or is it loneliness?
▹— (eventual) spiderverse found family x platonic!reader
▹— summary: you need closure, and information. two visits kind of give you that.
▹— a/n: guys idk what im DOING. i have things planned for atsv but not how we’re gonna get there … rn im just yolo-ing. im not a big fan of this one but im gonna start writing the next one asap, which will hide fully be more found family-ish lmao arachnid is gonna start warming up to them all some day i swear
▹— warnings: angst, injuries, not good thoughts, dead parents, sensory issues, explosions, violence, fighting, blood?, damaged hearing for a good minute, peter b parker eating burgers deserves its own warning, food, mention of throwing up / nausea, insecurities about being good enough, refusing help, idk what else, if ive missed anything let me know!!!
▹— taglist: @rhymingtree (everything taglist) @justmare @uniquemonstrosity @lacunaanonymoused @erensbbg @dulceteris @noxxing @escherichiacolli @ray-rook @i-3at-kidz @miwagila @stoneforests (is it freedom’verse) — also i only tagged those who explicitly asked to be tagged!
MASTERLIST , part one
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You spend a long time sat on the edge of the open window, staring out at the traffic below after getting back from Spider Society HQ. There’s a tangible relief that comes with returning to your dimension, like a weight being removed, a tension that is finally released from where it had been pulled taut. Your shoulders feel just as heavy as they did when you left, but you try not to think about it. You try to be happy that you’re back.
While you wouldn’t say it aloud, and you hate to even have the thought, you don’t think anybody had noticed you were gone. But then again, who would? You have no reason to be so upset about such a thing.
Time slips by as you diligently sew up the tears in your suit, frowning as you hold it up once you’re finished. It looks nothing like it used to, but then again, neither do you. Things have changed, it only makes sense that your suit would, too. You wonder if travelling through alternate dimensions can alter your perception of things. You’d swear that your suit had been a different shade before you left, lighter, maybe, but you have nothing to compare it to.
At least now, this time, when you put on your suit there is evidence of damage that Gwen Stacy had caused. The stitching along your the material where she had tore into you is a tangible thing, physical, and you run your fingers across it as if it might disappear. It’s almost a relief, to be able to feel where she had caused you pain, as opposed to the invisible ache she had left within you after fighting her the first time around.
Alongside the scar raised on your body, the fight with Gwen had left you with a sort of paranoia. An uncertainty in the back of your mind that has you glancing over your shoulder, has you messing up simple manoeuvres as you panic, thinking you hear her voice.
It must have been your third day back from the HQ that you come to the conclusion that you have to visit Gwen Stacy in her prison.
The decision doesn’t come easily. It comes slowly, torturously so, a realisation that deafens you as you glare through squinted lenses at the city around you. You won’t be able to go on like this, getting yourself hurt in stupid ways all because you’re not certain that she’s back in her prison. You’re meant to be a hero, which means that messing up, despite whatever paranoia that lingers in the back of your head, is unacceptable. It has consequences.
Seeing her in the flesh will likely be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Except, maybe, not killing her when you caught her in that other dimension. You keep your mind on the fact that she won’t be able to touch you, that she’ll be walled away, to reassure yourself that there is no risk of either of you hurting the other — at least, physically.
But seeing her isn’t the only difficult part.
No, the hardest part is stepping back into an identity that you had lost your grasp on, long ago. You wear your old clothes, clothes that you hadn’t put on in months, and try to remember how it felt to be you, rather than Arachnid.
“Hi, Mrs. Stacy.” You say, when the door to an all too familiar apartment opens just a slither, and you catch sight of her wrinkled eyes. There’s a noticeable change to them when she realises who you are, and she’s slamming the door shut, undoing the chain, and reopening it before you can say another word.
She whispers your name like she can’t believe it’s you — and you can’t blame her.
You had disappeared, months ago, after the death of your father. Going missing was far easier than being placed in a foster system that would only hold you back. It had been so much easier, not having to face anyone, not having to speak at his funeral.
“Hi.” You repeat, when her stare lingers in the silence for far too long. The sound of your voice once again breaks her out of her trance, and she’s rushing forward to pull you into her arms as if you were her child. You suppose, in some ways, it was quite a lot like that. At the very least, your presence will remind her of the daughter she had lost.
“Where have you been? Oh, honey, I was so worried.” Mrs. Stacy says, her voice trembling by your ear as she squeezes you tight, unfazed by your lack of reciprocation. “Come inside, please.”
You follow her through the doorway, closing the door behind you as you had done so many times before. Not looking around at the apartment is near impossible, but you’re not sure how much familiarity you can take. Even just seeing Mrs. Stacey’s aged face makes your chest ache, your legs feeling shaky.
“Sit down, honey, let me get you a warm drink.” She says, a tremor to her voice as she bustles towards the kitchen which is adjoined to the living room. The news plays on the television, and you’re glad to hear a weather report, rather than some city-wide attack. Mrs. Stacy is quiet as she goes through the process of making your favourite drink, but with your enhanced hearing you listen to the telltale clink of a spoon against ceramic. You listen closely to her hitched breathing as her footsteps pad back into the room. “Here.” She hands you the warm mug, and you don’t comment on the way her hand shakes.
“Thank you.” You say, though it feels stilted, wrong, too formal. It’s hard to be normal in this setting, to be whoever you used to be, especially as she stares at you like she’s seen a ghost.
Mrs. Stacy stares at you for a long while before she speaks again, as if she’s still not sure that you’re real. “Where have you been? After—After your dad… we didn’t know what happened to you. Are you safe? Do you need help?” She asks, frantic once she’s gotten started on her questions.
“Mrs. Stacy, I’m fine, really.” You lie, smiling tightly over the rim of the mug as you hold it towards your face. Before, you would’ve burnt your tongue drinking it too fast, but you’re hesitant to drink it at all. The last thing you want is to become too familiar to your old life. “I’ve been staying with some friends, downtown. It’s been good.”
She raises a brow at you, and stares for a moment longer. “Honey… you don’t look well.” She tells you, and raises the back of her hand to press it against your forehead. Her frown only deepens when you flinch away from the touch. You try not to curse yourself too much, but can’t help reprimanding the way you hadn’t anticipated such an action.
The skin on your forehead is clammy, but that’s just the anxiety, the nerves at being back here. Arachnid can’t get sick.
“Listen, I… I was hoping I could ask a favour from you.” You say, hesitantly, gripping the warm mug tight between your hands, but loosen your fingertips against the ceramic when you hear a minute crack.
Mrs. Stacy furrows her brows, looking more concerned by the second, but nods. “Of course, anything.” She tells you, and places one of her hands against yours on the mug.
“I was hoping I could visit Gwen.” You voice, after one last moment of hesitation. The way her face immediately crumples at the request doesn’t give you much hope, especially as her hand withdraws from your own. “I—I know you don’t get to see her very often, and maybe it’s selfish, but… I don’t know. I wanted some kind of closure, I guess.” You ramble on in response to her silence, glaring down at the liquid still swirling in your mug.
“Honey,” Mrs. Stacy interrupts, her voice soft in contrast to the way yours was growing in volume. You quiet immediately, your gaze drawn up to where her tearful eyes stare at you, her expression almost mourning. “I would never deny you that, but you should know… I haven’t visited Gwenny since she was put in there.” She admits, her stare dropping to her lap, almost ashamed.
“Oh,” You voice, softly, in response. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed— I—I mean, I can’t even imagine—”
“No, don’t be silly, how would you have known?” She replies, raising her eyebrows at you strictly. “Now, I can get you that visit. I’ll call my attorney first thing tomorrow, but… really, honey, do you need me to call someone for you? Who are these friends?”
Her voice is familiar, and it’s kind, which makes it all the more painful. It’s strange, seeing the resemblance between her and the Green Goblin, and it makes a part of you ache. Your life wasn’t the only one torn apart by Gwen. In fact, her mother probably faced the worst of it. With her husband being long gone, her oldest son away at college, youngest withdrawn after her daughter became a homicidal maniac, who did she really have left? Who was looking after Helen Stacy?
You smile at her, as best as you can without tearing up, and reach out to grasp her hand, which she readily accepts. “I’m okay, Mrs. Stacy, I… It’s just a few friends of my dad, from his home town. Their kids, too. It’s better than being put in the system.” You tell her, and can only hope that she believes you. You have no way to back up these lies, knowing those friends of your father don’t exist.
“You could’ve stayed here, you know?” She says, teary and squeezing your hand so tightly you can hear your bones creaking. You smile sadly at her.
