Chapter Text
Miguel stood on top of his platform, scanning multiple different screens, and occasionally checking his watch for incoming calls from any spiders that he sent on missions. Selecting and closing out a couple of the glowing orange screens, Miguel pulled up information on a universe that an anomaly was recently reported in. The report described it as another Green Goblin variant that was mistakenly transported away from its home universe during a fight.
Why anybody was opening multiversal portals whilst fighting a villain was the type of question Miguel had learned to stop asking and just to deal with the problems caused by irresponsible spider people.
Speaking of irresponsible spider people, his advanced hearing picked up on a loud conversation moving closer and closer to the entrance of his office.
The doors to the office slid open with a hiss, revealing the loud group of young spider heroes debating over something.
“I’m just saying that if we had enough web fluid we could totally make a web trampoline!” claimed Miles Morales, finishing off what looked like an empanada from the cafeteria.
“How long would it take to weave together though? I don’t want to spend a whole day weaving thin little webs together” Pavitr replied, making little motions with his hands for emphasis.
“But it would look so sick!! Imagine the air you could catch jumpin—” Miguel cleared his throat loudly to get the attention of the group who entered without any warning in advance. Sure, he could hear them approach, but it was nice to know when his precious peace and quiet was going to be destroyed.
Miguel's platform started its slow descent down as he turned around to face his visitors. The expected group of spiders was there, Miles, Gwen, Hobie, Pativr, Peni, and Noir stood at the ground Miles and Gwen looking up at him while the others occupied themselves with other options.
“What did I say about bothering me without a good purpose?” He commented, his red eyes scanning over the young recruits for any injuries before returning to their usual stare.
“We do have a purpose Miguel, We just came back from capturing an anomaly in Peni’s universe” Gwen replied, her voice confident but the shifting of her feet revealed the nervousness lurking underneath.
“Mhm yeah okay, Congratulations on doing the thing that was expected of you, but that doesn’t explain why you felt the need to interrupt my work?” Miguel snarked as the platform he was standing on came to a stop, still keeping him on higher ground than the others.
He saw Hobie roll his eyes, not trying to hide it at all, then turn back to disconnecting something off of the walls. Hobie apparently couldn’t go anywhere without breaking something to take for himself. Miguel briefly wondered if this happened wherever Hobie went or it was specifically done to annoy him.
“At least we are out there doing something, not brooding in the dark” The punk inspired Spider-Man muttered, smirking at the irritation it caused on Miguel's face.
“I don’t brood”
Hobie shrugged off his response, continuing to dismantle his walls.
“ Anyway,” He hissed, walking closer to the edge of the platform so he could be seen by the others. “ Go find Jessica if you want another mission, or train your skills somewhere that doesn’t get in the way. I have more important things to do.”
Starting to turn his attention back to the multitude of orange screens that displayed various charts and recordings of the multiverse, Miguel's chance of having a peaceful working time was lost as he heard an annoyingly familiar spider's voice.
“Oh come on! Is the vampire trying to avoid talking to people?”
Peter B. Parker launched himself through the door with a web, his daughter Mayday clinging onto his shoulders with wide curious eyes. Giving hugs and saying “Hello” to Miles and the rest of the Spider-Gang, Peter hopped up on the platform to talk to Miguel.
“First off. I’m not a vampire, despite what rumors have been irritatingly spread” Miguel growled, but it didn’t really have any bite behind it. He had gotten used to the teasing and the comments about his talons and fangs, but he still felt a part of him want to press his mouth shut to hide the sharpened canines.
“Vampire or not, you’ve been in this depressingly dark room for days! Do you sleep here or, judging by the eyebags, I’m starting to think you may not even sleep.” Peter smirked, while Miguel just scoffed in return not wanting to entertain the comic rants of the man.
Mayday giggled as she made her way to the top of her dad’s head, Peter picked the kid up bouncing her in his hands making more waves of giggles erupt from her mouth.
She twisted in her dads grip until she was facing Miguel and then proceeded to make grabby hands in his direction.
“Here,” Peter pushed Mayday into Miguel's arms, despite his obvious displeasure at the idea and stretched his arms about his head with a sigh. “M.J couldn’t watch her today so she gets to spend the day with dear old dad. I love her, but carrying a baby around all day is a workout on the arms.”
