feels to have Peter’s fingers—and his cock, he thinks wistfully, but that’s not available yet—inside him, what they’re doing when they hit him just right. He can definitely do that, definitely.

When Peter gets back from the other dimension, quickly locking the door and taking the stairs two and three at a time, stripping off clothing and shoes and wrecking some of it as he goes, he arrives partially dressed to a room where Miles is hugging a big armful of Peter’s dirty laundry on their bed, fingers trembling as they fumble at his asshole, a folded towel already drenched beneath him, and a scent of slick that fairly punches Peter in the face.

“Oh, poor baby,” Peter coos, working to get off his last bits of clothing.

“You took forever,” Miles says, only it’s not very understandable because he has Peter’s briefs in his mouth again.

Peter climbs onto the bed once he’s fully naked and takes over thrusting his fingers into Miles, licking his lips at Miles’s ecstatic moan of relief.

“It’s not easy at all, you big liar,” Miles complains bitterly once Peter gently tugs the dirty underwear away from his mouth. “It kept getting worse and worse and you were gone.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Peter soothes, “I won’t leave again.”

“You better not,” Miles grumbles, but presses his face into Peter’s neck, breathing in little huffly noises of contentment as the shooting, seizing pains and clenching aches fade away under Peter’s steady touches and change to feelings of pleasure instead.

“There you go puppy.” Peter presses a kiss to the side of his head and pulls back a little. “You just need somebody to take care of you, huh? Nobody deserves it more than you.”

Miles’s cheeks heat even hotter than the rest of his burning up body, and then he throws his head back and moans, because Peter’s replaced his fingers with his tongue and put his hand to Miles’s penis to tug him off.

“Ah—ah—no—not—more, alpha, Peter, I need your cock, your knot—”

Peter licks up a line of slick and pulls away. “Then present for me, omega.”

Miles checks the whimper from the loss of Peter’s touch and scrambles to flip over, his front pressing down on folded arms, his rear up and wiggling enticingly. He has to bite his tongue not to whine when he hears the sound of a condom opening.

Maybe it’ll break, he consoles his inner omega, the part of him that wants to get bred again so bad, heedless of anything else.

Peter covers him with his body, rocking his penis between Miles’s cheeks and scenting him again, before rising back up to take his cock in hand and prod at his asshole with it.

“Wish I didn’t have to wear this,” he hears Peter mutter, and Miles opens his mouth to tell him to take it off but wordlessly moans instead when Peter starts to press into him.

*

Peter doesn’t bite him the first time they tie, and with the hormones of heat, the perceived rejection hits Miles hard.

“Hey, hey, hey,” says Peter when not even scruffing Miles with his teeth works to calm him down, “what’s going on, puppy? Why the waterworks?”

“You—you didn’t—” Miles gulps a breath. “Y-you don’t wanna bite me.”

“Oh, puppy, I do, God, I do.” Peter presses a kiss to a mating gland. “And I will, but not this first knot, okay? You’re... it’s going to hurt, baby. During and after, and it’ll bleed.”

“Y’could’ve asked.” Miles wipes his face with the back of his hand. “I don’t care about pain or blood.” He sniffs. “Thought you changed your mind.”

“I want it so bad, baby,” Peter murmurs against his neck, the breath making him reflexively squirm a bit, even though it tugs on the knot and makes Peter put a hand on his hip to keep him still. “Especially smelling you in heat again. Oh, Miles. You can’t imagine how much I’ve fantasized about this. Putting me in your veins where nothing can wash me off. Make you all mine forever.”

“Can’t you do it now?” It comes out high and pleading.

“If we wait until you’re coming—”

“Please do it now, Peter. I want... I wanna remember it.”

Peter doesn’t answer for a bit, only keeps breathing through his mouth over Miles’s neck. Then there’s a sharp inhale, through the nose instead. “I did tell you I’d do this for you. It’s about time I keep a promise.”

Peter’s teeth position over the gland, just long enough for Miles to tense up all over with anticipation, and then Peter bites.

It feels like a bad pinch, more than anything else, at first, but then it suddenly amps up and his whole nape is throbbing. Miles feels more submissive than he can ever remember in his whole life, soundlessly opening his mouth with just this feeling of letting, that was the only way he could put it into words later. Letting Peter hold on to him, letting him come into him, and that same delicious Peter-ness that he always mourned whenever he had to shower is racing to every cell in his body. He’s letting Peter change him, claim him, own him.

It exhilarates him.

“Peter,” his voice is suddenly crying out, “oh God, oh, Peter, it’s so good. Thank you.”

Miles feels blood trickling down across his neck, then Peter releases the bite and swipes his tongue across it, licking the blood up.

“You’re... you okay kid?” Peter’s voice sounds creaky, unused, and then a little clearer when he says, “Did you just thank me?”

“Happy,” is all Miles can say, his eyes already shut.

“Did you... oh my God, wow...” The words come from right behind his ear yet he can only vaguely make them out. “You came from me marking you... oh Miles, how did I get so lucky.”

There’s a towel or something pushing on his front, and it irritates him. He’s trying to sleep, dammit.

Peter says something else, and then starts licking him again, and that part Miles likes a lot as he yawns and falls asleep.

*

My mark, my mark, my mark... my omega.

His knot’s gone down, he’s practically soft. Peter knows he should pull out of Miles, deal with the condom, get the actual ointment and bandage instead of just licking the wound over and over like he’s an actual wolf instead of a human capable of higher order reasoning.

Peter’s maybe not capable of any reasoning at all right now. He’s made himself lightheaded, inhaling so much to catch the changes in Miles’s scent. He’d never smelled anything so good in his life... and from now on, he’d get to smell it every day.

Miles is truly, permanently, irrevocably and only his, now. Immune to the advances of any other alpha. Physically dependent on Peter’s scent. Unable to resist any command Peter might issue.

For someone who’s always run from responsibility, it should be scaring the shit out of him. He’d expected to have some post-marking panic and remorse. Maybe when the heat’s over, he will. But right now... he feels intoxicated with the pleasure of it.

This responsibility could not be more worth it.

“I love you so damn much,” Peter murmurs, even though Miles is still asleep. “God, don’t let me fuck this up.”

It’s almost a prayer, he thinks. All the prayer he’s capable of, anyway.

He breathes in deeply one more time before detaching himself and dealing with what needs to be done.

*

Miles tugs self-consciously at his scarf after ringing the bell for his parents’ apartment. He thinks about opening his phone camera to check if the bandage over his mating bite is fully hidden, but thinks it would be even weirder if the door opened on him doing that.

Even though he loves his dad, he really hopes his father isn’t home right now. His new, marked scent will definitely make his father unhappy, and he doesn’t want to have to confront that yet.

His mother’s the only one there with Parker, thankfully. His father is doing overtime for a parade somewhere.

“I was just about to make pancakes,” she says, while Miles hugs Parker. “¿Has desayunado?”

“Lo tengo,” Miles says, “but... I could eat some pancakes...”

She laughs. “Yeah, I bet you could. You finish growing yet?”

“I think so,” Miles says, with some regret. Maybe it’s because he’s an omega, that he’s only just a little taller than his mother.

“I bet you still eat a lot,” she says, taking out ingredients.

“Are pancakes hard to make, mami?”

“Not hard, exactly, but there’s a trick to it. You wanna learn?”

 Parker plays with a set of alphabet magnets on the fridge while his mother tells him the basics of pancake batter.

“Don’t stir it up too much. Some lumps are okay.” She frowns at him as he shakes the mixing spoon off into the batter and puts it down. “Take your scarf off, it’s not like I don’t know what’s under there.”

Miles half-smiles awkwardly and takes the scarf off, stepping into the hall and setting it down on the table there. Parker toddles after him and grabs for the scarf, then sits down on his diapered bottom and buries his face in it.

“Ay, que cachorro tan lindo,” his mom laughs, watching from the kitchen. “You used to steal your dad’s scarves when you were a toddler too. I’d find them wedged in your crib or your toybox. Especially when your dad was in the hospital that time.”

As Miles walks back into the kitchen, he pauses at the doorframe, where there are still big pencil markings of his height and name going up the painted wood, the last mark a couple inches below his current height.

Way down the frame, there’s a new mark with PARKER scrawled next to it in his dad’s handwriting.

“Did Parker give you guys a lot of trouble?” Miles says, watching his mother scoop some batter into a hot pan.

“Trouble? Of course, babies are trouble. No durmió absolutamente nada la primera noche. Brought back memories.” She tweaks at Miles’s chin.

“Sorry about that,” Miles says at this news that Parker didn’t sleep at all the first night.

“Oh, it was no big deal. Your father had off Saturday, they took a big nap together, it was cute. I got some pictures.” His mother picks up a spatula. “Okay, now you can’t flip too early, got it? Wait until you see lots of those little bubbles all over.”

After showing him how to make a few, his mom sits down with Parker to eat the first rounds while Miles attempts to make his own.

“Don’t try to flip it too early,” his mom warns, even though she can’t see the pancake at all from where she’s sitting when he begins to move his spatula.

Miles gives it five more seconds before he carefully slides the spatula under and flips the pancake. It’s still a little pale.

“I gotta say it’s nice to sit down while someone else cooks,” his mother says, drinking coffee and watching Parker, who is holding his fork with one hand and picking up the pancake pieces with the other, then putting them onto the fork to eat them. “I wish I could have had you home more to teach you more about cooking.”