“You’re a much stronger person than me, Mrs. Stacy. I couldn’t even face my dad’s funeral, let alone be around the memories of somebody I lost. This place, it—it reminds me of her.” You explain, voice shaking as you hold back your own tears, swallowing them down and trying to breathe through the ache in your throat.
The way her heart breaks is almost loud enough for you to hear it, but she nods her head understandingly, regardless. “Of course,” She says, nodding still, “But know you always have a place here, okay?”
“Okay.” You respond, heart clenching so tightly you’re not sure it can pump your blood any longer.
“Now, what’s your number? Your old phone was disconnected.” She says, shaking her tears away to pull out a pad and pen from the coffee table. She sets the notepad against her knee, looking expectantly toward you.
“Oh, right,” You stutter, teeth chattering as you comb your mind for the number of your burner phone. “There was a mixup, because it was in my dad’s name.” You explain needlessly, still searching your mind for the answer. Finally, you remember it. You listen to her ballpoint pen scrape along the paper as she writes the numbers as you say them, and then she clicks the pen off after writing your name beside it, underlining it twice.
“How about I give you a call with the details of your visit, okay, honey?” She asks, nodding with a pleased hum at your affirmative. “Good. Stay for dinner, okay? I’ve missed you.”
Who are you to deny her that?
Though, even as you try to pretend that you help to set up the table for her benefit, and as you hug Gwen’s little brother tightly when he comes home for his, you know, deep down, that it’s for you. That this is a moment of selfishness that you’ll let yourself have, because god, you deserve it, don’t you?
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It’s thirteen days post Spider Society discovery, and you’re starting to regret the way you discarded that watch so carelessly. Not because you want to be a part of some cult of superheroes, but because you wish you had asked some more questions.
Surely Miguel O’Hara must’ve known a way to stop these villains from appearing in other universes? And if he did, had he already implemented whatever it was to stop Gwen escaping again? How exactly did she escape the first time? Was it a coincidence? Is there somebody out there, working behind the scenes, helping her get out?
You, unfortunately, have no way to answer any of the burning questions nagging at the back of your head. While a part of you hopes that you never see any of the Spider Society weirdos again, you also desperately want answers. Especially if it meant you could call off your visit to Gwen Stacy.
But the day arrives as any other does, and you spend every moment before the drive over to the prison desperately hoping that one of the Spider-people will show their face. None of them do, and you’re left to get into Mrs. Stacy’s car and simply brace for the journey ahead.
You’re pretty sure that swinging would be quicker, or easier, but you had no way to explain that way of transport to an interrogating Mrs. Stacy, and so you had to relent to her insistence on driving you. Now, you sit here, shifting in the seat of the car, uncomfortable without your suit underneath the clothes you used to wear on a daily basis. Even the knowledge that it’s stuffed into the bottom of your tattered backpack in the boot of Mrs. Stacy’s car doesn’t bring you any comfort.
Instead, the rough material of an old jacket has your skin crawling like you were being bitten by a thousand mosquitos, and the trousers on your legs itch like you’re allergic to them.
You suppose, really, that the spider bite that gave you so many powers had to have more drawbacks than just destroying your life. It only makes sense that your heightened senses would extend to the receptors on your skin. It makes every movement in these clothes torturous, and you wonder if it had always been this way, or if you were just so unused to wearing your old style of clothes. Either way, you hope that you won’t have to wear them for much longer.
If it all goes to plan, you should be in and out of the prison, just ensuring that Gwen Stacy is actually in the cell as she’s supposed to be. Then you just have to endure the fifty minute drive back to the city with Mrs. Stacy, and you’re free. You won’t have to wear these clothes again, won’t have to use your name, no — you can just sink back into the half life that is being Arachnid. It’s better that way.
“Okay, honey, here we are.” Mrs. Stacy says at last, having shifted her car into park. She pointedly avoids looking at the looming high-security prison ahead, instead focusing on you as you wipe your sweaty palms against your trousers. “Now you take as much time as you need in there, alright? I’ll be just out here, if you need me.”
You smile tightly at her, nodding with what you hope is more of a grateful expression rather than a grimace. “Thank you, Mrs. Stacy, really. I appreciate it, more than you know.”
That much was true — after all, it wasn’t like you could tell her that she was allowing the vivid paranoia you had been experiencing to be put to rest after her daughter escaped to another universe. Mrs. Stacy, from what you could gather, didn’t even know that Gwen had been missing for any amount of time. She had no idea what Gwen had done, how many more people she had hurt, but you assured yourself that it was better that way. Mrs. Stacy already had to deal with plenty, and that knowledge surely wouldn’t help.
She was already dealing with her own grief and feelings on the situation, as well as trying to support her two sons in the matter. Given what Gwen’s little brother had asked of you when he found out about you visiting her, you knew that he hadn’t been to visit Gwen, either. It seemed that he wasn’t coping with it all very well.
“Of course, you’re family. You should know that by now.” She says, smiling with teary eyes, reaching across the console to grasp your hand tightly in her own.
Her words take a stab at your chest, especially considering what had happened to everybody else who had seen you as family. Dead parents, villainous best friend — it really didn’t bode well for your loved ones. You just reassured yourself with the fact that you’d be able to disappear as soon as the two of you returned to the city. You couldn’t put her in any danger, that way, or her remaining kids.
“I’ll—I’ll see you after, okay?” You respond, squeezing her hand in return before quickly letting go and throwing open the car door, getting out and catching a slither of Mrs. Stacy’s surprised reply before you shut the car door.
There are guards waiting for you at the gates, checking you are who you say you are, scanning you for weapons before you even get in the building. They’re satisfied after their searches, content that you weren’t stupid enough to bring a weapon into a highly secure prison. You keep your focus on your breathing as they walk you in, handing you clothes to change into as well as a box to put all of your belongings in.
The scrub-like clothes they give you are even worse than your own, sending shivers up and down your spine at the feeling of each fibre scraping against your skin. You just try to breathe through it. Luckily, the rest of the security checks blur by, which means less time spent on agonising over this visit. You barely hear a word of the statement they read to you before you go in, and your hand cramps as you write your signature against a dotted line of a waiver. All of the other legal things were sorted out by Mrs. Stacy’s lawyer, which you are more than thankful for.
Instead of having to deal with that, you just have to wait.
You think that the waiting might be the worst part of it all. With the scrubs making your hairs raise and promoting uncomfortable shivers up and down your body, as well as the cold metal seat that they sat you on, you’re far too aware of everything around you. You can hear the hundreds of heartbeats in the buildings, the beeping of security doors, the footsteps heading your way. You can smell the coffee that the head guard in the adjoining room to the one you’re in is drinking, as well as the day-old sandwich in his desk. Worst of all is the way your own heartbeat is thrumming in your throat, padding harshly against your chest, so loud in your own ears that it slowly starts to drown out everything around you.
Gwen’s footsteps are heavy, accompanied by the clinking of the chains she’s shackled in. You can practically hear the maniacal laughter that had come from her whilst in that alternate dimension, even though she’s completely silent as she enters the room.
She smiles at you when you look up, and for a moment you’re fooled — it’s soft, gentle, kind. But then you see the glimmer in her eyes that was distinctly not Gwen, and you feel the scar along your side throbbing with phantom pain.
You smile tensely at the guards, who regard you with looks of gentle concern and caution, before they attach her chains to a link on the floor beside a chair three metres away from where you sit. They nod at you, which you return, and you watch as they go and take their positions beside the door before you move your eyes back to the elephant in the room — which is Gwen Stacy.
“So, you missed me?” She asks, baring her teeth in a grin that has too much teeth to be anything friendly. Gwen regards you closely as you stare at her, watch for any signs of flickering, any signs that this isn’t real. Her brows raise slowly, the longer you’re silent, but you’re in no hurry to talk. “No? Is that not it?”
“Sure, I miss you.” You respond after another stretch of silence, tilting your head to study her more closely. You don’t acknowledge the way that your voice shakes as you speak, the way it comes out in something closer to a croak before you swallow harshly against your dry throat. “Thought I’d come to check in.” You add, brows furrowing to make sure she gets your true meaning.
“Ah,” She voices, then laughs, shoulders shaking, chains clanking loudly against her metal chair. “I get it, now.”
Gwen doesn’t add anything else after that, even though you suspected that she may take this opportunity to loudly claim that you were Arachnid, outing your identity once and for all. Apparently, if she does want to out your identity, she doesn’t want to do it like this, as she stays silent until you speak.
