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moralesmilesanhour · 13 days

Note

or can u write margo awkwardly admitting to miles she’s a bit weirded out whenever his parents are so nice to each other and her because she’s not used to seeing that, and miles comforting her (and maybe he feels sad for her) about that?

Flowerbyte fluff and angst all in one night golly gee...thanks for requesting!

escape.

“So, Margo,” Jefferson Morales began after saying grace. He dug into the vibrantly orange plate of rice and peas sitting in front of him.

“How’d you and Miles meet? He never told us the specifics.”

Margo’s eyes flickered toward Miles, who gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.

Right. The cover story.

This was her first real dinner with the Morales family since being introduced. Usually, Rio would invite her to eat with them just before Miles interrupted and insisted that Margo “had to get home by six o’clock sharp” and ushered her out the door. This time, though, his mom insisted on having dinner early and won the battle.

“We met at one of those Alchemax conventions for, uh…kids in STEM? We had a really nice conversation and exchanged numbers.”

“They still have those?” Rio piped up as she took a seat with her own plate. “We used to beg Miles to sign up his freshman year. I didn’t think he actually went!”

She looked intently at her son as she said, “I keep telling him that it’s a great opportunity to look for internships before college.”

Miles looked up, and mirrored her tight smile.

“And I keep saying that I’ve done enough science internships to get me a job at NASA,” he replied through slightly clenched teeth.

Margo silently toggled her gaze between the two until Jefferson broke the silence with a cough.

“Anyway, you live far off? Miles tells us he doesn’t get to see you very often.”

“Yeah, I’m actually down in Atlanta.”

Technically not a whole lie; her parents were from Georgia, they just didn’t live there anymore.

…Savanna, Georgia.

Rio turned to Margo with wide eyes.

“Wow, that’s far! And you’re able to still keep in touch?”

“I keep saying to Miles, technology’s amazing,” Jeff laughed after taking a sip of water. “A few decades ago, you needed to write down people’s numbers in a little book. Now y’all got text messaging, Instagram, the Facebook–”

“It’s just ‘Facebook’, dad.”

“ –FaceTime, all these ‘faces’!”

Margo giggled at Miles’ weary expression as she shoveled spoonfuls (fork-fuls?) of rice into her mouth, saying nothing of the fact that in her world, half of the things that Jefferson had just listed off had become obsolete. People’s status updates tended to float above their avatar’s heads. Some didn’t even bother to exchange numbers anymore, preferring to ask for usernames instead.

“Margo, sweetie, do you want any fruit juice? I just remembered we still had some in the fridge.”

Before she could reply, Jeff interrupted with a wince.

“Ooh. See, about that…I think I drank the last of it with breakfast this morning.”

Rio sighed and massaged her temples. “Jeff!”

“I didn’t know we were having company!”

“You always finish everything in the fridge before the week’s even over. You eat faster than Miles!”

“Whoah, why am I in it?”

“And I keep telling you to throw the carton away when you’re finished. Nobody in here listens!”

Margo felt a cold sensation in her chest.

She nearly squeezed her eyes shut as the familiar sentence rang through the dining room, her grip on her fork tightening as Jefferson opened his mouth to respond. Miles saw her tense, but couldn’t get her attention. Her eyes were laser-focused on her plate.

“That’s my fault, honey. Tell you what, I’ll do the grocery shopping tomorrow to make up for it. How’s that?”

Like magic, the woman’s face relaxed and melted into a grin.

“You’d better. I want Margo to have a nice time with us before she has to fly back to Atlanta.”

Jeff turned his attention to Margo.

“Y’know, speaking of Atlanta, I got some extended family down in Charleston, just a few hours from y’all. We used to send Miles down there for the summer when he was younger,” he chuckled, “Came back darker than me, and with an accent!”

Margo blinked. The argument was just…over? The speed at which they moved on gave her whiplash.

She quickly forced a polite smile. “Uh, that’s cool.”

Rio chimed in, “We’ve been planning to send him down to P.R. this year instead, pick up some Spanish for a change.”

Miles was in the middle of finishing up his plate, and nearly choked on his rice.

“Mami, I know enough Spanish to get by,” he coughed. “I don’t think that’s–”

“Not the basic Spanish they’re teaching you at school, mijo. When we take you to family reunions, you can barely talk to your cousins!”

“I’m all for it. We got some great pictures from down South when he was eight–”

“O-kay! I think we’re both done with dinner,” Miles shot up and grabbed his now-empty plate, reaching over to take Margo’s as well. “Right, Margo?”

She snapped out of it and stood up herself.

“Oh–um, sure! Lead the way.”

He hastily led her up the stairs as soon as he dropped their plates off in the kitchen sink.