“You gotta teach me how to make pasteles,” Miles says. “I mean I know how to help put them together, but you know, how to make the dough, and the seasoning for the pork, and stuff. So I can make them with Parker for Christmas when he’s older.”

“Por supuesto que sí.”

Chapter Text

Almost everything Peter ever absorbed from society about pair bonds was about how potentially disastrous it was for the omega half of the bond. There was a vague, partially instinctive idea that an alpha with a pair bond was hot shit, a winner, better than other alphas; and yeah, he knew that being pair bonded was supposed to deaden the alpha’s libido towards anyone but their omega, but if you had an omega willing to bear their neck to you why would you want to cheat anyway?

On the Sunday after marking Miles, when the omega crosses dimensions to get their pup, Peter sits down, hovers his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop, and types how to close the barn door after the horse is gone.

Then he sighs at his own bad joke, backspaces it, and types his actual search query: is it normal for a bonded alpha to be obsessed with his omega?

The results both do and don’t reassure him.

Yes, Dr. Google cheerfully informs him, it’s normal for a bonded alpha to think about their omega more frequently, almost compulsively, especially just after bonding. It even drilled down into the kinds of obsessions common with alphas: irrationally needing to check their omega’s safety, health, and whereabouts; thinking constantly about fucking and breeding them; evaluating everything by whether it will please or provide for the omega, even if it has no rational connection to them.

Okay. So it’s not abnormal, what Peter is feeling. But that also means that there’s no fixing this.

You will gradually adjust to the intensity of being bonded and learn to compartmentalize your emotions when you need to focus on other things.

Compartmentalize?! Peter wants to find the author of this WebMD article and throttle them. If anybody in this damn world knows about compartmentalizing his emotions to focus on other things, it’s Peter B. as in Bottle-That-Shit-Up Parker, okay?! So why isn’t it working?!

Miles’s heat is over, and was already over when Peter fucked him that morning. Fucked him desperately, not wanting Miles to leave, even though he knew it was just to get their pup. Knotted him without asking to keep them together longer, although at least Peter immediately confessed guiltily that it was on purpose. Miles just sighed and even laughed at him.

Almost compulsively? There’s nothing ‘almost’ about this.

All his senses are on alert, looking for signs that Miles is coming back. Where is he? Why is it taking so long?!

When he hears the footsteps at the front path he feels like a neurotic crate-bound terrier. Miles is home! Miles! Miles Miles Miles Miles!

With great difficulty he breathes in and out rather than leap over the table and towards the door, and damn any furniture that gets in his way. Peter closes the browser tab and then the laptop as the doorknob turns.

“We’re home,” Miles calls. “Sorry we took a little longer than I thought, my mom made pancakes for brunch. You eat lunch yet?”

“Daddy,” says Parker, innocent and happy, and squirms for Miles to let him go.

Oh right, their pup, the one he literally loves more than his own life, that’s the reason Miles had to leave. Peter blinks a little, feeling like something just shifted back into place inside him.

“Parker... Parker!” Miles laughs, because Parker is not having this “taking off his coat and shoes” business. He wants his dad and he wants him now. “Okay, okay, Daddy can take your coat and shoes off then.”

“Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy,” Parker chants as he toddles towards Peter’s arms as fast as his little legs can take him, and once he makes it there, he climbs into his dad’s lap, buries his face in Peter’s chest and takes a deep, satisfied inhale and exhale.

“He stole my scarf when I got there, too,” Miles says, smiling at the door. “Somebody missed Daddy’s smell.”

Parker smells like Miles’s father, but the heaviness of the scentmark is well within friendly boundaries for a close relative. Peter can still smell Parker’s familiar milky sweetness under it.

More, Parker signs at him, and says, “Daddy,” again, looking up at his face.

“You’re hungry already? You’re gonna grow up too fast, pup,” Peter says, unzipping Parker’s coat and tossing it to Miles to hang on the rack, then pulling Parker’s feet up to open the straps of his shoes, and toss those over to Miles as well.

Peter hefts Parker onto his hip and heads towards the dining room to get the pup in his high chair, but when he tries to put Parker in, he squirms and kicks. “No! No no no!”

“Snack time is in the chair, Parks,” Peter says, lifting the pup back into his arms. “No chair, no snack...”

He trails off because Parker is grabbing at him. “Daddy,” Parker says again, clutching at him a moment, and then signing more again.

“I think Parker wants you to scent mark him,” Miles says, coming in and standing against the doorway. “Makes sense, right? Like, this has gotta be the longest he’s ever gone without it.”

Peter’s heart feels like it’s too big in his chest, like it’s going to burst his rib cage and thump-thump-thump its way over Parker in his arms, past Miles in the doorway, right out the door and then go beating its way down 71st Ave, towards the subway, maybe. Parker’s big golden-brown eyes with their too-long lashes are looking at him, frustrated and needy.

Peter pulls the pup in, close, against his overflowing heart, and scents him.

*

“Do you ever think about what we’re gonna tell Parker when he notices how much older I am than you, and how young you are?” Peter says.

“Man, I am thinking about how I’m gonna beat your ass if you make me die,” says Miles, leaning forward as if it’ll make his character run faster in the video game.

Peter disappears towards the kitchen, and Miles distantly hears the beep of the microwave.

When Peter comes back with popcorn, Miles’s character is at a shop.

“Was that question before something you really wanna talk about?” Miles says, grabbing for a handful of popcorn without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Hold on, this bowl’s yours, it has butter.”

“Oh hell yeah. Thanks.”

Peter eats some of his plain salt popcorn. “I dunno if I want to talk about it, exactly, but... I dunno. I keep waiting for this to blow up, I think. The universe—or, the multiverse, I guess—has never let me slide for doing something shitty this long before. When Parker realizes what I did... Like what if Parker’s an alpha? How am I supposed to teach him how to control himself if he can throw it back in my face that I obviously didn’t? Or if he’s an omega—”

“It matters more how he’s seen us act with his own eyes,” Miles interrupts. “He’s still in diapers, viejo, we got time.”

Peter tosses a piece of popcorn at him and Miles laughs. “If you’re gonna call me a Spanish name can’t it be something nicer than old man?”

“How about gordo?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Fatty.”

A whole handful of popcorn this time.

“Hey, hey, it sounds better in Spanish!”

“How do I say skinny?”

“Flaco.”

“Flaco y gordo,” Peter says ruefully, “what a pair.”

Miles puts his bowl on the coffee table and bullies himself into Peter’s lap, lying sideways and nuzzling his face into Peter’s belly. “I like it,” he says cheekily, looking up at Peter.

Peter puts his hand on the back of Miles’s neck, runs his fingers over the mark, watches as Miles’s eyelashes flutter as he melts into the touch.

“Mi dueño,” sighs Miles.

“What’s that one?”

Miles opens his eyes again. “My owner.”

“Puppy,” Peter groans. “Don’t—you can’t say—”

“Why not? It’s just us here, I should call you what I like, right?” Miles coaxes. He sits up and into Peter’s lap fully, knocking the other popcorn bowl over carelessly, demanding Peter’s full attention. “Mi alfa. Mi dueeeeeeeño.”

“You’re the one who really rules me,” Peter says, his hips thrusting up a bit against Miles’s pressure. “And you know it.”

“I like that too,” Miles says, and kisses him.

*

He can hear Miles singing to himself as he walks down the hall to their bedroom. “And now it’s over, it’s over, mm hmm hm hmm kacha, and the night ain’t getting younger, doo doo doo badda hmm mm, feeling kinda tilted and I’m pouring out the truth, something something something yeah now all I want is you, I’m saying, come over here and sit next to me, mmm mmm mm, clap clap—”

Miles actually said the words clap clap as words, and Peter snickers at the door, which makes Miles startle.

“Aw, jeez, man,” Miles laughs, “I didn’t know you were there.”

Peter stops short upon coming into his bedroom because there’s a weird, complexly shaped cushion-thing sitting on top of the bed, and he’s pretty sure it hadn’t been there that morning. He steps closer to look at it. It’s like a wide wedge on one side leading up to a small flat platform, from which two smaller wedges slope down from either end with an opening in between, the like the arms of a boyfriend pillow. “What’s this?”

“It’s a cushion,” Miles says, but his voice is a little high. He clears his throat and fidgets with the piece of cloth in his hands.

Peter shuts the bedroom door slowly. He may not know what’s going on, but he can tell when Miles is turned on. “I know it’s a cushion... why is it on our bed?”

“Um... this is just an idea, but... Jeez. I thought you were going to take longer to come up here...”

“Omega.”

Miles stills his awkward, self-conscious swaying and widens his eyes at Peter.

“If it’s a sex thing,” Peter says, somehow always more confident in the face of Miles’s uncertainty, “then you can always get what you need from me, right?”

“Rrrrright.” Miles’s eyes shine brighter. He bites at his lower lip a moment, then says, “Um—you remember my birthday? Maybe you don’t, but... we had sex in, like, missionary position, and it was nice, really nice, but when you knotted me, the angle was uncomfortable... your knot lasts a long time...”

“And the cushion would make it more comfortable?”

“Yeah. That’s the idea, anyway. If you... wanna try it?”

Peter very much wants to try it. He helps Miles wrestle the pillow case onto the cushion (taking advantage of opportunities to sneak kisses and touches, of course), and they both get naked. Miles puts an ordinary pillow under his head and his hips up on the top of the trapezoid. The wedge slope on one side supports Miles’s lower back and on the other his thighs, with Peter slotted in the opening in between.