You sit forward on your chair, ignoring the way the guards at the edges of the room shift uneasily at your movement. “Your mom arranged this for me, you know?” You say, eyebrow raised. She probably knows what you’re doing, or what you’re trying to do, but she doesn’t voice it. Instead, she just shifts to lean backwards in her own chair, sighing as if relaxing.
“Hmm, so she can visit.” Gwen says, nodding her head as if it’s all making sense now.
“She can, she just doesn’t want to. Neither does Georgie.” You respond, and find satisfaction in the way her eyes flash at the mention of her little brother, the nickname that the two of you both used to call him. She recovers quickly, but you can tell that she knows it wasn’t quick enough. The Green Goblin cracked, right in front of your very eyes. It’s proof that, if anything, her little brother has some meaning. “He wanted me to tell you something.”
Her head tilts across from you, though she doesn’t move from her laid back position.
You clear your throat, and look at the words you’d written on your skin. She tilts her head forwards the slightest amount, and you shift uncomfortably in your seat, glancing at the guards who look just as uncomfortable as you feel. “He said that he misses his Gwenny, but he doesn’t want you coming home.” You stare at her as you repeat his message, the one he had told you nervously, as if he was truly afraid that Gwen would escape and come back. Her eyes twitch as she focuses on keeping her expression cool, but you know that the words have hit something in her, even if it’s part of the Green Goblin. “Looks like you even ruined your own family.”
You’re up on your feet as she lurches forwards, flung backward from where she tried to go against her chains to rush toward you. The guards are in front of you in mere moments, but you weren’t in any danger. Not as long as she stayed in here.
It’s almost satisfying, to see her chained up. It’s so different to seeing the Green Goblin on the outside, where she could be your Gwen Stacy. Whereas in here, bound by chains of heavy metal, clothed in uncomfortable looking prisoner scrubs, she was nothing but the Green Goblin. It was reassuring, almost, to be able to pick apart something physical between the two.
She bares her teeth at you, animalistic in a way that Gwen never was, and glares at you as you follow one of the guards out of the room, the others closing in on her, ready to take her back to whatever cell she came from.
The clothes you wear become less overbearing as you keep your focus on the guards taking Gwen away the whole way back through security, only switching back to your surroundings when they hand you the tray of your own belongings to change back into. You’re relieved for many reasons, and you try to focus on that feeling as you approach Mrs. Stacy’s car rather than the way your jacket itches.
Mrs. Stacy looks as if she wants to speak as you get in the car, as if she wants to ask about your visit, but she seemingly can’t bring herself to do it. You keep your mouth shut.
∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘
Not a month later, your daily activities are back to normal, uninhibited by the daunting idea of Gwen being free. Still, though, you think about her more often, as much as you did in the time after she was put away the first time.
Mrs. Stacy had tried to call you more than once since, and at the two week mark you’d had to invest in a new burner phone. You just couldn’t risk anybody getting a hold of it and seeing her contact, or the ringer going off and exposing your position in a fight. No, it was better for her not to have your number. Besides, you had hers memorised if you needed to call her.
It was better if you tried to reduce any connections to Gwen Stacy. You’d be much better off, the less you thought about her.
Despite knowing that, you couldn’t help it. And despite seeing that crack in the Green Goblin exterior at her little brother’s words, you didn’t have much hope for her. You don’t think they’d let her out of prison even if you could find a cure, somehow. The fact of it was that Gwen Stacy’s life was over. She had no hope of a future in this world, the Goblin had destroyed that. All you could do was remember her and hope beyond anything that in one of those alternate dimensions, you and Gwen were happy together.
The thought of it played on your mind every day, a lingering pain that stung at your eyes. You thought about it so much that you had even imagined the world where Gwen had never become the Goblin, where you and your Gwen were happy. It was a suffocating image, one without any hope of being true, but you couldn’t help thinking about it.
Even as you fought villain after villain, petty criminal after petty criminal, you thought about it. Even now, as you were swinging around a bridge, dodging all the debris this villain was throwing your way, it played on your mind.
It was a distraction, and it was one you needed to get rid of.
That much became certain as the villain you were facing, Tombstone, managed to get a hit on you, sending you flying across the bridge. You landed on a car with a groan, the windshield cracking below you, and you rolled your eyes as the person in the car held a hand on their horn until you managed to climb off, a distinct Arachnid-shaped dent left in the bonnet.
Well, that would be aching tomorrow, that much was for sure.
He grinned where he was stood across the bridge from you, showing off his filed teeth, as if trying to intimidate you with the pointy edges of them.
“You’ve been a formidable foe, Arachnid,” Tombstone says, his voice barely a whisper above the wind, but you can hear him perfectly. You suspect he knows as much, and that only makes you nervous. “But I think it’s time for our battle to come to an end.”
“I actually agree.” You respond, stretching your aching back and feeling a bone shift when it definitely shouldn’t. You can’t help but wince, gritting your teeth and glaring over at Tombstone across the bridge.
You’re getting tired of these villains, of their constant spiel about how the world should be, about how everything should be how they wanted it to be. What was so wrong with the human population that everybody couldn’t just get along? Surely, if everybody got along, listened to each other, the world’s problems would be solved. But then again, this is New York, and it’s a city in which greed is bred.
A light press against your webshooter has you slinging high up on the bridge, staring down at Tombstone as he watches you intently. You’re planning your next move, considering all the variables, when a burst of orange manifests into the air behind him. He looks confused as you falter in your web slinging, dropping slightly before you catch yourself, and he turns around just in time to receive a curled fist to the face, courtesy of a familiar man in a red and blue suit.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” You murmur, lowering yourself to the bridge to approach this Spiderman, glaring at where Tombstone stands, straining against a red barrier that had materialised from the device Spiderman had placed at his feet.
“I hate that guy!” The familiar voice of Peter B. Parker says, shaking his fist as he hops slightly from one foot to the other, his lenses squinted before he finally turns to acknowledge you. “That guy sucks.”
Your brows are furrowed, eyes squinted behind your lenses as you stare at Peter, confused. This Tombstone guy isn’t an anomaly, is he? While you hadn’t faced him before, you knew that there had been a battle between him and another vigilante down in Hell’s Kitchen. And he knew your name, hadn’t been calling you Spiderman like the last anomaly. So why was he here?
Peter sighed, as if he was disappointed to be met with your confusion. “You got a place, kid? Or a burger joint, maybe?”
With that same amount of confusion, you nodded, brows furrowed as cops came to collect Tombstone, who was still in a fit of rage. You can just barely hear him swearing to get you back, both of you, through the barrier. Peter gestured a hand forwards for you to lead the way, and with slight hesitation, you swung off with him following.
Now, the two of you are sat in a Shake Shack, despite you wanting to head back to the offices you were set up in. Peter had ordered two burgers, one for you and one for him, though you had decidedly rejected the one he pushed towards you. He had only shrugged, and accepted it onto his own plate.
“My wife’s pregnant, can’t even stand the smell of these.” Peter groans, stuffing what must’ve been at least a quarter of the burger in his mouth. You just nod at his statement, though you had to admit you were slightly surprised that this guy was going to be a dad. But then again, you’re pretty sure you can remember your dad scoffing down his favourite food in a similar way. “Now listen,” He continues, speaking with his mouthful and paying you no mind as you cringe at the sound. “Miguel wants to strike a sort of… deal with you.”
“Okay?” You respond, brows furrowed. You look around the place, uncomfortable with all the people staring at Arachnid in a booth beside an old man stuffing his face. The lenses of your mask squint with you as you look at Peter, waiting for him to add anything on to explain his statement. “Then why’d he send you?” You ask, at last, when Peter makes no move to speak of his own free will, too engrossed in his second burger.
Peter held up a finger, gulping down a sip of his strawberry milkshake. “Said something about this being good practice for me,” Peter eventually answers, flashing you a smile. “You know, being a new dad and all.”
He seems to realise quickly that that was the wrong thing to say as your eyes narrow further, visible only through the shift of your lenses. The last thing you need is some random guy trying to father you. Even just the idea of it irritates you, makes the very blood rushing in your veins feel hot with anger. You had a dad, and look what good that did you. He’s gone.
Not to mention the implication of you being a child! You’re far from being a kid. You’ve been looking after yourself for some time now just fine. Whatever deal Miguel wants to strike with you is because they need you. Not the other way around. You knew that you shouldn’t have let that Spider-doctor fix you up.