“Come back down to wash those later!”

“Y’all behave up there!”

Miles looked at Margo and rolled his eyes as he opened the door to his room. Margo snorted.

“Nothing’s gonna happen, dad, I promise!”

Miles’ room managed to be full of stuff without feeling cluttered. There were empty crates stacked on top of each other that he used to prop up extra books or comics, but that gave the impression that he had built a neat fort around himself and the crates were mini skyscrapers. He had two huge speakers on either side of his window that he only used when his folks were out, and the soft neo-soul he played surrounded the room with bass and piano like a warm hug. Margo sat down on his bed, sinking into the mattress a little. She had always quietly envied the boy’s ability to create this second home-within-a-home for himself.

The space next to her dipped as Miles laid down and stared up at the ceiling, his hands resting behind his head like he was on vacation.

“Sorry if that was…a lot.”

“It’s fine.”

“My folks actually really like you, you know? That’s why they talk so much.”

Margo’s eyes flickered downward at his grinning face, and she smiled.

“I know.”

“Alright, just making sure. You just looked a little shaky back there, and you’re never that quiet.”

He sat up and narrowed his eyes at her, jokingly placing the back of his hand on her forehead.

“You’re not sick, right? Don’t spread that shit to me, I got a test tomorrow–”

“You play too much,” Margo laughed, shoving his arm. “I’m not sick. Haven’t had a cold in months.”

Miles lowered his hand to rest partially on top of hers.

“So what is it, then?”

She paused, and spent a few silent seconds staring into the boy’s face. His expression sobered, the furrow in his brow a signal that now was not the time to lie.

She tried anyway and said it was “nothing”, knowing that Miles wouldn’t believe her.

There was a strange sort of comfort to be found in the way he leaned in and said–

“Margo.”

“What?”

“You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met. Why do you keep doing that?”

Margo shrugged with a lopsided grin. “If at first you don’t succeed, right?”

Miles looked away for a second and kissed his teeth, but Margo could tell he had smiled.

She tapped his chin to gently turn his face back towards her.

“Okay, okay, my bad. I’ll tell you.”

He nodded, “Go ahead.”

“I thought they were gonna fight.”

“...Huh?”

“Your parents. At dinner. I thought they were about to fight, so I braced myself.”

Miles looked even more baffled.

“Over juice?”

“Yeah? But then they just sorta stopped, so I got nervous.”

“I mean,” he shifted uncomfortably, “They fight sometimes, I guess. But they don’t, like…fight fight. Like, they make up after.”

Margo looked down and smiled at her socks. “My folks actually make up sometimes, too. It’s real cute. They sit on the couch and watch old movies together with popcorn, then they share some with me. It’s like a lil’ party for just the three of us.”

Miles chewed on his bottom lip. That was the most she had ever spoken about her parents; the only time he’d heard her mother’s voice was when the woman had yelled something in another room and Margo’s computer picked it up.

“So what do you do when they don’t? Make up, I mean.”

Margo hummed in consideration, kicking her feet back and forth before turning to Miles.

“Now I come here, I guess.”

This gave Miles pause. He remembered the first time he snuck out of the house - before he could climb walls. It wasn't to go to any parties, or to escape getting grounded.

He went out just to draw. To get a breath of fresh air without a pair of eyes looking over his shoulder, even admiring ones.

Whenever he got asked too many questions about his grades, or the music filtering through his headphones wasn’t enough, his room felt more like an enclosure that he needed to escape. It got smaller with every inch that his bed shrunk, until his feet were touching the edge.

But this little box of a room was now Margo’s escape. And Miles wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He nodded slowly. “That’s good. My mom needs an excuse to make arroz con dulce for somebody, so…”

Margo laughed, “I’m always happy to taste test for her.”

“I’ll make sure to tell her that.”

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moralesmilesanhour · 13 days

Text

piece of cake

summary: meeting miles g at a bakery, and other happenings. wc: 3k+ warning: blood, grief (more at the periphery, not a major theme), and lightly implied mommy issues a/n: ngl i was hungry asf when i wrote this. why can't i ever write normal fluff fics anymore. first fic of 2024!!

Brooklyn Middle is closed for winter break. The basketball court where the snow-covered hoop no longer has a net is empty, save for the blinking Christmas lights strung across the chain-link fence.

In a few years, the pizza place across the street where students would linger after school will be demolished, replaced by a shiny new Oscorp building that reflects the sun from all angles of its glass exterior. But for now, the place is just closed early for the holidays, a few blocks away from a bakery.

