Chapter Text
Falling in love was that one all-consuming, yet entirely inexplicable experience that Miles had been waiting to come find him since he could remember. Whenever he thought of uncle Aaron, Miles would fondly remember their late night conversations on the matter, the light-hearted teasing, and the times his uncle would try— and fail— to teach him how to flirt.
Miles tried to convince himself that almost everyone he found himself attracted to was going to be that special person. Could anyone blame him? He grew up around love, from his parents version, to his uncle’s version. All Miles knew, was that he was sure he would know when it happened.
And then it happened. And Miles didn’t know, not at first.
The first time Miles found himself in love it was during the summer.
It was a classic summer of the 2010’s. The first summer of Miles’s three month break from his new school, the first summer after saving the collapse of the multiverse, and the first time where one of his friends came to visit him since. The only thing was, out of all the friends Miles had made along the way, the first to visit him was the last he was expecting.
Miles yelped as he was set off balance from the rooftop edge he was, admittedly, very precariously holding his ground on. He felt the familiar gust of wind currents enveloping his body from around his suit as Miles let himself free fall from the city’s building, waiting until it was the right moment to dart his wrist around and shoot a web up to another rooftop.
Miles latched onto the string of his web, guiding his trajectory as he found his footing again, this time while in the air. He had been out on one of his usual patrols that Miles had developed a habit of doing more consistently these days, starting to create a more responsible pattern between living under the Spider-Man mask and letting his teenage self live ordinary.
And, as part of the routine of living under the mask, Miles, of course, ran into a villain on the streets. The villain was truthfully nothing more than a Villain of The Week, but the thing that was dragging this fight out for so unnecessarily long was the fact that this villain was fast.
“Damn, you’re a slippery one,” Miles called out as he detached from his web string, flipping himself in the air when dodging a hit from his opponent.
The things miles had assessed about his opponent: he was fast and could fly. Those were two of Miles’s least favourite things to deal with.
Miles let himself fall for another three seconds, getting himself just low enough before firing another web and shooting himself back up in the air. He felt good about this. Sure, his opponent was difficult to catch, but Miles’s head was in the game and his senses were sharp.
Which was why Miles had almost no excuse for not noticing that he was about to swing himself face first into a collision with the villain, until their bodies were mere inches away.
“Oh, no.” Miles’s face dropped, voice levelling into a deadpanned monotone as his eyes began to slowly close when he winced, bracing himself for the aching his body was going to endure all throughout the next week after this.
Miles sucked in a breath, eyes almost completely squeezed shut, point of impact almost painstakingly reached-
And then webs that were not Miles’s own were shot from beyond his field of vision, enclosing around the villain and suddenly knocking him out of Miles’s path. His eyes flew open then, immediate confusion flashing in his mind, before his saviour came into view.
Attached to an almost identical string of web, connected to a mirroring building to Miles’s own, another Spider-Man came swinging past, directly opposite him. Miles’s eyes blew wide, and just for a second the world around him seemed to slow, zeroing in on this fleeting moment as a masked face similar to his aligned with him, only an arms length away, as the two swung past each other.
And it felt like the first time Miles laid eyes on the other.
They locked gazes and Miles registered the familiar red and blue suit. He instantly picked up on those sharp spikes, set like a crown atop of the other Spider-Man’s head, and would recognise each intricate piece of punk jewellery scattered around the other’s body anywhere.
Hobie.
The name rung out in Miles head with just enough time for him to notice the thrill that shot through his body like an electric spark, travelling through his chest and sending his heart off beat for only a moment. And then the speed of the world came crashing back on Miles at full force as Hobie continued swinging by, aiming two more securing webs around the villain’s body, before landing flawlessly on the ground.
Miles blinked. Then he shook his head and remembered how to breathe as he flicked his wrist out and begun swinging himself to the ground with Hobie and Miles’s newly obtained, and most definitely unconscious, villain.
As he swung down Miles watched as Hobie seemed to inspect the villain, making sure his web restraints were on solid enough before appearing pleased, nodding to himself just as Miles’s feet made contact with the backstreet, empty road they were on.
“Hobie!” Miles was saying around a grin before he was even thinking about it.
The sight of the older boy before him was shooting small flickers of excitement all throughout Miles’s body, and his elation was becoming overpowering. He could only walk forward towards the other with a masked smile.
Hobie stood tall, just as perfectly confident as Miles remembered, as the older Spider-Man adjusted his guitar strap.
“Long time no see, Morales,” Miles could hear the slight smile in Hobie’s voice, paired with the subtle tilt of his head, and while Miles couldn’t see the other’s eyes through his mask, he knew they were trained solely on him.