“I’m not some kid. I don’t need you lot, you need me. Don’t get it all twisted, Peter.” You respond as he continues to look like a deer in headlights, clearly kicking himself for revealing what Miguel had said. You keep your voice low, fighting to stay unheard with the quietened air in the diner. “Now hurry up and tell me about whatever bullshit deal you want to strike with me, so I can say no and we can go our separate ways.”
“Kid,” Peter sighs, before immediately wincing as he realised he just directly disregarded your statement about not being a kid. “Sorry, Arachnid,” He corrects, settling his hands on the table in front of him, finally taking a break from his almost-finished food. “Nobody’s saying you can’t do this.”
“Sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.” You mutter, averting your eyes from Peter and instead narrowing your lenses at the people still staring in your direction.
“All we’re saying is that you shouldn’t have to do this alone,” He continues, ignoring your interruption with nothing but a quirked brow. “It’s a tough job. Everybody needs someone to look out for them, you know? It’s in our nature to feel responsible for everything around us, as Spider-people. But you can’t carry the whole weight of the world on your shoulders, it’s too much!”
You stare blankly at him, remaining unimpressed with his whole speech.
Peter sighs once more, looking at you with hesitant hope that you’ll come around. Unfortunately, you’re not about to let these people think that you’re incapable. If anything, Peter’s little speech was just adding fuel to your fire. You liked proving people wrong — it’s what you thrived on. You needed to prove them wrong. Because if you didn’t, what did that make you? You couldn’t let people be right about their assumptions of you. If you couldn’t prove everybody wrong, then that meant some of the things people said about you were right. And with the amount of people who accused you of being responsible for more deaths than you saved, who portrayed you as a menace rather than a vigilante, who said you weren’t worthy of your powers, who said whatever divine intervention had given them to you was wrong, you couldn’t let them be right. You wouldn’t.
“I already told you people. I’m not interested.” You spit out at him, feeling your frustration brimming over the edge. Why would nobody just trust you? Was that so much to ask? You understand that you had made mistakes, that you had cost people their lives, but you were trying. Why couldn’t that just be enough?
Peter says nothing as you slide out of the booth, stomping your way out of the Shake Shack as if you were some kind of grumpy teenager. He could only hope that his unborn child was a less grumpy teen, but then again, he was pretty sure you had every right to be miserable. Correcting himself, he could only hope that his unborn child never experienced your reasons for being so miserable.
You make your way towards your office building, swinging through the streets whilst doing your best to keep your heightened hearing down. You really didn’t want to have to deal with anything else, tonight. All you wanted was to get back, to put on the only clothes other than your suit that didn’t make you want to crawl out of your skin. Even if it was just for an hour, you’d take it.
While you had gotten used to how quiet it was in the building a long time ago, you couldn’t help but think that tonight, it felt almost… eerie. There was something tingling, buzzing at the very base of your skull, but even as you strained your hearing, your sight, everything, you couldn’t detect anything out of place. Everything seemed normal, so you couldn’t understand why you were so on edge! It couldn’t just be Peter’s presence, surely, because he posed no threat to you. So what was going on?
Picking up your backpack filled with belongings, you stared around at the empty office, the breeze that flowed through the open window sending a shiver down your spine, even though you weren’t feeling cold. Something wasn’t right. You just couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Hello? Anybody there?” You call out, straining your hearing once more, trying to listen out for even the slightest sound. A movement, a breath, anything, even as you couldn’t help but think that this was the most cliché horror movie like moment that you had experienced to date. Still, you heard nothing, but that nagging feeling didn’t dissipate, and you quickly lost all desire to change out of your suit.
The unease you felt only grew stronger as you stood there, unsure what to make of the feeling. It was quickly growing towards being overwhelming, but you didn’t know what to do.
Luckily for you, you didn’t have to make a decision.
Unfortunately, the decision was made by one of the very people you were trying to prove yourself to.
Peter B. Parker — or at least, you were pretty sure it was him — swung through the very same window you had, only to grasp a hold on your arm and pull you out of the window as he jumped straight back out of it.
Now, you had been Arachnid for a long time now. You had gotten used to the swinging, to the way your stomach dipped and your throat tightened, but you had never experienced it where you weren’t the one in control. Finally, you understand why people you brought to safety had, on occasion, thrown up immediately after you set them down on their feet again. The feeling of falling, of having no choice but to trust somebody else to catch you, it was terrifying.
But what was infinitely more terrifying was the way that the very floor of the building you had just been stood on exploded.
The blaze was blinding, even with your lenses protecting your eyes, but the noise that came moments later was much, much worse. And sure, you had been around explosions before, but never one that big, never so close. And never so unprepared for one.
Your ears were ringing, and you vaguely realised that you had become dead weight in your shock, with Peter struggling to keep his grasp on your arm firm. After a moment, you had the sense to grab his forearm in return, trying to assist him in holding you up. He didn’t seem as effected by the explosion in comparison to you, and you wondered if he’d had the time to put earbuds in his ears as you had sometimes done before a fight. Either way, you were insanely envious as the pain in your ears increased, leaving you struggling to focus on holding on to Peter.
When he set you down, which couldn’t have been more than a minute after he had grabbed you, considering you could still see the office building smouldering, you had to hold a hand over your mouth even over your mask, trying to rid yourself of nausea. Smoke was leaking into the darkening sky, and you saw the flash of sirens below, but heard nothing other than the distinctive ringing that felt like it was melting your brain.
Peter’s hand was squeezing your shoulder, and after a moment in which you didn’t acknowledge him, he was gripping your other shoulder with his spare hand, shaking you the slightest bit. You looked up at him with a groan, squinting past the floating lights in your vision to see that his mouth was moving, no sound coming out. You shook your head, trying to get rid of that incessant ringing, but it didn’t work. You dropped your chin to your chest again, hands bracing against your ears as if they could ease your pain, and you didn’t make a move as Peter removed one hand from your shoulder.
Mere moments later, the same tingling you had felt before the building you were in exploded returned, stronger, more intensely. Your head snapped up, frantically looking around, paying Peter no mind as he spoke into the orange-glowing watch on his wrist. You breathed through your nose, trying not to cough at the smoke permeating the air, and you just managed to push Peter over the edge of the roof of the building, with you diving after him, as another explosive went off.
That explosion was smaller than the last one, and the only reason you had managed to avoid it was because you knew it was coming. You knew what the alarm bells in your head were trying to tell you now, and you spotted the projectile just seconds before it reached your feet.
Part of you was glad that your senses were dulled from the first explosion — your hearing, especially, as it meant you were less effected by the close-range on this one. You saw Peter’s eyes widen as he looked up above you at where the explosion had just occurred. You just about managed to web him before shooting a web towards the next building, feeling something in your shoulder pull sharply with his extra weight and the suddenness of the move.
You squinted down at him as he gripped the web attached to his chest with one hand, his lips moving more frantically as he spoke to a hologram projected by the watch on his other hand.
“Shit, what is going on?” You asked, though mostly to yourself, but the only way you could tell you had even voiced the words was by the way they rumbled out of your throat. That explosion had messed up your hearing, for the moment, anyway, and you quickly realised that with your slow healing and the ringing in your ears, this fight was going to be majorly difficult.
You only had a moment to think that, before something snapped the web that was holding you to the building, sending both you and Peter falling through the air. Embarrassingly, you’re pretty sure that you let out a yell of some sort.
All the air was knocked out of you the next second as something hurtled into you, sending you careening towards the windows of the closest building. Peter, for a moment, had a shocked expression on his face, before he seemingly realised what was going on, smiling and letting out a string of words that you didn’t hear. You groaned as your sore back collided with the window, smashing upon your impact, and you were sent sprawling over a desk, a monitor breaking underneath your sudden weight.
Yet again, there was a hand against your shoulder, and you paid it no mind as your head dropped back, thudding against the desk. You couldn’t help but groan, the duress that your back had been under today was certainly taking its toll, leaving your whole spine throbbing with pain. On top of that, you were struggling to catch your breath, and with the sudden adrenaline provided by the spider-sense fading, the intensity of the pain in your ears was increasing.
Finally, you managed to peel your eyes open to see a concerned Peter B. Parker looking at you, with Miguel O’Hara stood beside the shattered window, staring out menacingly, as if daring whoever it was to attack again. Peter said something else, squeezing your shoulder, and all you could do in response was hold up one thumb.
Miguel seemingly barked out an order over his shoulder, and a moment later, you were squinting against the bright orange light of a portal.