The tall, bear-like frame of a father dressed in a long black overcoat can be seen entering with a wiry young boy in a red hoodie and bomber jacket tailing close behind. He has an afro as opposed to his father’s closely-cropped hair. The boy keeps trying to straighten his posture - as if his spine would suddenly lengthen and his shoulders would broaden from the act alone. He wants to make himself look important today, because he is on a top-secret mission:

Operation: Get Mom a Cake.

“I think mom’ll like that one.”

The boy points at a slice of tres leches cake sitting behind a glass display. It’s not as flashy as the other decorative cakes drizzled with chocolate and strawberries or encased in pink frosting, but those wouldn’t melt on the tongue the way tres leches did.

His father raised an eyebrow at the plain slice, but the boy looked at him with a certainty that he’d never seen before, through eyes nearly identical to his mother’s. The man knew then that he was getting an expert opinion.

“Alright, if you say so,” he chuckled, adjusting his glasses. “We’ll take that one, Val.”

The boy smiled proudly at the older woman as she handed him the pink box containing the cake. Mission accomplished.

Now, he looks up and frowns at the Oscorp building blocking the view of where his old school used to be as he picks at a slice of cake with a plastic fork.

The ‘Employees Only’ door behind the counter swings open, and Valeria Cruz hobbles out, removing her apron.

“It’s almost your shift, Miles, hurry up and finish that cake.”

Miles takes one more bite before rising from his seat near the entrance and pushing the paper plate and half-eaten slice into a small trash can.

“You got it, Miss V.”

“Did you take out the trash?”

He pauses, and his eyes widen.

“I’mma get that done right now, Miss V!”

The woman sighs, running a hand through gray and white-streaked curls as the teen sprints out the door and back outside.

A forest green puffer jacket rushes past you on the sidewalk. It’s the same one you had seen shuffling out of the back entrance of Val’s bakery the other morning, lugging two black garbage bags with a purple hoodie obscuring the stranger’s face.

He probably works there, then, you think. Good. She could use the help.

The place had been packed the week before Officer Morales’ funeral, and for several weeks after. But over time, business began to slow down to a trickle. Hipster cafés and towering condos sprang up and choked out the little pizza shops and restaurants that took their owners’ last names, like when an invasive species of plant grows taller than the local varieties and smothers them, blocking out the sun.

You had been seeing Val’s face since you were in diapers. Families used to go there for birthdays, for elementary school graduations, middle school graduations - or sometimes just to grab something sweet to eat after church on Sundays. You continued the tradition–even if just to buy a tiny bag of cookies–in the hopes that the place might still be standing for your high school graduation.

The bell above the door rings to signal your entrance. The once baby pink wallpaper has begun to fade, but the late-afternoon sun makes it feel as vibrant as it did when you were twelve. Valeria is standing in front of the display of freshly-baked pastries with her apron folded neatly over her arm.

“Oh, were you about to close up shop?” You begin to take backward steps. “I can come back later–”

“No, no, sweetie, it’s fine!” The woman waves her hand, beckoning you to stay. “I was just about to go on my lunch break. I have someone about to take over for me.”

“It’s cool, I can wait. I saw somebody taking out the trash, that him?”

She sighs wearily, “That’s him, alright. He’s a good kid, but he’s always–”

“Sorry I’m late!”

In rushes Mr. Green Jacket through a chilly gust of wind, who turns to nod in greeting towards you before weaving past Val and behind the counter, where he disappears through the ‘Employees Only’ door.

“That boy, I swear. Never on time!”

He reappears sans the jacket, wearing a white apron identical to the one Val is holding. The name tag on it reads ‘Miles’.

Miles. Where have you heard that name before…?

The hood on his sweater is no longer pulled over his head, revealing two neat cornrows that cascade all the way down his neck. The surrounding hair has been shaved and faded at the nape of his neck and hairline. He’s the sort of brown-skinned that looks golden when the sunlight hits his face as he approaches the cash register.

“You gonna be alright for the next half hour?” asked Val with an eyebrow raised.

Miles drummed his fingers on the counter and grinned. “Yup, I got it.”

“Don’t destroy anything while I’m gone!”

“I won’t, promise.”

She pushes the door open with a skeptical look and leaves.

With this new stranger temporarily in charge, you carefully approach the counter. He looks up at you with curious brown eyes.

“Whatchu want?”

“Um…” you blink before remembering what you were here for. “Just sugar cookies, please.”

“How many?”

“Five.”

He turns to grab a paper bag, then bends to drop the desired amount of cookies into it with the pair of tongs that sit on the inside of the display.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what school you go to? I haven’t seen you around here before, feel like I’d remember you if I had.”

Miles pops his head over the counter and tilts his head with a cheeky grin.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You avoid eye contact, shifting from one foot to the other. Suddenly it’s not so cold anymore.

“I-I don’t know. You just seem memorable.”