“It’s like you’re being served up to me.” Peter marvels. Something about this angle... there’s something extra vulnerable about it, and Miles is playing it up, Peter thinks, the way he’s got his arms flopped up on either side of his head and his chin tilted up a little, just that subtle exposure of his neck. “God, you’re serving yourself up to me, aren’t you, puppy.”

Miles shifts his hips a little, makes his erection wiggle against his tummy. “All for you, mi dueño.”

“Oh God,” groans Peter, leans down over Miles to kiss that mouth. “You should be careful,” he growls. “You’ll make me fuck you before you’re ready for me.”

Miles grabs onto him, kissing him back, arching his hips up into him. “I’m always ready for you, mi alfa.”

“God, when you speak Spanish—”

“Haz lo que quieras, siempre que quieras,” Miles practically purrs against him, rubbing his cheek against his, and Peter is really going to lose it. “Me encanta sentir tu barba contra mi piel cuando me chingas.”

“Holy shit, why is that so sexy. I don’t have clue one what you said.” Peter fumbles a hand between them, and Miles tenses reflexively as Peter gets the pad of his thumb over Miles’s asshole. It’s wet, alright, but... “You sure you ready for me, baby? How do you say ‘I have a tight little pussy’ in Spanish?”

“Peter!” Miles squirms as Peter works the tip of his thumb in and out.

“Oh no no, puppy, you started this, keep it going. Tell me, ‘I have a tight little pussy,’ come on.”

“Tengo... oh my God. Tengo un coñito a-apretado,” Miles manages with his eyes screwed shut, while Peter sucks a hickey on his collarbone.

“You sure do, baby, so relax for me... yeah, that’s it, so I can fuck you.” Peter pulls his thumb out and rises up on his knees. “You know... this would be a great position for me to eat you out, too, but then my mouth will be busy, so...”

“I think I made a mistake,” Miles moan-laughs. “You want me to talk more Spanish, huh?”

“Well, you don’t have to, but if you want to show appreciation for me having my tongue in your ass—”

“Peter!”

“Or I could give sucking your dick another try.” Peter grasps Miles’s dick lightly, gives it a brief stroke and watches as his thumb spreads a shiny line of slick along the shaft. “Since I’m not drunk this time.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want you to barf on me on my own birthday,” Miles says.

“Yeah. You can just say whatever in Spanish, anyway, not like I’d understand the difference...” Peter leans forward on his knees and gives an experimental lick to the slit of Miles’s dick. “A shopping list probably sounds just as sexy.”

“Leche, pan, manzanas, jugo de naranja, jabón...”

“Sexy as fuck.” Peter opens his mouth and takes in the tip.

Peter’s sucked dick before, but it’s been twenty years at least, and he hadn’t been good at it back then. Rimming couldn’t be easier, especially on Miles, who tasted so fucking good and who was so sensitive to every little thing he did, so he’d gotten complacent about how satisfying it was, tongue fucking him and tugging him off with his hand.

This is turning out to have its own pleasures, though, stuff he doesn’t remember from that blurry attempt to suck Miles off on his birthday. Like being able to see Miles’s face, and watch his expressions as he pants and tries to remember how to say things in Spanish, when usually the kid can’t even manage English when Peter’s making him see stars. Maybe it’s just lack of experience, but Miles is reacting like Peter’s a dick sucking god. It’s adorable and erotic as hell.

“Unnnghhh... solo... ah, ah, ah... d-demasiado... no puedo... no puedo no puedo no puedo, ohhhhhhhh! Peter, I’m gonna come, ah, ahhhh!”

Peter keeps his eyes on Miles as the omega comes. Now that he’s fully matured as an omega, he doesn’t produce much ejaculate; part of what makes it easy for omega men to have multiple orgasms per session, maybe. It’s made up for by how much slick is coming out of him, and Peter quickly switches down.

Miles yelps a little and twitches when Peter starts licking and slurping lewdly at his hole. “P-peter! I just, ah, I just came, oh...”

“You love it,” Peter says with his lips still brushing against the puckered skin.

“Peterrrr,” moans Miles, “Peter, do me, please, please—come on, cógeme, cógeme, there, I said it in Spanish you—”

Not having to worry about accidentally destroying his partner frees up Peter to pounce upward onto Miles, stopping his whining with kisses wet with his own slick while he gets his cock into him.

Miles moans into his mouth, little smothered gasps and keens as his body opens up for Peter inch by inch.

It feels incredible, this time, every time since the first time, it’s incredible. His lover, his omega, his Miles. Gorgeous and passionate and tight and warm and precious and all for him. Only for him.

His hips thrust hard, he loses all sense of time. His beautiful boy can take it, Miles is so strong. Peter knows how much Miles loves his dirty talk, but every time he breaks off kissing Miles enough to look down at him, he just gets too caught up in seeing his face, and all he can say is:

“Look at you.”

“Oh fuck, puppy. Feels that good, huh? My cock fucking your little pussy?”

“Oh, that’s so goddamn sexy.”

“Yeah, that’s it, come around me, baby, fuck—”

—and then Peter can’t help kissing him again.

He does manage to moan, “Mmm, here it comes, puppy,” when he feels his orgasm coming, and get a hand under Miles’s neck, then surrenders to it, thrusts shortening into squirms as the base of his cock begins to swell up, until he feels that sense of there, there, I’m in, yes, I have him, I’m closing him up with me, right there, yes, and stops, letting out an ecstatic sigh at the warm glowing feeling of the knot, following the high of the orgasm.

Miles didn’t make any pained noises, but Peter lightly rubs at his nape anyway, half reassuring himself that Miles is all loose and pliant beneath him, and half just enjoying the feel of his mark on Miles’s skin. He himself feels pretty relaxed. It’s the best way to fall asleep, tied to his lover.

“Peter...”

“Mm?” Peter opens his eyes, gazes at Miles sideways.

“What’s it feel like, knotting, anyway?”

“Uh... well, it feels good... guess that’s obvious.” He thinks a little. “I kind of think it’s a bit like, when you have a really good stretch, and there’s this good feeling that radiates all through you... kinda like that.”

“Wow... that’s not fair,” gripes Miles, and Peter chuckles. “Ahh. Jeez, it feels weird when you laugh.”

“Sorry baby.” Peter kisses the side of Miles’s face. “Although you do get the multiple orgasms thing. I used to think that was really unfair... so... the knot really doesn’t feel good?”

He can’t help feeling a little insecure about that. None of the other omegas he’d been with ever said anything like that, and Peter wants to please Miles even more than any of them, because Miles is his.

“When... um... don’t be guilty, okay?”

Oh, that’s always a promising start. “I guess I’ll try,” Peter says into Miles’s neck.

“It used to hurt a lot. It still hurts a little, sometimes. Our first time it scared me... I really thought I was going to break, before you scruffed me—but I was fine when you scruffed me, really,” Miles adds in a rush, and Peter feels an extra pang, because Miles shouldn’t be worrying about how Peter feels about finding out that his knot hurt Miles. “Now I sorta... know how to handle it. Even if you don’t scruff me, usually it doesn’t hurt. But even the hurt is kind of... good, sometimes... and it’s somehow satisfying, I don’t even know how to explain it. I’m not lying when I ask for your knot when we’re having sex, Peter, I swear. I like... I like this part, too.” Miles’s hands rub on his back. “You being close to me like this, inside me like this, staying with me. I always want to be with you, anyway, so... you’re gonna say I’m cheesy again.” The last part comes out in an embarrassed mutter.

“It still hurts you?” Peter says, brushing aside the sweet things Miles is saying.

“It’s not a bad hurt. I want it. Hey, Peter, hey,” Miles shifts and nudges on him to get him to look Miles in the eyes, “please don’t get the idea that your knot hurts me so you’ve gotta stop. That would suck so fucking bad, man.”

Peter stifles a laugh at Miles’s earnest yet vulgar way of phrasing this.

“No, I’m serious! I love your knot, Peter, I swear. Even when it hurts, I love it.”

You love something that hurts you? Weirdo. Peter wants to toss this off jokingly, lightly, as if it isn’t the exact question he has about how Miles can love Peter, but he doesn’t dare.

“I hate it when you don’t knot me. I get all... twisted up inside. It feels almost like I’m jealous, only it makes no sense because what am I jealous of? The air, ‘cause it’s getting to touch your dick quicker?”

“Puppy,” Peter laughs, “I’m trying not to laugh here, but you’re too much.”

“I keep trying to tell you, Peter, I just want to be with you,” Miles says, and the passion in his voice and his eyes make Peter’s amusement die, because Miles is so serious about this. “In the heat, even then when I was a dumb kid, down deep inside me, I wanted you, I wanted to be with you, I wanted to touch you and be touched by you, nobody else. If you wouldn’t let me... I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’d... you’d have found someone—” Peter forces himself to say, but Miles interupts.

“No. Don’t even say that... the idea of letting someone else touch me like that makes my skin crawl.”

It makes Peter’s skin crawl too, makes him want to scent mark his omega, warn everyone: this one is mine.

Underneath him, Miles even shivers a little. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the mark, making it worse, that idea. I mean, I never liked the idea of trying to find somebody else, but now, it’s totally giving me... hey, could you scent me?”

Peter does, feels his omega settle and calm beneath him, and feels better.