Peter was hauling you to your feet, leaning to hold one of your arms over his shoulder, practically carrying your weight towards the portal looming ahead. “No, no, wait,” You said, and you felt the way your words slurred as you became slightly delirious with a mixture of pain, adrenaline, and desperation. “Stop, I gotta—”
He only shook his head, before tipping the two of you forward until you both fell into the portal.
The dizzying feeling of inter-dimensional travel definitely didn’t help the pounding in your temples, nor the nausea you had previously been feeling, and you had no choice but to try and focus on Peter’s grip on you as you squeezed your eyes shut. When the world finally stopped spinning, or feeling like it was falling away around you, you opened your eyes just enough to take note of where you were — which was back in the Infirmary of the Spider Society HQ.
You shook Peter off, standing on your own weight and waving him away when he tried to assist you as you swayed once more. You glared, eyes narrowed, and turned to head straight back through the portal you had come from, only to see it close before your very eyes.
The same Spider-Doctor from the last time you were here snapped a band around your wrist, and you squinted down at the red and blue band. It made you feel lighter, even slightly, which felt good on your aching bones and muscles. You opened your mouth to speak as the Spider-Doctor led you to sit down on an empty bed with white sheets, but you vaguely saw the way his mask shifted as he presumably spoke. You couldn’t tell what he was saying with his mask on, but a minute later, you felt a sharp prick against the inside of your elbow.
You just about had the lucidity to murmur “You fucker—” before you succumbed to the weight of your eyelids.
∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘
When you woke up, it was to a throbbing pain in your forehead, that only got worse when you tried to open your eyes. At the very least, you were glad to have your hearing returned to you, albeit slightly muffled, which you were only aware of because the sound of voices across the room was the reason for you waking.
“I’m just saying, maybe knocking the kid out wasn’t the greatest idea!” Peter B. Parker’s annoyingly loud voice says, slightly high pitched in the end. Who he was saying it to, however, you couldn’t say, not without opening your eyes. And that didn’t feel like a good idea, the lights even with your eyes closed feeling like too much.
Instead, you just groan, bringing your hand up to rest over both of your eyes. “It wasn’t a great idea.” You say through gritted teeth, more than annoyed over the situation you found yourself in. Honestly, what did these people have against leaving you be? Why did they think they had any right to tell you what to do, or how to handle things, or to overrule you when it came to your own treatment?
“Hey, kid!” Peter responds, drawing the letters out in that typical oh shit voice. From the snippet of the conversation you had caught, at least he was seemingly trying to advocate for your consciousness. However, that didn’t change the fact that he was there when that Spider-Doctor knocked you out. No, you were still pissed. And when you got your hands on that doctor? He was in for it.
Any other thoughts or feelings on the matter were overturned when you realised that your hand was resting over your eyes, not the lenses of your mask.
Who do these people think they are?
You open your mouth to jump into a rant on that exact subject, on the audacity that they all have, but find yourself silenced by somebody grabbing onto your free wrist, and seemingly dropping your mask into your hand. You feel it until you’ve got it the right way around, and then pull it over your face.
The lights are much more bearable with your lenses back over your eyes, but it’s still painful, and still worsens that pounding in your head. But it does mean that you can see who’s around you; Peter, Miguel and the Spider-Doctor. You have half the mind to leap at that doctor, but Miguel is raising placating hands in your direction before you can make the move to do so.
“Let’s all calm down.” Miguel says, placing his hands on his hips when your eyes only narrow at him.
“What is wrong with you? Who gave you people the right to—to take off my mask? To knock me out? Hell, to come to my universe and get in my business!” You practically yell out, swinging your legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the way your back hurts with the movement and glaring when the three of them step forward to help you.
“If Peter hadn’t gotten there when he did, you would’ve died.” Miguel responds plainly, seemingly aggravated by your irritation. One of his arms is raised in a gesture towards the man, who smiles almost guiltily, as if helping you was a crime. Which, in your mindset, it might as well have been. “There was an anomaly, a villain from another dimension targeting you.”
“I can handle myself.” You spit out, though the way the room spins when you stand is almost a direct contrast to your words. Your blood is rushing through your veins, and you realise that there’s a machine beeping next to you, increasing in frequency. As you look, you realise it’s measuring your heart rate, and you yank wires off of you that you hadn’t even noticed before, as if they were exposing you somehow. “And that doesn’t give you the right to take off my mask. Who does that?”
Spider-Doctor raises his hands, as if surrendering, though seems unintimidated by the way your glare switches to him. “It was necessary. Your hearing was severely damaged by the explosion, you needed treatment. You have dampening-buds in your ears now, while your healing catches up.” While that sounds reasonable, it only makes you angrier. Why did these people even care if some anomaly killed you? If your hearing was damaged? Why did they insist on bothering you?
Miguel sighs, pinching his nose, before he lifts his head up to speak to you again. You just about stop yourself from making a snotty comment about his attitude. You didn't even want to be here, and here he was, acting like dealing with you was such an inconvenience to him. It was frustrating. “Your universe seems to be at some sort of epicentre of anomalies, and we don’t know why. Yet.”
“We’re just trying to keep you safe. You can’t deal with all of those anomalies alone, nobody can. Sometimes, you need a team.” Peter says softly, like he could convince you of the matter. “Believe me, you don’t want to learn that the hard way.” He adds on, smiling almost hesitantly, as if there’s a memory he’s thinking of connected to his own words.
You’re sighing through your nose, your teeth gritting together as you regard them. “Okay, fine, you want to come take out your anomalies, or whatever? You do that. But anything more than that isn’t welcome.” You say, at last, your eyes narrowed towards them as you wait for their responses.
You still don’t really understand it, any of it, but it’s becoming clear that you have no choice but to deal with these people. Apparently, they were not budging on all of this stuff, which — fine, so long as they stay out of your way. The last thing you need is a bunch of Spider-people stepping on your toes, or making you seem incapable in front of the citizens of your own dimension when in the end, they’ll all up and leave.
After all, you can remember your mother telling you how important it is to do things yourself. The moment you start accepting help, you relax, and when they decide they don’t want to help you anymore? You’re screwed, your sense of independence reduced to ashes. And as Arachnid, there’s far too much at stake to risk that happening.
“Here,” Miguel says, only nodding his agreement — or at least, that’s what you assume the nod was for. He throws a watch towards you, and you catch it with some confusion. “In case you see any anomalies before we do.” He explains as he watches you fiddle witht he watch in both hands, glaring down at it as if it was offensive. He’s relatively satisfied when you relax at that explanation. While Miguel doesn’t voice what else it’s for, knowing you’d only get irritated and refuse the watch, he’s silently hoping that you’ll understand. It’s so you can come to them, if you need them. They can only hope that they’ll be able to tell you that, one day, before it’s too late, without the offer scaring you off.
“So, I’m good to go?” You ask, looking between the three Spider-Men still staring at you and the watch you hesitantly clasp around your wrist. They nod, or, Peter and Miguel do, while the Spider-Doctor throws his hands in the air, exasperated.
“That dimension is yours,” Peter says, leaning over to see the screen of your watch. “The button at the bottom will input this dimension as the destination. Just press that,” He points to another button, “To open the portal to whichever dimension has been typed in.”
You nod, still pissed that he’d let the Spider-Doctor knock you out, but at least you didn’t give him a snarky comment. Instead, you just pressed the button to go back to your own dimension, and stepped through the portal the moment it was big enough for you to go through.
You didn’t expect for him to follow you through.
“Hey, listen,” Peter says, almost reluctantly, as if he doesn’t want to upset you. When you turn to him, he raises his hands, as if to further prove that sentiment. “I am sorry that he knocked you out, I didn’t know he was going to do that.”
“Okay, fine, apology accepted.” You say, flatly, turning to survey where exactly you are. It doesn’t take you long to notice the remains of the building you had been camping out in, the building charred and the air still thick with all the smoke that had been produced.
“I wasn’t done,” Peter sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose momentarily. “I also wanted to say that I’m sorry about your building. And I wanted to ask, well, mention about how when Doctor-Peter took off your mask, he noticed you don’t have anything protecting your ears, like other Spiders with your level of enhanced hearing do.”
You turn to stare blankly at him, while mulling through where exactly you’re going to stay in your head. If you’re being honest, you’re not paying his words much mind. So what, you don’t have anything protecting your hearing? Sure, sometimes you had stuffed earbuds into your ears when you knew you were going into a rough fight, but you didn’t know when some psycho exploded your building right in front of you. Plus, it’s not like you have unlimited resources to figure out some way of protected your ears under your mask while also letting you effectively use your hearing.