He laughs a raspy, breathy laugh and hands you the bag of cookies over the counter. His hand is much larger than yours with slender fingers at the end of it, but still manages to appear almost clumsy-looking. Big enough to be a man’s, but with only half the dexterity.

“I go to Visions.”

“Fancy. You like it over there?”

“It’s aight. Kinda uptight, but my dad always said it was a ‘good opportunity’, so I stayed.”

You hum in consideration.

“Can't do everything for your parents, though. They'll have you living their dreams before you know it.”

The smile fades a bit, and Miles averts his gaze.

“Well my dad passed, so I just figured I’d just do this one thing for him.”

You cover your mouth with your palm.

“I'm so sorry, I–”

“It's fine,” he snorts without any humor. “You might be the only one that doesn't know who my daddy is. Kind of a relief.”

Miles encloses the money you just gave him in the slot beneath the cash register with a loud snap.

“You need anything else?”

You chew on your bottom lip in embarrassment and clutch your bag of cookies.

“No. Thank you.”

He doesn’t look up from the register.

“Have a nice day.”

Your mother is leaning on the window sill, nibbling on a granola bar when you get back home. She’s silent, which means she is observing. You’ll need to tread carefully.

“I brought cookies.”

She gives you a sidelong glance.

“Val’s cookies?”

“Yup, same as always.”

“That lady still working there all by herself?”

“She hired somebody to help out, actually - I saw a boy working the register.”

She notices the upward inflection in your voice at the mention of a boy, which interests her more than the cookies.

“What’s he look like?”

“He’s got, um,” you make a gesture over your head. “Twin braids–cornrows–and a green jacket? Kinda tall, too.”

Your mother nods, thoughtful. The description rings a bell, but she needs to confirm.

“You catch his name?”

“Miles, I think.”

“Lord,” she gasps, fully turning to face you. “That’s that Morales boy! I used to work with his momma, bless her heart. Barely saw his face after the funeral.”

The image of Miles’ face at the mention of his dad makes you cringe at your comment earlier. How could you not recognize him? He practically stole his face from the mural that was plastered above the precinct. You had only heard the boy’s name uttered once by your mother over the phone at 2:00 A.M., whispered like a secret.

“I can’t imagine how it must be for Miles. Didn’t he just get into that nice school down there? Of course they’ll have to let him go home. He should be with his mother.”

“He was such a sweet little boy. Then I saw him the other day?”

She shook her head, “Look like a different person. He had them flashy studs in his ears, nose pierced and everything.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he had tattoos under that coat as well. Damn shame.”

“He seemed nice when I saw him,” you remark quietly in a weak attempt to defend his character, despite having known him for all of five minutes. “Sweet, like you said.”

Your mother’s face hardens, all of her attention now focused on you as she folds the wrapping of the granola bar.

“That’s why you’re not bringing no boys home ‘till you’re eighteen,” she sharply reminds you. “‘Seems nice’ - How you know if he’s really nice or not?”

Again, Miles’ face appears in your mind’s eye. He didn’t seem to want your pity - rejected it, even. And what of his apparent chronic lateness?

Still…

“You don’t know that, either,” you say despite yourself. “I spoke to him while I was there.”

Your mother’s eyes narrow.

“Girl, I know that look. I better not see you runnin’ around with that boy, understand me?”

She looks set on not changing her mind now, so you only nod in defeat.

“Yes, ma’am.”

In your head, you’re already making plans to hit up the bakery tomorrow - both to apologize and to see the sun kissing Miles’ face again. Maybe tomorrow he’d even have the piercings in.

But when you get there the next day under the guise of ‘a trip to the corner store’, Miles isn’t at the register.

The sky has turned a pale shade of gray, and it has begun to drizzle. Pulling your navy blue coat tightly around you, you consider turning back around when–

Boom!

The sound of something hitting a trash can from behind the establishment catches your attention. It could be him taking out the trash at the last minute again.

Your assumption is proven only halfway correct.

Stepping over discarded boxes and tin cans, you find Miles doubled over, clutching his side. “Are you okay?”

Startled, bloodshot eyes glance at you before focusing on the ground.

“Fucking fantastic,” he grunts painfully.

As you get closer, you can see a dark stain blooming from where his hand is. A sick feeling swirls in your stomach.

“Oh my God, do you need me to call somebody?”

“Nah, I’m…I’m straight,” Miles says through labored breaths. “I just gotta…patch myself up before I get home.”

You whip out your phone and frantically unlock it.

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

“Hell no–”

“You are bleeding!”

He tilts his head towards a duffle bag lying near his feet.

“I got First Aid in there…that’ll do me just fine.”