They’re quiet for a little, and Peter has his eyes closed and tiredness has almost made him drift off, when he hears Miles say, softly, kind of sad, “I know it’s not the same for you, I’m not the same...”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.”

“No, what...” Yawn. “What is it?”

“It’s dumb. I just... I still get insecure sometimes. I thought when you marked me it’d stop, but... I still feel like I stole something that was supposed to be MJ’s.”

“Puppy...” Peter nuzzles Miles again, licks at his jaw. “MJ and I had plenty of time to make it work if we were going to make it work, okay? That was its whole... thing. It’s over, completely. You’re the one with my mark, not her. You’re my one, now, okay?”

“I just love you so much, I feel stupid. You’re so, like... everything, for me, and I’m just, I wish I was... man, I don’t even know,” Miles says, and God, he sounds so embarrassed, so young, so much the teenager that he is, that it’s difficult for Peter not to get pulled off into guilt and self-disgust.

But he can’t do that right now. Not when Miles needs reassurance. He has to focus on the love, not worry about whether he should have ever let himself feel it. “Baby, I’m telling you, you’re everything to me too. You’re amazing, Miles, nobody could be better for me, you’re so much better than me. I love being with you, I love you, like crazy I love you...” He runs a thumb lightly over the freckles on one cheek, leans in and drops another kiss on Miles’s lips. “You... even... God, Miles...” The beautiful wide eyes beneath him overlap with so many memories.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you feel guilty. Is it working?”

Yes, it worked, it worked then, it works now. “Oh, God, Miles,” Peter says again, like an agonized prayer as he struggles. “This is so hard, but it’s not because there’s a thing wrong with you, it’s not because you’re not worth being loved, it’s not at all because I don’t love you and want you in every way, it’s not. But I know... I know what you deserve, what you should get, is for me to be able to say to you, ‘Yes, I’d choose you over anybody else, and I’m so happy I did,’ but how could I dare to say that... God, your fucking eyes, Miles.”

“What about them?”

“They’re gorgeous. Parker’s eyes are the same...” Peter hates himself so much right now. He’s letting the guilt win, and he’s hurting Miles, and fucking everything up again, and he knows it, but now that he’s started talking, it just keeps coming out. “Miles... you carried my kid, Miles, and you were still a kid yourself. You were just a kid, when I fell in love with you. You didn’t steal anything, God... I stole you. I wanted you so bad, I loved you so much, that’s why I did everything, but everything I did was wrong, and when you figure that out...”

Now the words stop, because the next words, you’re going to hate me, get stuck in his throat, he’s going to choke on them if he tries to say them. For that precious face to look at him the way he deserves to be looked at...

But instead, Miles’s face has a kind of funny smile on it. “Man, MJ was right, when she said you’re like a Russian nesting doll of guilt... hey. I could never hate you, Peter.”

“Shit, don’t tell me you got invisibility, electricity, and now mind-reading.” He tries to protect himself with jokes, like he’s always done.

“You’ve been thrown a lot of messed up stuff, and you don’t always handle it right, yeah. But it’s whatever.”

“It’s whatever? Jesus, now I really feel old.”

“Well it’s the best way to put it,” laughed Miles. “It’s whatever, man! I can’t change it, whatever, okay. All I know is that I love you so damn much and I want you to love me, right now, right here. I just love, love, love you.”

Peter leans his forehead against Miles’s and takes slow breaths. Miles smells so good. “How do you say that in Spanish? Te amo?”

“Yeah, but actually we usually say, Te quiero.” Miles cradles his face and rubs his stubble, still smiling, still looking so beautiful that he can hardly stand it. “Te quiero mucho. Mucho, mucho, mucho.”

“Te quiero mucho.” Peter’s tongue feels clumsy. He doesn’t know if he said it anything close to right. But Miles smiles at him, and that feels right. Being inside him like this feels right, and it’s where he is. Miles... is so good, that must be it. He’s so good that he made it right. Peter smiles, and tries again. “Te quiero, Miles.”

“Te quiero.” Miles’s eyes flutter closed, and Peter kisses him again.

“Te quiero mucho.”

Chapter Text

Being a superhero means dealing with crazy shit. Peter knows this, has known it for literal decades, but it still makes his head reel every night during this period in his life, where Miles is off being Orbweaver in space, doing... something... with combatting an alien invasion, or something? Peter really doesn’t know the specifics, because here he is, on earth, trying to get Parker to potty train. Dealing with an entirely different kind of shit, really.

Hopefully Miles is having an easier time fighting aliens in space than Peter is having trying to get their son to use the potty.

Every night, as part of their bedtime routine, Peter packs his son into a back carrier, and they swing over to Flushing Meadows, which is about as good as it gets when it comes to finding somewhere that’s a little less bright yet close to their Forest Hills home. Peter climbs the tallest Observation Tower, 200 feet up in the air, and then points up at the stars.

“Papa,” says Parker, used to the routine by now. Both Peter and Miles have been packing him up with them to heights since as soon as the doctors said his neck was strong enough to handle it; the last thing they wanted was a kid afraid of heights.

“Yeah, bud,” Peter says, “Papa’s up there in the stars, but he’ll be back as soon as he can. He loves us so much, he just has some work to do right now.”

He hears Parker sigh, and little fingers toy with the tufts of hair that have managed to stick out the gap between the back of his mask and the neckline of the suit. Geez, he’s let himself go too long between haircuts, hasn’t he.

“Gentle,” Peter reminds Parker. He’s staring at the stars himself a little harder than he would otherwise. At one month apart, Miles is probably already feeling side effects from not being scented directly, even with the help of preserved scent cloths. Is Miles okay? The old wives’ tale is that a bonded pair always knows if the other one is in serious distress, no matter the distance. But if Miles isn’t even in the same solar system....

Parker tugs on the hair, but not too hard, then pats his father’s neck with some kind of inscrutable satisfaction. “Okay.”

Peter feels his phone buzz as they swing home, and webs himself onto a passing Q23 bus so he can check his texts.

“We riding a bus,” Parker comments, in the toddler habit of needing to narrate everything that occurs, without any notion that there was anything strange about riding on the top of a transit vehicle.

“Sure are Parks,” Peter says, distracted, as he works on entering his passcode. The fingers of the suit are supposed to function as texting gloves but when they get dirty—which they do approximately ten seconds into any patrol—this is mostly theoretical.

“I see cars,” Parker informs his father, helpfully.

“Uh-huh. Lots of cars.”

Miles: I’m back on earth!!!!

Peter feels like he just got jolted back to earth too. It’s only been a month but...

Before he can get his mind around the idea that his omega is home, the phone vibrates again.

Miles: I’m actually not sure where I am yet but I’m getting cell phone signal so I’m sending a text anyway. It’s night here, I think, what time is it there? This is probably gonna cost like $50 per text cause I’m in Wakanda or some shit but I don’t care. I’ll be home as soon as I can okay? I love you and Parker so much, kiss him lots for me til I can get there. Oh and I’m not hurt or nothing. We got it done. Space is cool as! Hope there’s no character limit on these texts. Be home SOON AS I CAN!

Peter: It’s just about 8pm here in New York, so you’re probably not in Wakanda. I hope you’re close enough to get here tonight. Missed you so bad, puppy.

“Bus is stop,” Parker announces, very displeased. It’s a red light.

Peter shoves his phone away and readies his web-shooters. “Yeah Parker, we can get going, don’t worry.”

*

Peter keeps it at their temporary normal with Parker for bedtime, brushing his teeth and reading a book and so on before scenting him, tucked into bed. But even though he didn’t tell Parker anything was up, the pup still picked up on something in his vibe or his scent and was fussier than usual, crying when Peter tried to leave.

“Daddy stay. Daddy stay please.”

“Parker, it’s bedtime. We’ll have fun again in the morning.” Peter ruffles the dark curls and avoids looking at Parker’s pleading eyes. “Stay in bed. I love you. Sweet dreams.”

As he shuts the door behind him, he frowns a little to hear that Parker is still whimpering in his bed. God, kids really could tug at your last heartstring.

He checks his phone compulsively. He sets it on the toilet while he showers, because he’s gotta be clean if Miles comes back, and pokes his head out three times during the shower to double-check that he didn’t miss a text or call, as if he would.

Should he shave? He considers it, but... then he groans and leans against the cool tile of the shower, thinking about that time when he’d coaxed Miles into translating some of his Spanish dirty talk.

“Uh-um...” The arch of his neck, coy and excited and embarrassed, just that hint of extra warmth on his cheeks, so subtle but so riveting. “That one means, like... ‘I like the way your beard feels against my skin when you fuck me.’”

He puts a hand to his hardening cock just for comfort, like he’s telling himself to hang in there, finishes the shower, and checks his phone again.

Miles: Good news I’m in the US! Bad news I’m in Texas. Good news it doesn’t matter because there’s a dude here who can spacefold or something and they’re gonna get me to Queens tonight! Can you order some food or heat something up or whatever because I’m starving. Dude says should be like forty-five minutes.

Peter: Can’t wait. What do you want to eat? I’ll get anything.

Miles: God I could eat ANYTHING. Spaceship food is the worst, science museums made astronaut ice cream seem cool but it’s all terrible government catering.

*

Peter orders pizza, under the logic that it’s the best way to quickly get enough calories into Miles to satisfy his hunger so that he’ll be willing to satisfy Peter’s hunger to fuck him until he can’t walk.