It made his stomach swoop, like the feeling of a hundred soft feathers gently scratching at the edges of his stomach were crashing through him like a waterfall, until it was sinking down to his knees. Miles breathed, no words coming to mind as he drowned in the feeling. The feeling was still new, marking itself on him like a fresh wound that Miles was still getting used to, waiting for it to heal.
The last time he had felt it was months ago, during the chaos of fighting to save his Dad, while simultaneously fighting to save the multiverse. The last time Miles had felt it, he had been with Hobie. Though, at the time Miles’s mind was torn between focusing on too many things that he had never allowed himself the moment to sink into the feeling, letting it wrap around his entire body like an ice capsule, freezing him in the moment and forcing him to think about what it meant.
Now, time was as still as ice and Miles didn’t know what this feeling was.
So he continued to smile, stopping now only a few feet away from the other and pulled his mask from his face to let Hobie see him, skin and all, hoping to prompt the older to do the same. And he did. Following Miles’s action, Hobie tugged his own face free, and there Miles could see that familiar slight smirk curling at his lips.
“What are you doing here?” Miles asked, smile unrelenting, feeling as though he wouldn’t yet be able to wipe it from his face if he tried.
Hobie gave a half shrug. “Checking on my mate.” He looked down to Miles’s unconscious villain. “Good thing I did too, yeah?”
Miles pursed his lips in an awkward smile. “I had him.”
“I know.”
Miles glanced back to Hobie, faltering for a moment when he noticed the other already looking at him. He fell quite as Hobie’s eyes trailed along the shorter’s face, slow, almost languid, and Miles tried to focus on anything but it. He felt suddenly nervous under the other’s gaze, watching the way Hobie’s eyes moved across every feature of his and knowing he was being seen in detail.
That was confronting, it made Miles feel naked, all his thoughts leaving him but one, as he could only process the fact that Hobie’s eyes were fixed on him like he was the only sight in the world to look at. Suddenly, Miles was reconsidering putting the mask back on. He didn’t know why it was only Hobie’s gaze that had all the thoughts from his mind leaving in an instant.
Maybe it was because Miles had been completely entranced the moment Hobie Brown came crashing into his field of vision, both masked and unmasked. Miles thought him the coolest person he’d ever met and made that very known. He was used to being the one staring at Hobie, unaware of how breathtaking it felt to be under Hobie’s gaze.
Was this how Hobie felt the entire time during the fight to save the multiverse, because Miles couldn’t pull his eyes from him?
Hobie’s gaze made its way back up to Miles’s, casual as ever.
“Been usin’ your palms?” He asked.
Miles huffed a laugh with a roll of his eyes. “Yes, actually.”
“Good,” Hobie gave Miles a nod, eyes half lidded in a calm expression of approval.
—“Hey. Hey. Palms.”
The palms of his hands. Of course, Miles now knew how to exploit his electricity by using the full width of his hands, and he only knew that thanks to Hobie. Miles only managed a lot of things back at Miguel’s HQ thanks to Hobie. If it weren’t for the other, there was that unimaginable chance that Miles would have been too late to save his dad.
He hadn’t known what to think of Hobie at first. He was torn between feeling replaced as a friend in Gwen’s life, the stubborn admiration Miles’s was instantly forming for him and the charm of Hobie that had Miles unwillingly liking him much too fast for comfort at the time. Then Hobie proved to be the only person in the entire multiverse to have his back when Miles needed someone the most.
And that was the first time Miles felt the feeling that Hobie gave him.
The one that had a warmth spreading throughout him, like Hobie had lit a fire in him, the flames burning at the bones of his rib cage and warming his heart. The feeling lingered until the battle ended. And now, with Hobie standing before him, it was clear that feeling was still present.
Miles wasn’t surprised that he felt so comfortable and safe with Hobie anymore. He was an anomaly— the original anomaly— and Hobie was an anarchist. Of all the relationships that Miles could form with people, Hobie was the one person who was built to last.
Miles was a disruption to the norm and Hobie never conformed to normalcy in the first place.
“How long do you plan on sticking around? Or was this just a quick visit?” Miles asked, shaking himself from his thoughts. He was hoping it was the latter, waiting anxiously to know how much time he could steal with Hobie.
“I have the day,” Hobie answered, before giving the villain still tied up with webs on the ground a small kick. “We get this one dealt with, then I’m all yours.”
Miles nodded finding the need to swallow hard for a moment. “Cool! Yeah.”
So they did. And then, true to Hobie’s word, they spent the rest of the day together, travelling around Mile’s Brooklyn on foot till sundown, before starting to swing from rooftops, finding the best one. The swung, and walked, and talked and it was nice.
Hobie was familiar.
But the feelings that were stirring within Miles upon seeing him again weren’t.
After the multiverse was restored with minimum casualties Miles’s life went back to being the same friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man that he was, more than all, meant to be.