When he tries to reach for the bag, his knees give out, causing him to collapse right next to it.

Miles shivers as you gingerly wrap white bandages around his waist, the flat expanse of skin on his stomach partially exposed to the elements. He fades in and out of consciousness, between your face and black nothingness. When he’s awake, he stares up at you in disbelief.

“I didn’t call 9-1-1, if that’s what you’re wondering,” you tell him with a grin. “This should stop the bleeding, but I can’t help you beyond that.”

“Wusyaname?” he mumbles, head lolling towards you. He’s on the brink of passing out again.

“Call me (Y/N).”

“Wasn’t gon’ call you anything else.”

“Shut up, I just saved your life.”

“Mmmm-hm,” Miles hums with a lazy smile that makes you wonder if he’s becoming delirious.

“Eeeeverybody loves sayin’ that. Everybody always…”

His eyelids get heavy before he can finish the thought, and he finally blacks out again in your lap.

There’s a short line inside the bakery that weekend, and you wonder if Miles has anything to do with it.

Word seemed to get around mysteriously fast that the former teenaged recluse had come out of hiding after that conversation (if you could even call it that) with your mother. From where you’re sitting–by the window, nibbling on a sugar cookie, observing–Miles does not seem to enjoy the attention.

Or maybe you’re just imagining the strained smile on his face as the line of customers becomes a Greek chorus of gasps and squeals.

“You got so big!”

“What did you do to your hair?”

“Oh, you look just like Jeff.”

“How’s Rio?”

“Good to see you out and about again.”

The sparkling curiosity is nearly drained from his face by the time he joins you at the end of his shift with a slice of cake. He does not have the fabled nose piercing in, but two diamond studs sparkle when the light hits them every time he moves his head.

“So?”

“So…?”

“Are you alright after I found you the other day? I saw you limping back there.”

Miles rolls his eyes.

“I’m fine. My mom’s literally a nurse. She got me straight.”

“What’d you tell her? Looked like you broke a rib.”

“Far as she’s concerned, I fell off my bike.”

“I’ve never seen you on a bike.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t have one.”

You shrug. Touche.

“What did you have to say to me that was worth stalking me after my shift?”

“Stalking?”

“You buy the same thing every time, you think I ain’t notice?” Miles smirks, like a detective who’s just gotten a confession. “Who goes to a bakery and only gets cookies?”

“Lay off me, man, these are excellent,” you take another bite for emphasis. “Anyways, I actually came to apologize.”

His brows furrow in confusion. “For what?”

“For what I said the first time I saw you. I didn’t know you were that Miles.”

The corners of Miles’ lips pull downwards into a frown.

“That’s it?”

“Mm, well…”

You bite your lip by force of habit.

“I also wanted to talk to you again. Under better circumstances. That your favorite type of cake?”

Miles looks down at his plate when you point to it with your fork, as if he’s seeing it for the first time.

“Yeah, tres leches. What about it?”

“I dunno, I just always see you eating that and nothing else. Is there a reason?”

You expect to say something about the sweetness, or the texture, but instead he answers:

“It always tastes the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like…” He puts down his fork and starts to construct an analogy in his head.

“It’s like when you see an ice cream truck. You run up to it before it drives off, and what do you ask for? First thing that pops into your head?”

“Vanilla?”

“Exactly. You could try one of the other ones, but what if it tastes like ass? Now you stuck eating something you don’t like–”

“And it’s a waste of money.”

“Exactly!” Miles laughs. “You get it. My mom makes fun of me because I’ve been eating the same thing since I was five. But it’s always good! And the same amount of good.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

You tap your nails on the table, thinking.

“But what if you find a new flavor that you really like?”

He shrugs, “Then lucky me, I guess. But that doesn’t tend to happen.”

“It could happen, though.”

He watches the strange way you eat. Slowly, teeth-first, as if you’re afraid to make a mess. It’s weirdly dainty, which makes him chuckle beneath his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Uh-uh, don’t do that. What’s so funny?”

Miles gives you that same head tilt again.

“It’s cute, the way you eat.”

Your hand freezes just as it’s about to lift another cookie to your mouth, and you stare at him blankly.

“That’s…”

He pauses too.

“...Weird, yeah. Sorry. I dunno why I said that.”

A beat of silence passes that’s so heavy with awkwardness, that the two of you can’t help but burst into poorly-stifled laughter.

You lean forward with your chin resting in your hand. “That’s fine. I kept coming here just to spy on you, so I guess I’m weird, too.”

“Ah, so you admit it!”

“Hey, if I wasn’t bein’ a total creep, you might’ve bled out next to the garbage dump. Val can’t lose a valuable employee, right?”

“If you put it that way.”