Tomorrow they’ll just stay in all day. Him and Miles and Parker. Put on the tv in their bedroom on cartoons and just cuddle and scent his omega and pup all day. Put Parker down for a nap and fuck Miles again... or if he’s too sore, then maybe if Peter’s really sweet then Miles will suck him off and let him—

A sudden twinge of his senses is all the warning he gets before there’s a sound of tapping on the backdoor.

Miles pushes up the Orbweaver mask as Peter opens the door for him and they’re making out before they’ve even got the door closed, before Peter has hardly had a look at him, but it doesn’t matter because he can smell and touch him, and oh God has he missed this smell and this touch. Miles breaks the kiss to let out a rapturous sigh when Peter starts scenting him, and Peter wonders how the hell he’s supposed to let Miles have his pizza instead of just taking him here and now against the backdoor.

But, damn... if Miles is hungry, Peter should provide...

While he didn’t quite have the strength to break off the make-out session on his own, Peter’s at least able to let go with a good grace when Miles spots the pizza box on the counter and pulls away himself. “Pizza! Pepperoni?”

“Double pepperoni.”

“Sweet. Peter, I love you.”

*

They sit on the couch together while Miles eats his pizza, Peter with his arm around him. Miles doesn’t take his mask all the way off, leaving it bunched on his forehead, and it doesn’t strike Peter as strange, but after he’s had four slices, he sits back, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and then touches the mask awkwardly.

“Okay, so... promise you won’t freak out.”

“Freak out about what?”

In answer, Miles pulls the mask all the way off, revealing that all his curls are gone. “Um... I got some alien goo thing in my hair, and... kinda had to buzz it... does it look ok?”

Peter pauses and really looks at Miles, wanting to make it clear that he’s not just doing some flippant you look fine brush off. Yeah, it’s a buzz cut. The way Miles wears his mask, pushing down tight on his scalp, made Peter familiar with the shape of his skull anyway, so he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be seeing. Sure, Peter loved Miles’s curls, but he was used to them. He doesn’t want to say you look fine, but... Miles really does look fine. And if Miles doesn’t like it this short, won’t it just grow it back before too long anyway? Peter searches his vocabulary for some word other than fine. “It looks handsome to me, Miles. But I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask about hair styles. I mean look at me.”

Miles grins and tweaks at a strand of Peter’s unkempt hair, but he still says, “No, but... I mean, handsome, is that okay?”

Peter tilts his head, puzzled. Miles didn’t want to be called handsome? “I’m not getting this. I want to, but I’m not. What do you mean?”

“I thought... maybe you prefer me more, like, cute, or... ‘Cause, a lot of people on the team were trying to buck me up after I got it buzzed off, y’know, like, saying it made me look manly, but that’s... Maybe you don’t...”

Miles’s halting attempts stop as Peter takes Miles’s hand with one hand cradling it, palms together, and strokes the fingers of his other hand over the omega’s knuckles, coaxing the hand into stretching out. Their hands are almost the same size; they both have big hands for their frames. Peter’s have bigger palms and blunter finger tips while Miles’s fingers look more nimble and artistic, but still. They’ll serve for the point Peter thinks Miles is afraid to make. “Are you worried that I’m less attracted to you now that you’re an adult?”

“No! Well... sorta... not exactly. It’s not that I think you got... some kind of jailbait thing... ‘cause you been hitting it with just as much enthusiasm since I turned eighteen, far as I can tell anyway.”

Peter cracks up. Oh Miles. “Yeah.” He takes the opportunity to kiss the back of Miles’s hand. “I’m enthusiastic, alright.”

Miles gets that adorably flattered look and ducks his head. “Um. But it’s... you just said handsome. But usually you call me cute, or gorgeous, or beautiful...”

A light switch in Peter’s head flicks on. “Oh. You’re talking about feminine versus masculine?”

“Part of it, yeah. Omegan, too, I think, and... I gotta admit... it’s weird, cause like... day to day, I often wish I was taller, and when my body looks stronger, I feel good about it, and I work hard to be strong, but when I’m in your arms... Man, this is weird to say out loud, but I like being smaller than you. I like feeling like I’m smaller than you, maybe smaller than I really am. I want you to think I’m cute...”

“Oh, puppy...” Peter lets go of Miles’s hand, reaches up for the back of Miles’s neck with one hand while gathering him in with the other arm. He rubs on Miles’s mating scar, reveling in how Miles just melts into it, melts into him. “You being bigger or older or more manly has not made you one bit less adorable to me. If anything, you just get cuter and cuter to me. This amazing, world-saving superhero who snuggles into me just like this. God.” He presses a kiss behind Miles’s ear, licks at his earlobe, kisses his jaw. “You are absolutely precious, Miles. The sweetest omega. You’ll never stop being my baby.”

Miles squirms in his lap, and then Peter feels the moment when Miles notices his erection, that brief stilling, before the squirming becomes a more purposeful grinding.

*

“Mmm, fuck. Missed this little pussy so bad.” Peter delivers a light slap to Miles’s ass as he thrusts. “Missed this ass. Missed all of you, puppy.”

“M-me, me too, ah, ah, ah!”

“Yeah? You missed this cock, baby? Wanted your alpha inside you again? Oh God, puppy, when you squeeze me like that... gonna make this over too fast.”

Peter starts to slow down, but Miles whines, “No, no, harder, do it harder, please, s-so close, lemme come around your knot, alpha, please!”

Peter groans, and increases his speed a little.

“More!” Miles pushes his hips back, forcing a savage impact, his hands clawing at the sheets and ruining another set. “More, dame más, duro, duro, duro, aún más duro—”

“You little cheater!” Peter pins Miles down and locks his jaw on the omega’s nape, swiftly ending Miles’s ability to do anything but take it at the speed that Peter wants to give it.

It doesn’t matter anyway, though, because the touch of Peter’s teeth against Miles’s bondmark makes the omega come at once, and the combination of Miles’s ecstatic moans and the rhythmic contractions around Peter’s cock destroy Peter’s last vestiges of control. He slams his hips into Miles, hard enough to leave terrible bruises on a normal person, as he comes, and as Peter’s knot swells, his teeth break the skin again.

“Brat,” Peter says thickly, when he can speak again, and licks up droplets of blood and sweat. “Get what you deserve.”

Miles doesn’t answer, except a little satisfied noise.

Peter gets them shifted onto their sides, at a comfortable angle for going to sleep still tied, then kisses the back of Miles’s head. “It’s different, for sure. Doesn’t smell like almonds anymore.”

“Nah, yeah, don’t need the oil when it’s that short.” Miles pulls Peter’s top arm into his chest like it’s a stuffed animal he’s cuddling, and Peter smiles. Another one of Miles’s absolutely adorable habits. How could Miles ever think Peter wouldn’t find him cute when practically everything he does is so cute it hurts?

“S’really up to you,” Peter says, and yawns. “I liked the curls, but I bet this will grow on me... wait. Grow... hair... there’s a joke there, somewhere, but I’m too sleepy to figure out where.”

Miles chuckles anyway.

Unguarded on the edge of sleep, Peter says with his eyes closed, “Really missed you, Miles. This is where I’m s’posed to be. Inside you, always.”

“Yeah. Think so too.” Miles sounds just as close to asleep.

“Loved when you were pregnant,” Peter mutters.

There’s a pause, and then Miles says, distinctly more alert, though Peter doesn’t register it, “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. So beautiful, getting big ‘cause of me. Wanna knock you up again.”

“You do?”

“Hmm. So—” yawn—“bad.”

There’s another long pause, and then Miles says softly, “Okay,” but Peter’s already asleep and doesn’t hear it.

*

“Got good news, buddy,” Peter tells Parker while he unbuckles their 4-year-old pup from his car seat, when they’ve just come home from preschool. “Papa’s gonna tell you inside.”

When they get inside, Miles is sitting on the couch with headphones on, which he takes off and hangs around his neck when his alpha and son come in.

“Hi Papa,” Parker says cheerfully once he gets off his shoes, and runs over to climb up on the couch with Miles and plant a hug and kiss on the gentle swell of Miles’s tummy. “Hi baby.”

“Did Daddy tell you the news?” Miles says, hugging Parker.

Peter puts his and Parker’s shoes on the rack. “Course not, you should get to tell him.”

“Daddy and Papa found out today that the baby is a girl,” Miles says. “You’re going to have a baby sister!”

“Baby sister,” Parker says, with wide eyes, while his dad sits on the other side of him. Parker turns and snuggles into Peter’s lap, which the alpha finds surprising but is more than happy to return the cuddle, until his son pats at Peter’s tummy pudge and says, hopefully, “Baby brother?”

Miles starts laughing so hard he nearly falls off the couch.

“No, Parker,” sighs Peter.

“’Nother baby sister?”

“No, Parker, only Papa is having a baby. There’s no baby in my tummy.”

“What’s in Daddy’s tummy?” Parker asks.

Peter purses his lips as Miles grabs a tissue from the box on the coffee table to wipe tears of mirth from his face. “Food. Anxiety.”

“Ziety...?” Parker stares at his father’s stomach and pokes it cautiously.

“Never mind, Parks. Just... not a baby, buddy, okay? Miles, you better not be posting about this on social media. Miles, I swear to God, do not walk away from me with your phone!”

*

Alright, teachers. Let’s do this one more time.

My name is Parker Morales, and for the last sixteen years, I’ve been the son of the one and only Spider-Man.