“Okay? And?” You ask, voice edging on the side of boredom. In all honesty, you just want to be left alone. You want to put on your comfy clothes, curl up into a ball and go to sleep so you can dream of a world where everything is okay. The likelihood of that happening is small, but not impossible, right?
“Well,” Peter hesitates then, which piques your interest the slightest bit. “Here, I had these made back when my hearing was crazy sensitive, but it’s not anymore, so I got no use for them!” He says, holding out two blue and red earbuds in a clear case. “You gotta wait until your ears are healed up to use ‘em, but I figured they’d do you more good than me.”
For a moment, you’re ready to deny him. To glare and insist that you don’t need his help. But then, he had said that they were originally for him, and he didn’t need them any longer, so really, would it be so bad to take them? To accept this one thing? To allow yourself to be saved of this tiniest bit of pain?
“You’re sure?” You ask, likely the least aggressive you’d spoken to him, though that’s not to say that it was asked softly. You were still firm on not accepting their help, on doing your own thing, but you could accept this much, surely? It couldn’t hurt.
Peter smiles, a short laugh leaving him, and he waves the box towards you. “I’m sure!”
“…Thanks.” You say, shortly, as you accept the earbuds offered to you. He also hands you the backpack that you had lost track of after the attack, and you accept that far more quickly. You’re glad that it feels the exact same weight as it did the last time you held it, before you shove the earbuds into the opening and zip it back up.
There’s a portal still open on the rooftop the two of you stand on, and Peter backs up to go towards it almost reluctantly. “Also, if you need somewhere to stay—”
“Don’t push it,” You respond, quickly, cutting him off before he could finish what he was saying. He doesn’t take offence to your abruptness, and smiles with a nod, before he disappears into the portal. You stare out at the city around you, looking in the direction of another building you had been very reluctant to return to. “What is my life?” You ask yourself, rhetorically, because you don’t know how you’d even answer that.
You glance behind you to ensure the portal is closed, before jumping off the rooftop, freefalling, relishing in the way the cold wind soothes the pain in your back. Before long, though, you have to shoot a web to catch yourself. You head towards the only place you know will be suitable for you, but can’t shake the way the thought of it chills you.
All you can do is hope that this multiverse stuff will be over with, and soon.
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#6F417E | EARTH-42 MILES MORALES.
genre | fluff / reader is gn
synopsis | miles found you fainted in an alleyway one day, except you died two years ago.
word count | 3090
warning | everything i know about e-42 miles morales (and just this spiderverse) is from the movies
note | tentatively there're 5 parts to this story... thank you for reading :)
parts | one, two, three, four
The streets in the morning were less eerie than at night, which you supposed was a given fact. It was like that back on your Earth too. One significant difference you found between your Earth and this Earth was that, while both were crowded, the general architecture of this Earth looked like they were on its last leg. There were more old and rusty gates than reflective and clean glass doors, and most buildings were held together through an abandoned construction process with no safety measures taken.
Miles told you once that if the buildings hold, they hold. It took you a while to let that mindset sink in. When you realized your overthinking wouldn’t magically strengthen the morale around this place, nor would it collapse one of the dusty-looking buildings as you so feared, you stopped thinking too deeply about it. You would get jumpy occasionally, though, like if a few steel construction poles holding a balcony together start shivering in the wind. He never visibly laughed, but trust that he was always amused at your caution.
“What about this one?” you asked, holding a sweater before your torso and turning to him. “I like this one. It’s cute!”
Miles peered at you, his hands shoved deep in his jacket pocket where he was safekeeping the money his mother gave him to do clothing shopping with you. The corners of his mouth pulled into a frown immediately. “It looks tacky.”
You mirrored his frown, but yours were defeated rather than mischievous. “You have something mean to say about everything.”
“For good reason,” he said with a shrug. “You have terrible taste.”
He wouldn’t be too wrong about that. Fashion was never your forte, but you did wonder if it could be when personal interest and financial budget were no longer an issue. You laughed under your breath; that felt like a faraway dream. Carefully putting the sweater back on the hanger, you made a point to scoff directly at his face.
“I really don’t see how that’s tacky,” you said. “Is the sweater tacky, or am I?”
“Oh, I can’t answer that,” he replied with a faux sympathetic smirk. He bent to your eye level and added, “Won’t wanna be mean.”
If he was taunting you, playfully so, it wasn’t successful. One thing you learned about Miles in these past few months of living with him was that he was all bark and no bite. All you have to do is level his stare for just a bit too long for comfort—you squinted your eyes, your nose scrunching as an afterthought, then abruptly stomped a foot forward. He immediately jumped back, but he did it to avoid hitting the tip of your nose with his, not because you successfully scared him.
His eye twitched in dismay when you smiled triumphantly before turning around and running out of the store, dropping a quiet trail of snickers through your lips. Miles faintly clicked his tongue into a grin, which he had to physically rub off his face. After spending these months with you, save for the paranoia-inducing glitches you have been doing occasionally, he has mostly settled with your presence being a constant.
There was a spot for you in his twin-sized bed, at the dining table in the living room, and even on the chores list! Your prolonged stay was not anticipated, nor was your infiltration into his life to such an intimate degree. At some point, Miles completely tore his walls down to let his heart run astray, and the first place it ran to was you. The only issue now was whether you returned his feelings, and that was a question he couldn't even begin to pick apart.
"It's so nice to put a face to a name.” Seconds after he left the store, he could recognize a voice. "Oh, yes. Miles talks about you all–"
"Gwen!"
Realization hit him with the hallucinated impact of a train entering a pitch-black tunnel. He bolted out to the street where you and his partner in crime (literally) stood, his arms stretched out so he could cover your ears just before Gwen could finish her sentence. You looked up just as your shoulders were hunched at the icy feel of his hands, and you saw Miles utter something through gritted teeth at the bemused girl you just met.
“You’re not funny!”
“Thank you, Miles. I try my best,” Gwen retorted with a satisfied smirk, then her gaze bounced down to you, and she scoffed in disbelief. “You’re right, though. They do look exactly alike. It’s uncanny.”
“They’re the same person,” he clarified, “just from a different Earth.”
“I know,” Gwen shrugged, “but you’d think they would at least have a different style.”
“They’re wearing my clothes. How would you know?”
“They’re wearing your clothes?”
Miles pursed his lips as he let go of your ears, subconsciously rubbing them through a brief caress before his arms fell to his sides. You widened your eyes in surprise when the cold Brooklyn air and the chattery street returned to your senses; it didn’t occur to you how much pressure he applied to muffle your ears until sounds came back to you. Shifting his weight and heaving a dramatic exhale, Miles let his friend know how little bullshit he was willing to take from her this day, especially when it came to jokingly expose his feelings for you. Gwen’s smirk stayed for a moment longer before she narrowed her eyes and gave a knowing nod; it was all for good fun. She understood the implication of someone like Miles falling in love.
“What are you guys up to?” Gwen asked, changing the subject.
“We’re buying clothes,” you replied, clarifying with an indignant huff. “Or we would be if he wasn’t vetoing everything I suggest.”
“Their taste is awful,” Miles retorted without looking at you. He was speaking to Gwen.
“A tacky shirt means I won’t have to take from your closet anymore,” you said, exasperated. You threw your arms up to smack his face with the overly long sweater sleeves before rolling them back up to your wrists, where you folded the hems twice to keep them from sliding over your hands. “Look at your clothes! They’re big on you, and they’re big on me!”
Gwen pulled a face in agreement. “You do like oversized clothes, Miles.”
“Thanks for the unsolicited input,” Miles smiled, “much appreciated.”
The tension zapping between their fake smile and glaring stare was palpable. To your dramatic lenses, at least. You switched between the two of them, your eyes darting back and forth as your mind raced to find some kind of a conclusion to their relationship. If Miles was in love with the previous version of yourself, and they have since died, then the next possible candidate would likely be Gwen depending on how closely related they were. Or perhaps you were wrong all along! Miles told the truth when he said he was only good friends with ��you’ because his heart belonged to this girl across from you!
“What are you two?” you asked, promptly breaking their eye contact.
“Oh? We–uhh,” she awkwardly tugged a piece of hair behind her ear and glanced at Miles, “we work together?”
Miles frowned at Gwen for a split second before he nodded. “We work together.”
“Colleagues!” You crossed your arms and stared off into the distance. You ignored Miles when he began asking questions about what you were doing. “Colleagues… there is much to discuss… yes.”