You can see the white of some of Miles’ teeth peeking out as he smiles. One of his canines is charmingly crooked, and sharper than the others. When the smile fades, he suddenly looks uncertain.

“Can I ask you a question this time?”

“Ask away.”

“Do you wanna make this,” he gestures between you, “like, a regular thing? Y’know, ‘meeting under better circumstances’.”

It’s your turn for a smile to spread across your face.

“We should. Whatever you did to end up bleeding out in the rain, I guess I’d be a witness now.”

“M-hm. Can’t have you yappin’ about that to my customers,” He plays along, then winks. “I’mma need your number too, just in case.”

Just before you reach for your phone in your pocket, you hear your mother’s voice in your head, casting a shadow over the whole thing and giving you pause.

All jokes aside, Miles had never explained what had landed him in that predicament behind the bakery in the first place. He’s always late. He lies to his mother. You’re about to lie to your mother.

But the sun is hitting his face again, and with the light bouncing off of his pupils, he looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly. The shadow remains at the corner of your eye. Just the corner.

You grin and hand him your phone.

“You got it. Just in case.”

#thank yewww 🫶🏾🫶🏾#it's only april but this already feels like i wrote it a lifetime ago woag

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moralesmilesanhour · 13 days

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if you believe in me - 04.2

summary: a very brief intermission. between aaron and his father, miles wonders who he takes after more. wc: 1.5k a/n: this chapter is me trying to get back into the swing of things before the next major plot point (!!!) so this might feel a little slower and more introspective. thanks for reading! (reblog with ur favorite comic or manga if u want idk) taglist: @shuna-boin @aloraangelix @vhstown @sillykirb @proudgojofucker @weirdducky17 @milesandcorysupermacy prev. next

BOOM!

Miles hits the ground shoulder-first with a dull thud, the storage building bursting into flames behind him.

I’m gonna feel that one later, he thinks as he rolls to his feet and back into a sprint. But Oscorp’s gonna feel it, too.

With a leap and a shot of his grappling hook, it’s not long before he’s back on the sidewalk, with Aaron waiting around the corner. The older man has completely retired the Prowler suit now.

“Not bad for your first solo run,” he nods. “Could still be a lil’ quicker, but you’ll pick it up.”

Miles twists the joints of his metal claws. The steel is still shiny and new, save for a bit of soot from the explosion. The purple glow disappears as they power down with a quiet whir and detach to reveal the human flesh underneath. They work like a charm so far.

It’s been two weeks, but he hasn’t gotten to use them - Aaron has yet to send him on a mission where he’d have to. He wants to ask his uncle about it, ask why he let him do all that welding and tinkering if the claws were just for show. But Miles knows that if he does, the man’s brows would furrow and he’d get a stern speech about not getting too eager about that sort of thing. And he’d be right.

So, like every other night, Miles says nothing but “thanks”.

“And what’s this one about?”

You pointed at a comic sitting on the far side of Miles’ bed. On the cover stood a man wearing what looked like some imagined version of an “African” headdress. He was shirtless and dressed in nothing but shorts and brightly-colored boots, like the costume of a wrestler. The upper half of his face was obscured by a mask with white eyes tied around his head. The flat colors and dark lines make it look old, likely from the 80s or early 90s. Above the man on the cover was the title in bold graphic font: Anansi.

“You don’t know ‘Anansi’?” Miles asked with wide eyes before shaking his head. “Nah, we gotta fix that.”

He threw what he was reading aside, hovering his hand over the pile of comics until he located the very first issue.

“So Anansi is like, this spider that gets turned into a human who has the abilities of a spider. Y’know, climbing up walls and shit.”

“Does he shoot webs out of his ass?”

“That’s not how that works, and no. Anyway, he’s got spider powers and he beats the bad guys by being a trickster instead of just brute force.”

You took the comic from him and began leafing through the worn pages, frankly more interested in the art than the plot. The sharp lines and crosshatching remind you of Miles’ sketches. You turned to Miles and held it up once you were finished looking at it.

“Can I borrow it?”

There’s a shadow of uncertainty that crosses his face for a moment as you await his answer.

“Mmm…I dunno. I’ve had that thing since I was ten. You gonna be careful with it?”

You place a hand over your heart.

“Promise.”

He snorts, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I’ll let you have it for a week, sound good?”

“Good.”

Miles remembers that he’s supposed to ask for his comic back on the way home, the two metal claws tucked safely into his backpack.

He sneaks a glance at his uncle, and tries to copy his stride when he walks. It looks easy, but there’s a rhythm to it. Miles keeps his gaze low, but his steps lively. The key is not to show the sweat, as they say. All of one’s effort goes into making it look like there’s no effort at all.