At least, that’s what most people think.

The truth is that my parents are both Spider-Man. Actually, there are lots of Spider-People, and my parents are just two of them. It’s just that most Spider-People are in separate universes, where they don’t interact.

But this one time, a villain in another universe used a super collider to try to get an alternate version of his family, since they had died in his dimension. Instead, the Collider brought my dad and some other Spider-People through the dimensions to the villain’s dimension, and the Spider-People worked together to stop him.

That’s how my dad and papa met, and a couple years later they got together and had me. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know all the details of how they got together. They offered to tell me but I’m not trying to hear that, know what I mean? They are embarrassing enough to live with now, I really don’t want to know about how they fell in love.

So my papa is literally from another dimension, and because of that I can actually go to that dimension without getting damaged. See most people, if they travel dimensions, their atoms start to break down after a little while if they’re in the wrong dimension, but I can spend as long as I want in either one without any problems. Cool, right?

I got spider DNA from both sides, but so far I can’t use any powers, except that I heal really fast. That’s it. Everybody keeps thinking I am gonna unlock some other power but I haven’t. I even really like climbing, so I wouldn’t mind at all if I could climb walls, but I’ve never been able to. I wish people would just accept that this is it and I’m not going to suddenly start being able to do anything heroic.

So in sixteen years, a lot of stuff has happened. We moved to Queens, my parents pair bonded, my dad retired, my papa went to space, my dad unretired, they had my sister Grace, my dad retired, Staten Island sank into the ocean, my papa stopped a war, my dad unretired, I got kidnapped and my dad rescued me, my dad retired, they had my brother Benji, Benji zapped another set of kidnappers before they could even kidnap us, my dad unretired and started teaching here at the Xavier Institute, we found out Grace has an allergic reaction to bees, my papa stopped the president from launching nuclear missiles, and my dad retired.

Honestly I don’t want powers, because it seems like a really hectic way to have to live. My life would have been a lot calmer if my parents weren’t both heroes, and I would have had to attend a lot fewer retirement parties.

But, as it is, I’m still legally a “mutant and/or metahuman,” so the Xavier Institute it is, and every year you make me write this same stupid essay at the start of the year about “who I am, what I can do, and what I hope to accomplish,” because of the lame “individual curriculum” thing.

Well, I’m supposed to have my status test this year. I hope I’m a beta. I’m pretty close to my parents and I don’t want stuff to change. My dad and my grandpa don’t get along at all, and I think it’s because alphas get territorial? I don’t know, but that’s what people say. I don’t want to fight with my dad or anybody else. And being an omega is kind of a hassle. The heat thing, and people are rude and condescending and stuff. My papa’s suit hides his smell, and there’s this big debate on the internet about whether Orbweaver is an alpha or a beta. Hardly anyone guesses he’s actually an omega, which just goes to show you that people still have preconceived ideas of what an omega can do or how they look and act.

So this year I want to be confirmed as a beta and I want to learn more about science and computers and stuff, and nothing about being a hero, please.

Peter sets the essay down and rubs his forehead. “This is seriously what he turned in?”

“It’s hard for him,” Miles appeals to both Peter and the principal, Storm. “He was really hoping his appeal would get approved and he wouldn’t have to go to Xavier Institute anymore. The culture at the school is so much based around powers…”

“Helping children cultivate their superhuman abilities is the purpose of the school,” says Storm, “but it is unfortunate that the government forces children like Parker into schools like ours on the assumption that superhuman children are inherently a threat to be monitored, as much as a generation to be educated.”

“Maybe I should homeschool him,” Peter muses, “but he’s so cautious and a loner by nature. He needs to work on his social skills as much as anything else and school forces that.”

“But should we really force him at this point? He’s getting old enough to start to figure out what he wants. It’s not like he doesn’t get along well with people when he has to, and he’s never rude or mean, he just likes to be either alone or with the few people he’s close to, like our family. It’s not wrong for him to be like that.”

“I think you have some discussions to make as a family about that,” Storm says. “Of course, Xavier Institute will do its best to help him meet his educational goals as long as he attends here. I wish you wisdom in making these decisions.” She passes them a sealed envelope. “As you requested, his dynamic status test results.”

*

“Parker is pacing in his room,” Grace says when Peter and Miles get in the door.

“Grace is a tattle tale,” says Benji.

“That’s not tattling. Tattling would me telling them you ate four ice pops,” says Grace, and sticks out her tongue at her little brother.

“We’re gonna talk to Parks about school stuff, so you two can keep killing each other down here, provided you keep the violence on there,” says Peter, pointing at the paused television screen where one character is mid-swing of an axe at the other.

Miles and Peter head up the stairs, ignoring Grace’s shriek of unfairness at the game being unpaused without warning.

At Parker’s door they can hear the pacing and muttering. Miles knocks.

“Come in, it’s not locked.”

When they open the door, Parker is standing there with a lot of nervous energy, like he’s getting ready to say something.

“Parks,” Miles begins, “we’ve got your status results. I was thinking we could open it together.”

Parker closes his mouth, then reaches for his neck self-consciously but checks the motion. He sits down at his computer chair. “Sure, okay, yeah.”

Peter and Miles sit down on Parker’s bed and Miles holds out the envelope to their pup.

Parker takes it, breathes in and out, then breaks the seal and pulls out the paper.

Parker looks disappointed, so his parents know the result isn’t beta. The boy breathes in and out and finally says, “Alpha,” turning the paper around so his parents can see it.

“That’s not a bad thing,” Miles says, taking the paper, and Parker sighs, a little more frustrated.

“I know it’s not a bad thing,” he says, “but I don’t feel like an alpha and I don’t want to change like that.”

“You’re still yourself,” Peter says, “it’s just that everybody changes as they get older. Like your first gender puberty changed things about your body, your dynamic presentation does the same thing. Puberty and presentation are both rough, I’m not gonna lie, but you can handle it.”

Parker looks a little vulnerable. “Does it mean I’m gonna start not liking how you smell?”

“I hope not,” says Peter, smiling. “I never stopped liking how Aunt May smelled. Alphas can get along, Parker, if they want to and work at it. They can be friends or even fall in love.”

Parker fidgets with the string of his hoodie. “I guess it could be worse… I mean, not that being an omega is bad, Papa, but I really don’t want to deal with it.”

“I know, I read your start of school essay,” Miles says.

“Oh.” Parker’s ears get a little red. “I was kind of mad when I wrote that. I didn’t know they were gonna show it to you.”

“The law isn’t fair. I know it’s frustrating to you that you can’t go a school that focuses more on your interests.”

“Actually…” Parker puts his hands together. “Um… right. I’ve been thinking and I have an idea. I was thinking… what if I went to live with Grandpa and Abuelita this year? Like, went to regular school in the other Brooklyn?”

“‘What if’?” says Peter slowly. “You mean, that's what you want, right?”

“Right, yeah, but… would it be that bad? Nobody over there would have to know there’s anything weird about me.”

Peter and Miles look at each other.

Over all, Parker has always been a good kid. He’s dealt with a lot of scary situations no pup should have to deal with, and he’s always kept a level head. He’s also always been a kid who liked to be with his family, who is very close to both his parents.

That part makes this hard. But the very fact that Parker wants this enough to ask for it despite being a kid who likes to be with his parents…

“I don’t think we’re saying no, right Peter?” Miles says first, and Peter nods. “It’s a big decision.”

“There is something you have to think about,” Peter says. “The multiverse… the way things tend to happen, for people like us…”

“Is this that ‘Theory of Narrative Causality’ thing that Professor Pratchett talks about?” says Parker, a little resigned.

“Yeah. You and your Papa are the only people, as far as we know, who can go between two universes without limits. So if a challenge ever comes around that require that…”

“Yeah, I know, great power et cetera. But I don’t have great power.”

“Great power is relative to what needs to be done. You just keep going,” says Miles.

Peter says, “Papa’s right. You try to make the right next decision from where you are. As your parents, that’s all we hope for you.”

Chapter Text

“Wow,” says Parker, “this was really your room Papa?”

“Yeah. It looked different then, though. I only had a twin bed, and I had a drafting table over here… this looks…” Miles looks around. It looks like a guest bedroom, which he supposes is what it’s been for over a decade. Rent control has kept his parents in the same two bedroom apartment as back when he was a kid. “I’m sure Abuelita and Grandpa won’t mind if you wanna put up some posters or something… Parker?”

Parker’s disappeared again. “Abuelita? Abuelita can I put up some posters?”

“Of course, it’s your room now,” Miles hears his mother say. “You hungry yet? The asopao de pollo is almost ready.”

“Am I!”

Miles smiles a little. His mom’s cooking is the best…

“Hey, Abuelita, did I tell you? I’m gonna take Spanish at my new school. Will you help me with my homework?”

“Claro que sí, Parker.”

Miles hears his dad’s deep, rumbling chuckle. “You just watch out, Parks, Abuelita’s gonna talk nothing but Spanish to you.”

“If he wants to learn, it’s good! He should learn when he’s young, it’s easier,” his mother’s voice argues back. “Sit down, sit down.”

Miles sits down on the new bed in his old room.

He looks at the windows. They’re one thing in the room that really hasn’t changed. Seventeen years ago, almost exactly. That narcomedusa, darting in the window, when he was in very early heat.

And then… the next day, Peter, coming through the window. Because even though Miles started it in such a horrible way, even though Peter knew it was wrong…

Peter couldn’t resist him.