“What?” He waved his hand in front of your face. “What are you yapping about?”
“I think someone is getting the wrong idea about us,” Gwen said, failing to hold back a chuckle. She watched Miles roll his eyes as if you’ve always gotten the wrong idea about everything and smiled faintly to herself; she had not seen him this expressive in a while. Having a paralyzed face was his thing ever since grief took over. Looking away, she directed the conversation to you instead. “Hey, how is the glitching treating you?
You clapped your hands suddenly and tilted your head, ignoring the way Miles jumped in disbelief that you responded to Gwen and not him. You had no idea she knew of your glitching, but if Miles trusted her enough to let her on your identity, she must be someone you could count on. Nodding, you looked down at your hands and grimaced. “They’ve slowed down, thankfully. I don’t like the feeling of it.”
There were no words to describe how the glitching felt because you simply were not for a moment. It was the act of your existence being pulled apart manifested into a colorful and pixelated view for a third-party observer. The dimensional sight of it tricked people into thinking there was an experience to undergo, but there wasn’t, technically. You were glitched out of existence and then glitched back into reality. Your body and soul were pulled apart at the seams, separated into atoms and molecules of nothingness, and your mind wasn’t fast enough to catch up with its erasure that for a split second, you understood your oblivion before being forcefully put back on your feet.
You were thrown into uncontrollable sobs the first few times you glitched. The process was all but a mere few seconds, but the aftermath was Miles staying up all those nights until you fell asleep first, holding his breath whenever you stirred in your sleep, and wishing he was capable enough to stop your face from getting stained by tears. You have mostly gotten used to the feeling, but that did not eliminate the grotesque urge to barf every time you glitched.
“Hmm…” Gwen rubbed her chin in thought at your reaction. She has been helping with figuring out what to do to stop you from glitching entirely, but the urgency of it all greatly stumped her thinking process. She worked well under pressure, not one of her friend’s many paranoid rambles about you dying. “The multiverse is difficult to figure out, but I think I have a few ideas I’d like to try.”
Miles turned to her with anticipation. “You have something?”
“It’s not a definitive something,” Gwen said as she stepped away from his prying eyes. “It’s more of a hypothesis.”
“We can test it out,” he urged, eyes glimmering unfamiliarly. “Having something is better than nothing.”
“My problem is more about [Name] being the only person who can prove that what we made worked,” she said with a shake of her head. “I will not have them wear something that might kill them.”
There was a downward shift in the air as the Brooklyn cold froze over. Your eyes darted about at the drop of tension. The change in Gwen’s voice and how Miles’s feet shuffled so he didn’t have to maintain an awkward standing position were not lost on you. There was a shared sorrow that neither has opened up to you about. With Gwen avertinig her eyes and the gentle drop in her confidence, you couldn't have been mistaken that she also knew you well before you died. Deducing from her last sentence, these two might be why you met your end.
“We should give it a try anyway,” Miles muttered. “If it works, it’ll really help them.”
You halted the inward debate on whether you should give a say in their conversation. You couldn’t begin to understand the science they would have to figure out to stop your paranormal glitching, even if they decided to discuss the plan with you. It still surprised you that Miles has the smarts good enough to be on his way to prestigious universities. He has been so regular—he went to school, lazed about the chores, and was afraid of his mother for reasons you now understand. Either way, your best bet was to trust that these two only had your best interest in mind.
You smiled at Gwen and gave her two encouraging thumbs-ups when she glanced at you with what you could consider millennia of uncertainty. Her stoic brows relaxed as nostalgia packed her body into itself upon getting hit in the face, once again, with your familiar features. Two years of unresolved grief and self-blame, two years of longing for a friend, and everything dissolving into one innocent smile and two thumbs-up. Miles did not overstate his whiplash when he saw you because she was feeling it too.
“I’ll gather everything I have and bring them over tonight,” Gwen said. “I have some stuff to do, so I’m gonna go. I’ll see you tonight, Miles, and, uh–“ she waved, for a farewell that felt long overdue–“goodbye, [Name].”
Her soft features remained in your head as her back faded into the crowd. The noticeable sorrow in her eyes whenever she looked at you further reinforced your assumption that you two, at least, used to be friends. A sense of pride for yourself from this Earth blossomed deeply in your chest, and you felt giddy knowing that you could maintain a genuine friendship with Gwen. But, more than that, you admired how her face glowed even under the chillingly dark sky and how her voice spoke like the texture of crumbled silk being smoothed over with a kind hand. Her delicate features plagued your head because you thought she was pretty.
“I like her,” you said with a small smile playing on your lips.
“I do, too,” Miles hummed in acknowledgment. He reached down to grab your hand so you wouldn’t get a chance to run off again, and you let him. “Not in the way you think I do, though.”
Question marks popped into the crease of your forehead as you looked up at him, acting incredulous now that you found out your self-curated romantic fantasy based off of one simple interaction between two people whose relationship you have no detail on read like an open book to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he retorted as he raised your intertwined hands to point a finger at you. “You need to stop acting a fool.”
You squeezed his hand extra tight and huffed in dissatisfaction when he was barely affected by your abysmal strength. Taking a deep breath, you forced an embarrassing, wise chuckle and said, “Love is supposed to make you do stupid things.”
“Tell me when the love is there.”
“Ugh,” you groaned and pursed your lips to silence yourself. Observing passersby as a distraction, you managed to keep quiet for a few stores before bashfully inching closer to Miles, who sighed knowingly. “You really don’t have any feelings for her? Not even a little?”
“No.”
“Ugh!” Your groan was less annoyed this time. “What a waste! I don’t understand!”
“You’re really hell-bent on this,” he mentioned as his legs stopped. He turned his body to you with wilful ignorance that he was forcing both of you to block everyone from walking down the middle of the street. He raised a brow, questioning. “I don’t like her like that. What don’t you understand?”
You felt a rare intimidation through his gaze, so you looked toward the direction Gwen left, chasing the image of a girl you tried not to feel envious of. Miles watched your eyes soften, but it was not the cause of relaxation but rather deep thinking that you forgot a world was happening around you. He waited patiently for you to return to him, anticipating your words. He always anticipated what you have to say, about anything, to the point it was foolish that he would wait for you to point out to him that an apple was red and a banana was yellow.
“I don’t know,” you whispered loud enough for him to hear. “She’s so pretty.”
The thought that it never crossed his mind might baffle you, but it never did. Gwen was pretty, but to Miles, that was an undeniable fact rather than something sentimental. Or, at least, it used to be. The fact that she was pretty immediately became a jagged blade that threatened to cut your perception of his feelings for you after what you said. He was less than fond of it, and, unfortunately, he also has no idea how to keep you from being cut with it.
It was a shame that you couldn’t see him the way he saw and knew himself.
How no matter the tap water he splashed on his face and the flower-scented soap he applied on his hands, the only thing to truly rinse him of the grotesque, metallic stain of a purple mask was the double weight on his bed. How taking his prowler suit off could never rid him of the criminal identity the same way he could forget about it when he sat before the television folding laundry with you. How the heavy stomps of his feet treading down a path of crime and the terrified breathing of almost having his life taken from him could be so easily drowned out by the seamless way his voice weaves into the sound of your laugher as if you two were made for each other.
You didn’t know the way he ached to sink himself into your presence, to relearn the world through your eyes and let you remind him that an apple was red and a banana was yellow, and how he would carve your face into his own so he would never forget you after you leave this Earth.
Miles’s heart was rebirth into the shape of yours, and you thought Gwen was pretty.
“There is nothing to it,” he said, clutching your hand to never let go. “She’s pretty. It’s empty.”
You slowly turned away from the street to look at him and smiled at his serious reaction. The dim sky tore open to let the sun kiss you, a tenderness he yearned to give you but couldn’t muster up the genuine courage to, so he only stared at you with endearment written all over his face in a language you haven’t learned to read.
“Come on, let’s go back to get the sweater you want,” he muttered.
“You said it was tacky.” You followed behind closely as he dragged you by the hand.
“Exactly,” he mused, “you two are a perfect fit.”
You squeezed his hand in retaliation, but all he could feel was how perfectly they fit together. Maybe even better than you and that sweater.
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Punch-Out Love
Artwork by @guruan
FIGHT NIGHT
Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader
Summary: You're lucky enough to score ring-side seats at a boxing match on Friday night. Getting the best view in the house of boxing champion: Miguel O'Hara.
Word count: 1,500
Next Chapter
Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist
You know fuck all about boxing.