Miguel could hear the snickers of laughter coming from the teenagers below. He felt his face heat up slightly in embarrassment, but he kept a gentle eye on the bundle of joy as she crawled around his large frame.
“You have advanced strength, holding a child shouldn’t be tiring.” He deadpanned before it clicked in his head that Peter was just doing it to mess with him.
Just as he suspected Peter had a knowing smile on his face as he grabbed his arm to drag Miguel away from his collection of screens and down to the same level with the Spider-Gang. He honestly didn’t understand why they insisted on being called that but the amount of times they went on missions together or where just seen hanging out around HQ as a group most of the spider variants just called them the Spider-Gang.
“You caught me Mig! But in my defense you look like you need a break from this soul sucking darkness and staring at those screens can’t be healthy. I think I read something about radiation? Eh, who cares, maybe you’ll get some cool new power from it.” Peter continued his rambling as he was herding Miguel towards the doorway and nodding for the younger spiders to follow him as well.
Miles walked beside Peter with Gwen on his other side while Pavitr and Hobie walked slightly ahead of the group. Peni road inside Sp//dr with Noir sitting on Sp//dr’s shoulder fidgeting with his rubik's cube.
The group walked through the pathways of the headquarters, each of them having their own conversations, interacting with the different Spider people as they passed, laughing and joking around. Miguel didn’t speak during the walk, choosing to zone in and out to Peter and Miles' conversation but never contributing himself.
His eyes looked around the chaotic architecture of the headquarters that was crowded with Spider variants, the conversations of the others fading into white noise as he retreated into his thoughts. Darting between if the anomalies were being sent to their universes to thinking about who to send if a new threat decided to show itself, Miguel slowly started into a spiral of “What if?” scenarios and what he would do to prevent them.
Even after dealing with the chaos caused by Spot there could still be a new threat being built in an alternate universe out there and it was his job to deal with it once it bared its fangs.
Fangs
He ran his tongue across the sharp points of his strange teeth. As much as he denied it, they did make him look like some vampire villain. It wasn’t just his teeth it was his whole appearance, scary red eyes, sharp curled talons, and the fact that if he didn’t stop himself he could actually growl like a monster.
Miguel was snapped out of his quickly spiraling thoughts by Peter B. Parker draping an arm over his shoulders while continuing to talk to Miles and Gwen.
“Migs here would love to show you the ropes! Right?” Peter said, turning towards Miguel with a hopeful expression on his face.
The hopeful expression was met with confusion, as he had no idea what Peter was trying to get him to say or do. Maybe he should have been listening to the conversation.
“Um.. I guess I could? Maybe just a bit,” He thought that if his response was vague enough it wouldn’t count as him agreeing to anything permanent. “When would this happen exactly?”
Peter's face lit up at his response and he quickly turned back over to Miles and Gwen. “ See! Miguel is going to be a great teacher! Doing training with him will improve your spider-man-ing skills, he may not be as great a mentor as me, but he knows some things”
“Wait. What? Training?” Miguel was entirely confused on what he had just been volunteered to do. He didn’t have time to teach, he had his responsibilities to monitor the multiverse.
Miles Morales didn’t look all that excited either butting in with his own comment, “I don’t know. Maybe Jessica or someone else could help us, I don’t think Miguel has the time to do training. You probably have some more important stuff to do right?” He briefly held out his hands to gesture towards Miguel, who was now starting to piece together the situation.
He was about to respond to Miles when Peter cut him off.
“You can get someone to stand there and watch those screens for a few hours right? It can’t be that hard to do. Plus! I think a little time with some member of the Spider-Gang might bring out a new side of you, hopefully a more funny side” Peter muttered in the last part quickly while giving Miguel a playful nudge with his elbow
“I guess it might be fun.” Gwen added in, though she didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about it as Peter was.
“That's the spirit! You’ll start tomorrow, is that good?” Peter announced to get the attention of the rest of the group. The others gave scattered nods and hesitant words of agreement to the plan, none of them really eager to work with their boss.
Apparently, everyone was a part of this discussion except Miguel himself.
Now he had agreed to train a bunch of kids tomorrow.
Great.