Miles feels himself shiver a little. Self-consciously, he puts his hand to his mating scar.

He was only a little older than Parker back then. Now Miles is thirty-three, but that’s still seven years to go until he’s as old as Peter was when they had sex the first time. That’s hard for him to wrap his mind around. It makes it easier to understand some things in retrospect, stuff that he understood the reasons behind but couldn’t really fully get the feelings at the time. Peter’s guilt. His parents’ feelings, especially because he’s now aware that his mom is technically a year younger than Peter, his father only a year older.

The thought of someone his age being interested, sexually, in Parker… of course he’d be furious. That was all natural, but…

“Miles? Ven a comer,” his mother’s voice calls, and then says, “That means come eat.”

“Ven a comer,” he hears Parker repeat, “I know comer, it’s the infinitive, right? Like, ‘to eat.’”

“Estoy yendo,” Miles calls, and stands up.

*

When he comes back to their dimension, it’s late and Grace and Benji are already in bed. Peter smiles and welcomes him back, but he’s doing something on his laptop, so Miles takes his time taking his shoes off, watching Peter peripherally.

Peter’s let himself go totally grey—even his stubble is grey—but even so, Miles finds it hard to believe he’s fifty-seven. Maybe it’s some effect of the spider bite on the aging process, the same thing that speeds up healing functioning as a kind of natural, perpetual cosmetic surgery. To the alpha’s great exasperation, he never has been able to flatten his belly; to the contrary, it’s now a little bigger and even softer.

It’s really nice to cuddle against; all the pups love cuddling with their father, even Parker despite his age. Miles once told Peter he was outvoted four to one: the family loves his belly, so it’s a good thing.

“You’re giving me the creeps,” Peter says without looking away from his screen.

Miles laughs. “You really caught me?”

“Is there something on my face or something?” Peter says, a little distracted, and types something. “Hang on, I’m almost done here.”

“No. I was just thinking how you’re a total silver fox.”

That makes Peter turn away from the screen to give Miles his full attention. “Jesus Christ,” he says in a tone of mild consternation. “I’m a what?”

“You heard what I said.”

“Yeah but what brought it on? I’m pretty sure I look the same as yesterday.”

“You do,” says Miles, putting his shoes on the rack. “I just like you.”

“That really all? Wait, seriously wait just one minute.” Peter types for a minute, clicks something, and then closes the laptop and sets it on the coffee table. “Okay. C’mere, puppy.”

Miles chuckles and walks over, lets Peter take him in his arms. “After all this time, I’m still your puppy?”

Peter grins and laces his arms around Miles’s waist firmly. “Yeah, always. So what’s going on?”

Miles leans his forehead against Peter’s, breathes in his alpha’s scent, and when he exhales, all the twisty feelings float away. “Hey. Mi dueño.”

“Oh,” Peter says in a different tone, “you want something, huh puppy?”

“Is it too late to have another baby?”

“Oh,” Peter says, in a different, different tone. “Oh. Huh. Uh… empty nest syndrome already?”

Miles nuzzles Peter’s neck. “Maybe.”

“I’m…” Peter laughs. “I’m getting really old for this, Miles. It’s not that I don’t want to, but…”

“If I ask,” says Miles in his prettiest tone, giving Peter his biggest eyes, “you won’t say no, will you?”

"Puppy," Peter says in an admonishing way, but Miles knows from the look in Peter's eyes that the omega has already won.

*

The doorbell rings.

Peter starts to get up, but there’s the sudden noise of a pair of elephants racing down from the third floor. Grace steals ahead of her brother Benji at the last moment by leaping down the last flight in one go, landing in a front somersault to leap up from and unlock the door.

“Cheater!” Benji howls, furiously racing down the stairs.

Grace yanks the door open and grabs her older brother Parker in a big hug. “Parks! Welcome home!”

“No parkour in the house, Grace, you know that,” Peter says, still unrisen from the couch. “Go to your room.”

“But Daaaaad,” Grace whines, “Parker’s home!”

“Yeah, that’s what makes it a punishment. Up you get.”

Grace huffs but releases her brother and goes up stairs.

“Is Papa not home?” Parker asks, getting a hug from Benji as Peter stands up.

“He’s got a gallery show opening tomorrow, he’s just doing some last minute checks that it’s all set up right. He knows you’re coming back today, though, I’m sure he’ll be home soon.”

When Benji moves out of the way so Parker can hug his dad, his oldest surprises Peter by ducking his head down, stooping into the embrace; wolf touch-bonding, asking for scenting. Peter wraps his arms around his son and breathes in for a moment before obliging. Parker’s alpha scent is unmistakably alpha, now, even if it isn’t mature yet.

Alphas generally scent their pups less and less as they get older, often stopping altogether when they begin first puberty. Once children hit first puberty, no one is supposed to scent them unless they initiate it. For boys and young men, and double for alphas, smelling like another alpha is often viewed as childish, cringy behaviour, on the level of advertising yourself as a “loser who lives in your parents’ basement” or “mama’s boy.” For Parker to ask for it anyway, as a sixteen year old alpha, makes Peter really happy.

“Thanks, dad,” Parker says quietly once Peter’s scented him, and lets the hug go.

“Good to have you back, kiddo,” Peter says. “The other New York have snow yet this year?”

“Flurries. Nothing that stuck like here. White Christmas, huh?” Parker looks out the window and smiles, then says, “What’s up with the tree?” gesturing to the plain pine in the corner.

“We waited for you to put the ornaments on,” Benji says. “Hey, you wanna see that Lego set you got me for my birthday? I almost finished it.”

“Sure, Ben.” As his brother starts tugging him up the stairs, Parker calls, “Uh, Dad, what’s the plan for dinner?”

“Your choice, Parks. Pizza?”

“Yeah, sounds good. Can I go with you when you pick it up? Just us?”

Huh. Something’s up, but Peter keeps it light. “Sure, you can keep the cheese from sliding.”

*

Parker doesn’t say anything for a few minutes as they drive. Peter asks something innocuous about Parker’s school in the other dimension, and Parker answers. The conversation flows fine, nothing awkward, and Peter wonders if maybe he got it wrong, when he thought something was bugging Parker, something that he wanted to get away from the rest of the family to talk about in private.

“That guy’s pulling out,” Parker says when they’re getting close to the pizza place.

“Good eye, Parks.” They snag the spot, and Peter reaches for his seatbelt.

“Dad.”

Oh, I wasn’t wrong. “Yeah, Parker?”

Parker’s looking out the window at a little pile of snow. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, of course.” Peter goes ahead and unbuckles his seatbelt. Might as well be comfortable for this.

Parker turns and looks at his dad. “How old is Papa?”

This is a topic that Peter has been expecting since Parker was in diapers, so he’s able to calmly reply, “According to his ID in this universe, he’s thirty-six. But since you’re asking this question, maybe you already know that he’s actually thirty-four. Meaning he was seventeen when you were born, and sixteen when you were conceived. I was almost forty.”

“Yeah... yeah, that’s what I’m asking about.” Parker looks uncomfortable, and Peter doesn’t blame him a bit. “I never... I mean, I knew you were older than Papa, and I know you guys tried to tell me before about how you got together, and I remember thinking it was weird and gross that you were so determined to tell me about it, til you finally gave up, but...” Parker looks down. “I didn’t realize that it was actually gross.”

Peter lets himself breathe a moment. It stings like only the truth can. “Yeah, it was. You’re not wrong, Parker. Can I ask what you know?”

“Just the math,” Parker says, still looking down. “Abuelita saved a bunch of Papa’s stuff from when he was a kid, school stuff, art stuff, that kinda thing, and there was some of it that had a date and Papa’s age, and just... it suddenly clicked on me that it didn’t make sense, how young that would make Papa, and I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure it out, but...”

“Okay. I’ll try to lay the facts out, then. Your dam and I met because of the Collider incident—that part you know the story. Then we figured out how to make dimensions jumps on purpose, without opening up black holes. And I wanted... I cared a lot about your dam, but as a mentor only, back then. In his universe, he was really alone, and I wanted to help him... plus he was just always fun to be with. He made being Spider-Man fun again. So we would patrol together and I would train him. Sometimes in his universe, sometimes in this one... then... he got his status test results. He was afraid that I wouldn’t want to be alone with him anymore, so he faked results that showed him to be a beta instead. At first I was fooled. Then... one day in August, when he was sixteen, we went on patrol together in this dimension, and your dam got upset about how the patrol had gone, and when I hugged him to comfort him, he asked for scenting. He’d never done that before. I did what he asked, because I unconsciously felt the pull, and then I suddenly realized that he was an omega in early heat. That he’d lied to me. So I took him back to his own dimension and commanded him to tell his parents that he was an omega, because he’d lied to them about his status too. Then I came back to this dimension.”

Parker lifts his head, puzzled. “Huh?”

“It’s not the end of the story,” Peter says. “Should have been. But he ran into a sporing portal narcomedusa outside his apartment window. Hit him directly in the chest and gave him a full load of pollen. He’d never encountered one that was sporing before, and like an idiot, it hadn’t occurred to me to warn him about it. In combination with his heat, it made him go completely insane. He stole some xylazanine from a lab, traveled to my dimension, and injected me with it so he could overpower me.”

Parker’s face is stunned and horrified and Peter hastens to prevent him from thinking what he’s doubtless thinking.