About the only thing you know about the sport was from the glimpses you caught watching scratched up old recordings of Muhammed Ali fights on the boxy mini-tv of your old childhood friend's house.
It always seemed barbaric. The practice of watching two human beings beat the shit out of each other for spectator's entertainment. It seems like something that was better left in the Ancient Roman times. Have we all human beings as a society, really not come further some 2,000 years later?
Your bestie used to get mad at you for this. Constantly defending the sport from your criticism, because (according to him) it's not just about smashing each other's faces in. Supposedly, there's an art to the sport. Boxers are taught to respect their opponents and adhere to the principles of good sportsmanship. It takes great mental discipline, dedicated work and years of hard and punishing training to master boxing.
You never saw any of that in the matches he showed you. All you saw were two men needlessly being hurt, sustaining brain damage for rich people's enjoyment.
Then again, he was more than a little bit biased, considering it was his dream to go pro one day. Tall and gangly, with his scrawny antelope legs, thick-rimmed glasses and big-ass braces, he looked like he couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag, much less another person. You never understood how exactly he thought he was going to make it as a boxer.
But you never found it in you to burst his unrealistic bubble when he used to point at the screen excitedly, drawing your attention to Ali's footwork and the artistry in it.
"It's like he's dancing," he used to say.
Except dancing is done with swelling music in the background. In dancing you often have a partner. It's an embrace. It's gentle and kind.
Boxing... was not that.
So you don't know how you managed to find yourself in the ringside seats of a local boxing match on a Friday evening, staring up at the boxing ring with the glaring ring lights shining into your eyes.
"Aren't these seats amazing?" Jess shouts excitedly over the familiar lyrics of ‘We Will Rock You' being belted out by Freddy Mercury on the loudspeaker.
You smile, and nod, because boxing-fan or not, she's right, these are some amazing seats. And considering you didn't have to pay a dime for them, personal aversions aside, you're never going to turn down free stuff.
Jess' husband tested positive for covid at the last minute, and you're the only one in your social circle that is anti-social and single enough to not have any plans on a Friday evening.
On the monitors above you, the menacing headshots of the two fighters swish into view.
"The first guy is an old reigning champ," she explains to you, as she leans in, shouting into your eardrums (and yet you can still barely make out what she's saying over the music). "The challenger is some new kid on the block. Has an amazing track record. Zero losses in the season. He's something else."
You look up at the gigantic screen, at the sharp cut cheeks, strong thick brows and the intense pitched brown eyes staring down at you.
Angry looking dude.
...Handsome too.
With a face like that, surely he could've gone into other careers. Calvin Klein model, movie star, or a news anchor. You wonder what makes a guy voluntarily have his face bashed in for money as a career.
"Ladies and gentlemen," a loud booming voice announces from the stage.
You jump in your seat from the suddenness, as you see a bald and overly formal dressed announcer in the middle of the ring.
"Welcome to the electrifying boxing showdown of the century! Are you ready to witness some knockout action tonight?"
The crowd around you cheers with a pandemonium of shouting and whistling.
"Introducing our first fighter, a true hometown hero! With an impressive record of 20 wins, 15 by knockout, and only 2 losses, standing at 6'3 feet, and weighing in at 340 pounds of determination and strength, give it up for ‘the Knockout King’ Bobby Kane!"
You watch as the reigning champion walks down the tunnel to the midst of adoring cheers as he waves and gestures at the crowd like royalty.
Every inch the king that he is nicknamed, he jumps over the rope and stands tall and proud over the ring.
The man is huge, bulging with almost grotesque muscles. He's so large that you almost expect each of his steps to send a reverberation throughout the hall, as if this was Jurassic Park and he's a T-Rex.
"Now, entering the ring with the confidence of a warrior, fighting out of the red corner, with 15 wins, 10 by knockout, and no losses, standing at an astounding 6 feet 9 inches, and weighing in at 310 pounds of raw power, let's hear it for tonight's challenger, ‘Steel Jaw’ Miguel O'Hara!"
Wait what? You do a double take at the announcement. Six foot nine?!?! What kind of giant is that?
From the far corner of the hall, you see his silhouette emerge, and your eyes go wide at the sight of him. Tall doesn't even begin to describe him.
There's a 200 year oak tree at Central Park, and with the shadow this man casts, you think their height must be nearly comparable. If you thought the Knockout King was tall, the "King" is practically tiny compared to this challenger.
You watch, as the man with cheeks so sharp they mind as well be blades (and god never has a nickname made more sense to you) as he strides towards the stage. He reaches the rope and barely even has to climb over it with how tall he is.
He's leaner than his predecessor. Every inch of him is cut muscles and tanned gorgeous skin as he stands in front of you. His presence is electric. The air crackles where he stands, towering over the stage.
You swear that his towering height blocks out the ring lights with it, casting the stage in the darkness of his tall shadow.
Somehow, he's even prettier in person compared to the still image of him blown up and plastered on the big screen. Soft brown curls and pouty lips. You don't understand in what world a man like that is a professional fighter.
From this distance, with the way that the light refracts from his irises, his eyes almost glow with a scarlet red that takes your breath away as you look up at him and meet his eyes.
If you didn't know better, you'd think he was staring at you.
The bell rings out, but he's not looking away. The intensity you find there is enough to make you swallow your tongue. Your face prickles with heat and for several long moments you forget to breathe, until the air seems to thin around you and your vision starts to swim.
Then he turns to face his opponent.
You're not quite sure where to look. There's so much happening at once. For his size, Miguel O'Hara is surprisingly deft on his feet. His footwork is somehow both unpredictable yet intentional all at once.
The King throws a strong punch, as he lunges forward, after his tall opponent. But O'Hara dodges them seemingly without effort. It's followed by punches so quick, the movements blur together.
Strike after strike. The King is giving it his all. But none of it properly connects. With every failed hit, you can see him growing increasingly more frustrated.
Your heart is in your lungs, and despite how close you are to the stage, you almost want to get up from your seat for a closer look.
Safe as you are behind the ropes, adrenaline rushes through your veins with a fury. You can't recall the last time you felt this ecstatic about... well, anything.
With each punch O’Hara dodges, you feel yourself lurch back in your seat, trying to dodge the punch with him.
It's titillating.
Exciting.
O'Hara's movements are precise and honed with intention despite the ferocity in his movements. Each one is measured and intricate and if you didn't know any better you'd almost call it graceful.
You think back to those moments in your childhood friend's home, and his excited words buzz in your ears now. For the first time ever you finally understand what he had meant.
It is like a dance.
Before you, O’Hara's eyes cross over in your direction and for a split of a second, you swear your eyes connect again. His gaze holds you there, pinned to your seat, and excitement shoots through the entirety of your spine until you feel lightheaded from the attention.
Then he finally steps forward, no longer evading.
It's brutal and efficient.
An uppercut that connects cleanly to his opponent's jaw.
Spit and blood flies out from the man's mouth, the flabby flesh of his cheek vibrating from the impact as he lands on the floor with an ear-shattering thud.
Then the guy is out.
Barely even eight minutes in.
There's a stunned and shocked silence. The crowd seems both enthralled and disappointed at how fast it all went. On the ring floor, you can practically see the circle of cartoon birds flying above the defeated King's head.
You may not know anything about boxing, but you know that this man is not getting up anytime soon, no matter how far the referee counts.
Tearing your eyes away from the motionless body splayed out on the ground elevated above you, you can see the victor towering menacingly over the body.
But Miguel O'Hara isn't even looking at his defeated opponent
No, his eyes are staring straight into the sea of awestruck spectators. Except he’s not looking at them.
He's looking at you.
~ Next.
Author's note: What's that you say? CiCi wtf are you doing starting another series when you already got one going on? ... Idek man. But I hope you guys enjoy it, cause I had a blast writing it, smut will ensue in later chapters I promise!
Dedications and Credits: Buckle up it's gonna be a big one!
Firstly to @guruan when I say she's my muse THIS IS WHAT I MEAN! Look at that beautiful artwork. I am drooling into my panties. I am crying between my legs. I am so damn horny! I cannot thank this amazingly talented genius enough. Please please give this wonderful brilliant human your love by following her, and drop by her KO-FI SHOP cause the art this woman bless us with is UN-fucking-REAL
Then to @djarinsbeskar who put this idea into my head. In my mind she is the OG Boxer AU champion and mastermind. If you are in the mood for more boxing content, she has a wonderful, devastatingly sexy series Boxer!Din AU that is just woof woof bark bark.
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