But, things changed too. Miles had his birthday pass, turning sixteen, he’d gone to the new school that his parents were so originally reluctant to let him leave to. School had recently ended, he’d come back home to Brooklyn to stay with his parents for the summer holidays.
He revealed his identity as Spider-Man to them both.
It was a month of not hearing anything for him friends across the spider-verse, like they all promised they would do better at, before Miles got his first visit. And it was from Hobie, of all people.
Miles had thought that visit had been a one off. After all, his friends were busy with their own lives, in their own dimensions, fixing all their old problems and the new. Miles couldn’t expect them to visit all the time.
So as the days passed since Hobie’s visit, Miles was left feeling content. The two had spent the entire day together, hours upon hours of simply talking and laughing with one another as they aimlessly traced the city. It was like Hobie had planted a seed so deep into his heart that Miles wasn’t sure he could pull it out even if he wanted to.
The seed bloomed around his chest when Mile’s felt it squeeze during the times he would think of Hobie’s smile and the taller’s snarky remarks about every last issue he had with his world. Mindless smiles would tug at Miles’s lips whenever a memory of the day they spent together would creep into his mind while he filled the following days with activities that kept him occupied on his lonesome.
But before the petal soft feeling could fade with time, Hobie was back three days later.
This time Miles was in his room. He was sitting at his desk by the window, sketchbook splayed out with a pen in hand as he hummed under his breath while he drew. His hands naturally found a flow in drawing lines that moulded into shapes, until it finished in a portrait of a familiar figure with intricate jewellery and exactly ten piercings.
And, really, could anyone blame him for drawing Hobie? The older Spider-Man was just so cool.
Any artist who met Hobie Brown would be itching for their pencils and paintbrushes the second the laid eyes on him, just waiting for the chance to pull out their sketch book. It didn’t matter how long the wait was before he could get Hobie down on appear, because the brunette was a sight incapable of leaving one’s mind until they had exhausted his image on every canvas the world had to offer.
And Miles had.
After everything settled and he was back home in Brooklyn-1610, Miles’s life seemed quiet compared to the chaos of an impending multiverse collapse. He was bored and missed his friends, and art had always been something Miles used to express the affections he held for all his friends when missing them. But when he started to draw Hobie it felt different.
Sometimes Miles would finish a sketch, his busy hands and focused mind slowing back into reality and he would stare down at the face looking back at him, and, suddenly, Miles couldn’t look at it for anymore than a few seconds. But he never stopped. Because Hobie never left his mind.
The other felt too imprinted on his mind, like a branded burn mark, and Miles thought he didn’t have the capacity to hold the memory of Hobie just within the bounds of his head. It was too big. So he took him out of his head and put him on paper, but then Miles hands got used to the patterns of Hobie’s outfits, became familiar with the sharp and soft lines of his features and perfected his hair.
Miles had tried to give his mind room to breathe thoughts that weren’t Hobie, but instead engraved him into muscle memory as well.
The thought of Hobie was consuming both Miles’s body and mind, and he wondered if this was what all those classic romance novels he was forced to read at the academy meant when they quoted their love interest consuming them by mind, body and soul.
Miles violently shook his head, snapping himself free from going down that line of thought. The abrupt movement caused his hand to jerk, trailing a misplaced line over his sketch. He froze, looking down at his ruined sketch, before slumping back in his chair and releasing a heavy sigh.
“Man,” he mumbled in annoyance. He could feel a headache coming on if he wasn’t careful and didn’t shut off his mind soon. If only it was that easy.
And then Miles heard a knock at his window.
He frowned, titling his head to the side, where he was leaning it on the back of his chair, glancing out his empty window. The knock was only quiet, and singular, but he was sure he had heard it. Miles waited quietly for one more second, listening carefully, and then somewhere distantly he thought he could hear someone calling his name.
Miles got to his feet, pushing his chair back as he walked over to his window, tucking both hands under the bottom before sliding it completely open. He waited in silence again, scanning his eyes along the streets outside his window, because he was completely confident that he had heard his name.
“Miles!”
Miles snapped his head up, the voice louder and closer this time, and Miles had that rich British accent recognised like the palm of his hand by now. He blinked with wide, curious eyes, watching as Hobie came swinging out from a string the appeared to be attached to Miles’s roof, before swinging back in a direct line for Miles’s open window.
“Uh- hold up!” Miles gasped, eyes widening in panic as he hurriedly stepped back before Hobie could swing through and crash into him.
But before that happened, Hobie got to Miles window and reached his hands through first, hanging upside as used his feet to keep a grip on the web. Hobie’s hands found place on either side of Miles’s neck, fingers curling carefully gentle, but firm when clinging onto him as he used Miles to make himself come to a stop.