“Your dam didn’t rape me,” he says, and Parker relaxes. “I was able, with a lot of difficulty, to get him to untie me—”

“Papa tied you up?” Parker’s back to horrified.

“He wasn’t in control of his actions,” Peter says, firmly. “I was able to get him to untie me and give me the antidote, and I should have taken him back to his own dimension again. But this is where I made possibly the worst mistake I ever have. I didn’t. I had sex with him, Parker. And again the same night, and again the next day. You were conceived from that heat.”

Parker stares at his sire, uncomprehending, or maybe more accurately, not wanting to comprehend. “Was it... the pollen got from him onto you, too?”

“I don’t know. Some people have suggested that before. I don’t know. To me, it really doesn’t matter. Even that first time, I was still lucid enough to know that I was doing something wrong, and that’s enough for me to condemn myself for what I did. Your dam doesn’t agree, but we have mutually decided that the issue of blame is to be dropped between us.” Peter half-shrugs. “It can’t be changed.”

“’You can only go from where you are, so keep going’?” Parker quotes.

“You’ve been spending more time with the other universe’s Aunt May, I see,” Peter says. “In my universe she phrased it, ‘You have to go from here, so go from here.’”

“She’s a cool old lady,” Parker says, smiling a little.

“Yeah, she is. I still really miss my Aunt May, you know.”

“Yeah. She was kinda like your mom, right? Aunt May said she wasn’t blood related to her Peter, either, so from her perspective I’m as much her nephew as I would be if the other Peter was my dad... I visit her about once a week. She gives really good advice about alpha stuff, too.”

Peter laughs. “Yeah, her advice is better than mine. On alpha stuff and anything else.”

It’s a nice little reprieve from the seriousness of what they’re actually talking about, but Peter doesn’t expect it to last and it doesn’t.

Parker fiddles with his seatbelt. “Papa was my age.”

“Yes.”

“But... you guys are so... I mean...”

Peter gives him time to come up with the words.

“I knew you were older than him,” Parker repeats, looking out the window again. “I knew that, but as far back as I could remember, you guys were always, you know, kissing, and being mushy and stuff... I thought you got together because you were in love. That you had me because you fell in love.”

“Parker, whether we were in love or not, and how old your dam was, and how old I was, and all of that, doesn’t have anything to do with your worth, you know that right?”

“Well, of course I know that,” Parker says. “It’s not rational, but... it makes me feel really weird.”

“That’s okay too,” Peter says. “I’ve had your entire life to be used to this story. For you, it’s shocking and upsetting and new. I expected you to feel that.”

Parker looks at him. “So then how did you fall in love? Did you get together just for my sake?”

“Not at all. On my side... I didn’t intend to fall in love with him. I knew I was too old for him, far too old for him. As soon as I found out he was pregnant, I wanted to support him, but I meant for that to be just as a co-parent. I meant to support him in moving on from...” Peter trails off. This mistake, he had meant to say; but didn’t that mean telling Parker your conception was a mistake? That was the last thing he wanted to tell his son, especially right now. “From me.”

“So then what changed?”

He’s had sixteen years to prepare for this question, and he thought he had an answer, but in the moment, it’s still hard. “I’m not proud to say it, but it’s the only answer I have.  I didn’t stop myself from falling in love with your dam, from being attracted to him, from wanting to be with him. It’s not a good answer. I should have refused him many times. It soon got to a point where I realized that we were both in too deep, that it was no longer just my decision. Your dam turned eighteen, he was an adult. He asked me to mark him. I told him to wait a year. A year later, he still wanted it. So we bonded. You knew already that we didn’t bond until after you were born. That was why. I wanted him to be sure, since it was permanent.”

“So... you don’t regret it?”

Peter chooses his words carefully. “I feel guilt and shame, but not regret. Our family... I can’t regret that. It shouldn’t have worked out. Everything good in my life is from such a twisted beginning. I can’t explain it. But I can’t regret it.”

Parker nods, still troubled.

“It’s a lot to take in, Parks. If you want to talk about it again, whenever you want. Or with your Papa, he’ll talk to you about it too. He has his own perspective about what happened. Right now, they’re probably wondering why we haven’t picked up our pizza yet.”

Parker cracks a smile at that and undoes his seatbelt.

The ride back home with the pizzas is quiet until they get home, where once again, as Peter reaches for his seatbelt:

“Dad.”

“Yeah Parks?”

“This whole thing is messed up.”

Peter presses his lips together to stifle a dark chuckle. “Yeah, it is.”

“But I still love you, Dad.” Parker smiles at him. “I mean, I really can’t put it together, what happened back then, and what I’ve seen from you guys all my life. I really thought you guys were, like, perfect.”

“I’m definitely not. Your Papa is pretty close.”

“Okay, nope, nope, nope,” Parker quickly hits the button on his seatbelt and starts getting out of the car. “No mushy stuff, nope.”

Peter smiles for a moment as his oldest child flees into the house with the pizza, then sighs and pulls out his phone.

Peter: Heads up, don’t know if you’re home yet, but Parker asked about how old you were when we conceived him in the car. He’s probably gonna ask for your side of it.

Miles: Yeah I’m home, I just heard him come in the door. You okay? Why aren’t you coming in? It went bad?

Peter: It didn’t go bad at all, honestly. I just wanted a moment to collect myself. Parker’s shocked and upset, but he’s still way more forgiving than I have any right to. He’s too good of a kid. I blame you.

Miles: Me?! I was a rotten kid, don’t you remember? :P

Peter: I do remember, and you were an angel. I’m coming in.

When Peter comes in,  his mate and his oldest pup are standing back to back.

“He’s definitely taller, Papa,” Grace pronounces. “Sorry.”

“Who told you you could grow while you were away?” bemoans Miles, turning around and pulling his son down into a sleeper hold to muss his hair. “Huh? Huh?”

“Papa, c’mon, stop,” laughs Parker.

Benji is already stuffing his face with pizza.

Peter walks into the kitchen to grab a bag of salad to serve alongside the pizza. It feels like a normal night.

When he’s got the salad in a serving bowl and is about to bring it back out to the dining room, Miles comes in.

“Gallery set-up how you want it?” asks Peter.

“Yeah.” Miles deftly ducks himself under and between Peter’s arms. “Hey.”

Peter sighs and lets himself hug Miles. “Hey.”

“You really ok?”

“Parker’s the one you should be worried about.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to him, he’s eating pizza. You’re not answering me.”

“G-word.” Peter half-smiles. “Old news at this point. A rerun of a show I’ve already seen.”

“Uh-huh. If I know you, you’re still gonna let the whole thing play.”

“Yeah. But it ends, and then I still have you, so.” His half-smile broadens. “I’m still the lucky one.”

Miles smiles back. “I was gonna tell them tonight. Should I wait?”

Benji sticks his head through the door. “Tell us what? Tell us what?”

Peter laughs. “Told you they’d eavesdrop. Kids with superhearing are the worst.”

“Dad! We are not!” Grace calls.

Miles picks up the salad bowl, and Peter follows with the dressings. When they get to the dining room table, Miles sets the glass bowl down with a thunk and announced, “Okay, everybody, good news. I’m going to have another baby!”

Grace squeals and claps, Parker is silent and shocked, and Benji says, “But Dad’s so old.”

“Yeah, that’s why I told him he had to give me one more kid right now, in case I need to take one of the rest of you out. Like if one of my current children eats all the double pepperoni before their Papa gets one slice.”

“I didn’t eat all of it,” Benji says defensively. “Grace and Parker had some too. You should have ordered more double pepperoni.”

A spirited debate on double pepperoni consumption ratios occurs. Peter catches Parker’s eye at one point, and his son smiles. It’s a little self-conscious, but it’s so much better than he deserves. Like everything in his life.

Benji hops in his lap after dinner and asks for scenting, which he hasn’t done for months. He must have been inspired by Parker into thinking it wasn’t so babyish after all. Grace joins the two of them for video games, giving Miles an opening to have a talk with Parker without his more superpowered younger siblings eavesdropping.

*

“Yeah, it shook him,” Miles says quietly when he comes to bed that night. “In a weird way, the pregnancy announcement seems to have helped him.”

“Huh?” Peter’s halfway asleep. “What?”

“I said the pregnancy announcement seems to have helped him. Fit some stuff together. He asked me if you wanted to have another kid. I told him the truth, that I had to persuade you. Then he said, ‘It didn’t take you much to persuade him, right? Cause it was you.’ Which is also true.” Miles pats the lump of Peter's body through the blanket.

“How did that help him?”

“Oh, because he thinks me getting pregnant is a terrible idea,” Miles says blithely, “but that you went along with it anyway, just because I wanted it. I mean, he’s still unsettled, I think. Talked about how sometimes doing something bad results in something good anyway. Like how I only got bit by the spider because I snuck out and then went through an active subway tunnel, which is crazy dangerous.”

Peter snorts. He'd roll his eyes if he could be bothered to open the lids. “Yeah, like that's equivalent.”

“Whatever, point is, I think he gets that this was, like, a chance in a million kind of thing, this spark between you and me. It’s not like you would have been down to pound with any high schooler off the street.”

“God, please tell me you didn’t use those words with him.”

“Nah.” Miles gets under the covers and snuggles up to Peter. “We had a good talk. It’s gonna be okay.”

Peter scents Miles, indulges in rubbing his still mostly flat stomach. “Yeah. Weird. But it is.”