Aaron looks over at his nephew, and chuckles.

“Remind me of your old man when you walk like that,” he says.

Miles grins good-naturedly. Guess the sweat shows. But it’s fine, for now.

“What’s that mean?”

“When we was young, we used to watch the older kids walk out the corner store and try to copy ‘em. The way your pops did it…”

The man’s shoulders shook with laughter at the memory.

“He kinda looked like, like he was marching almost. Just stomping down that sidewalk!”

Aaron began to demonstrate, making his steps quicker and heavier.

“I look like that?”

Miles wrinkled his nose and began to tone down his swaying.

“Exactly like that. Shit’s kinda amazing, really. Genetics.”

“I don’t think that’s how genetics work.”

“Oh yeah?” Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Then how come I got you stealing like my pops and me, and in my colors?”

Miles laughed, “But this is good stealing!”

“You got a point there.”

Aaron lifted his gaze upward towards the skyline. The moon was out in full tonight.

“Did y’all make good money, at least?”

“Sure did. Sometimes it was the only money that came in, that’s why we ain’t stop.”

There’s a beat of silence. Miles pats his left pocket to make sure the wad of cash is still there, and wonders if his uncle had to do the same thing, or if he kept it in a fanny pack or briefcase.

“So what made you finally give it up?”

“Oh, that one’s easy. Jeff did it for your mom. Hard to keep secrets with a baby on the way.”

Miles tried to picture a younger version of his father – less facial hair, no eye bags, better eyesight, probably – looking a pregnant Rio in the eye as she broke the news. He looks into her gentle face and…yes, there. Right there is when he decides it’s over.

Even without the whole parenting thing, it probably killed him inside to have to lie to her every night about where he’s been. Miles gets it.

“What about you?”

Aaron shrugged.

“Couldn’t leave my nephew hanging.”

He had knocked on Miles’ door after a few weeks of radio silence and found the kid lying in bed, surrounded by dirty clothes and snack wrappers. The room smelt of stale sweat, the clothes piled up on the floor impossible to get through, so Aaron elected to stand just outside.

Miles looked up, and suddenly the man understood what had Rio so frantic on the phone.

The boy’s gaze was…vacant. Like he was looking through him, at something far off in the distance. There were no words comforting enough to turn the lights back on behind those eyes. So Aaron had done the next best thing:

“Go wash up, we goin’ out.”

Miles doesn’t remember it that way. He hardly remembers anything from that period of time between the funeral and his uncle barging into his room. Just a long stretch of gray, and then the door cracks open, then he’s in the shower realizing how long his hair’s gotten, and soon he’s dodging the punching bag in Aaron’s apartment, carrying crates back and forth and maybe blowing some up on occasion.

He knows in his head that he’s doing this to hurt the pockets of invisible men hiding in their glass skyscrapers and high-rise offices, and he’s as angry at them for sucking the life out of his neighborhood as he’s always been.

But it had started with the door, cracked open just enough for his uncle’s face to poke through. Otherwise, Miles might’ve been content to lie there and become one with his mattress as he missed another week of school.

He wonders if his father went on those runs because he, too, looked into his future and hadn’t the slightest idea as to what he was looking at.

Miles’ thoughts are interrupted when his phone buzzes in his pocket. You have his Anansi issue.

“So this is all you do in your free time, then? Comics and robots?”

Miles has his nose in another shounen manga.

“Is that a bad thing?”

You remember the helmet, and the parts set in neat little rows. And the tarp in Uncle Aaron’s car.

“Not for the most part. More interesting than what I do.”

Miles finally looks up, and squints. “What do you do in your free time?”

“I braid hair,” you reply with a bit of pride. “Pretty good at it, too.”

“Mm-hm, that’s what they all say before they fuck yo’ shit up,” he jokes, earning an issue of Jujutsu Kaisen to the face.

“Ow!”

“Shut up, with them fuzzy ass braids.”

Miles gasped dramatically. “You said they looked nice!”

“Looked. Past-tense.”

“Chill on me, my mom didn’t have time to re-do ‘em this week.”

Seeing an opportunity, your eyes lit up.

“Ooh, let me–”

“No.”

Miles narrowed his eyes at you.

“Aw, come on! You have so much hair, it could be fun! And you said you’d let me.”

You reached out to touch one of Miles’ overgrown braids but ended up swiping the air as he dodged your hand.

“I said ‘maybe’, and now the answer is no. You’re gonna ‘have fun’ in my hair? Like you ‘had fun’ with my t-shirt? I know you stole it, by the way.”

“I up-cycled it.”

“Cutting a shirt in half is not up-cycling, and you’re not touching my head.”

“You're so mean.”

#srb

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moralesmilesanhour · 13 days

Text

another dimension.

summary: Miles pays Margo a visit. wc: 970-ish a/n: this mad short but I got rlly busy !! You'll definitely get long3er flowerbyte stuff in the future tho

Margo’s room was so cluttered she couldn’t think.

She’d been letting clothes and unfinished gadgets pile up on the floor and around her desk until you couldn’t even open the door all the way. The realization hit her when she lost a piece of the old vintage radio that Gwen had gifted her to tinker with, and it took her an hour to finally locate it by the foot of her bed.

Margo sat at its edge, re-organizing her gadgets into boxes by size. It made more sense to her than by type or function; when she was restoring an old iPod or laptop, she wouldn’t think, “Where’s the box for tools dedicated to x, y, and z,” she’d be thinking, “Where the fuck is that tiny thing that you need to turn on this other thing?”

At the bottom of one of her hot pink organizers, beneath a tangle of extension cords, Margo felt a round piece of metal. Her fingers brushed over what felt like buttons, and they closed around the mystery device to free it.

It was…oh.

Margo could’ve sworn she had put all of her polaroids and souvenirs in the ‘memories’ box. The memory in question was only a few months old, sure, but it was a memory nonetheless. After Spider Society dissolved, there was no reason for her to use it. At any rate, she had cyber-crimes to stop right here, at her own computer.

Still, she did miss Gwen bringing her old smartphones and wired headphones.

And him.

Margo didn’t like to think about him. Not by any fault of his, but because if she visualized the look he gave her as she tried to send him home, then suddenly those owlish eyes would appear in places they were not supposed to. Then, she would begin to imagine that she saw someone with the same afro pass her on the street, or swear that she heard his voice and wonder if he took his watch with him and kept it.

Margo’s watch was off, but it remained largely intact after The Spot. She stared at it for a moment, before gingerly snapping it around her wrist. She turned it this way and that, letting it catch the dim light of her desk lamp.

E-1610.

Margo had the right dimension this time, all she had to do was just–

She shook her head, hastily taking it off and tossing it back into the box. Now she remembered why the watch had been left there in the first place.

But it was too late, and the image of him grinning at her returned. As she knelt on the floor and resumed her organizing, her mind had begun to weave together a conversation.

Miles would greet her with a “hey”, and she’d “hey” back. Ask him how his parents took the news after everything went back to normal. He’d say he’s grounded, and it’d sound like the funniest thing in the world coming from him. She’d ask him about his hobbies (Miles looked like a gamer), and he would ask about hers. She’d lie and say she didn’t have time for any, and he’d laugh.

“I hear that,” he’d say.

She wondered if her imagination had conjured him up when that familiar flash of blinding light appeared where her closet was and became a spinning portal.

Margo almost didn’t recognize him when he pulled back his hoodie and took the mask off. The high-top fade was gone, replaced by a head of shoulder-length locs that coiled at the ends. But she’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to locate her words, which made Miles stifle a laugh.

“Miles?”

“Don’t know who else I’d be. Got a minute?”

Slowly reaching back into that same box, Margo breathed,

“Yeah, I…I got a minute.”

“So you’re only Spider-Man when you got the VR thing on?”

Miles called out as he shot another web and catapulted himself off of the roof of a moving truck, and Margo did the same. They landed right on top of Lenny’s Deli, from which they could see a bit of the horizon dotted with skyscrapers in the distance, right where the setting sun started to roll back some of its orange and give way to a wash of coral.

“Pretty much,” Margo answered, catching her breath. “You smell that?”

“Beef patties.”

“I haven’t had one of those in months.”

Miles’ mask squinted mischievously at the eyes. “You want me to get you one, huh?”

“Oh, it’s fine, you don’t have to–”

“I insist!”

Miles was already in the process of swinging down to street level. She shook her head and smiled, sitting with her legs crossed in the meantime.

He was back in a matter of minutes, mask rolled up halfway so that he could carry the brown paper bag from the deli between his teeth as he hauled himself over the ledge where Margo sat.

He opened it and removed his portion before handing the bag to her, but stopped short.

“Hol’ on, can you even eat?”

She threw her head back and laughed.

“You didn’t think about that before you spent your money there?”

“Well, you can take it back with you, probably,” he said as he let her take the bag from him.

“Thanks.”

They sat in silence as only Miles ate his food, watching the world below. Nobody appeared to be committing a robbery at the moment, so Margo eventually broke the silence first.

“So why’d you bring me over here, new guy?”

Miles snorted, “You know I’ve been doing this for almost two years now, right?”

“Well, you’re new to me.”

He leaned back on his elbows and hummed thoughtfully.

“Maybe I’d like to not be so new to you.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

#srb

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