The force pulled Miles forward, making him stumble a step back towards the window, just as Hobie came to an abrupt halt in front of him. Miles released a breath he didn’t know he was holding, staring down at an upside Hobie with confused eyes.
“What the- What was that?” Miles accused.
Hobie was unmasked, so Miles didn’t have to imagine the lopsided smile that curved at his lips as he stared back up at Miles like this was something they had done a thousand times over.
“Good to see you, too, Morales.”
Morales.
God, that nickname that Hobie used for Miles never failed to not just pass over Miles’s mind like any other word. It stuck. Replaying in his head like a broken record on loop and it was slowly driving Miles insane, he just thought he wouldn’t have to hear it again since the fight of the multiverse ended.
But now it was back because Hobie was back and both Hobie and his nickname did not help the way Hobie overwhelmed him.
“Yeah, just a little surprised to see you swing that fast towards me,” Miles mumbled as Hobie started to get down.
The taller detached from his webs, flipping the right way up as he dropped his legs into Miles’s room, sliding in. The hands on Miles’s neck was the last to go, as they only began to slip from the shorter’s skin once Hobie was walking into the room. One hand stayed lingering in a delicate touch that traced a line across Miles’s neck, as light as a leaf being carried by the wind across the ground, before it fell back to Hobie’s side.
Hobie strode into his room, and Miles’s neck felt like it had a burn wrapped around it.
“You’re back,”Miles greeted properly this time, the shock from earlier wearing off.
“Problem with it?”
“No, no! I just didn’t expect to see you back so soo-” Miles started rushing into reassurance, before stopping midway, seeing the assumed glint in Hobie’s eyes as he glanced back at him. “And, you’re messing with me,” Miles sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat.
“Nice room,” Hobie directed the conversation elsewhere as he scanned the space, hands tucked comfortably in his pockets while he made slow steps around the room.
Miles watched him closely, suddenly every last detail of his room that he could think he would have hidden if he had more time was flying to the front of his mind as he prayed Hobie didn’t spot anything embarrassing.
“Thank you.”
Hobie twisted his lips as he eyed Miles’s desk with consideration and Miles was a second too late in following Hobie’s line of sight to remember the sketch he had open from working on it a few minutes ago. Hobie made two effortlessly long strides to Miles’s desk, hand reaching for the book and the shorter felt panic shoot down through him, pooling in his stomach.
“Oh, uh! Don’t look at that!” Miles floundered, taking a frantic step forward.
But Hobie only spun around, holding the book out of Miles’s reach as he devoted his complete attention to Miles’s latest page.
Hobie hummed and Miles could feel the pounding of his heart growing with each silent second that passed by, heat raising to his cheeks. He clamped his mouth shut, not wanting to make this situation anymore embarrassing than it was turning out to be.
But then Hobie looked over his shoulder, enough for Miles to finally see his face. The younger sucked in a sharp breath, face already awkwardly scrunching. But the expression he was met with from Hobie wasn’t what Miles was expecting.
Hobie’s gaze weighed down on him, somehow heavier than it usually felt, yet softer than Miles had ever seen it. Miles released a quite breath. The taller’s face was calm, no hint of anything uncomfortable pinching at his expression as it remained gentle. Even with the upturned corner of Hobie’s mouth that Miles could plainly see was tinted with an edge of smugness, his eyes still gleamed with soft satisfaction.
“You draw me well. Though I don’t know why you put a random line through it,” Hobie tagged on as he teased Miles, voice filled with mirth.
Miles blinked and slowly the tension in his body begun to fade. It was instead replaced with the warm feeling of his and Hobie’s usual lighthearted banter. He rolled his eyes, snatching the book back from the other’s grip and this time Hobie let him, eyes trailing him the entire time Miles tucked it into the nearest drawer.
“Thought you’d look better with it.”
“Nice to know you draw me thinking of how to make me look good.” Hobie’s head was titled, wearing an easy grin.
Miles wished he could keep such perfect composure, so breezily countering any remark he was thrown. Hobie did it so well and it curled around Miles stomach each time.
“You free right now?” Hobie changed the topic just as smoothly.
Welcoming the change Miles nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t have any plans for today.”
“Good.” Hobie jerked his head towards Miles’s open window. “Come take a swing with me. Show off some more of your art skills.”
Hobie was already walking back towards the window before Miles could immediately respond. “Huh? How am I meant to draw while swinging?”
But Hobie was already slipping on his mask and dropping out the window, deciding not to deign Miles with a response apparently. He stood there, paused in his room for all of one second before snapping himself out of his stupor and hurriedly changing into his suit so that he could catch up to Hobie.
As it turned out, Miles managed to catch up to Hobie half a minute later, finding him waiting on top of one of the nearer rooftops for Miles. Then the older led the direction of their swing around the city until he noticed them reaching the back, more secluded parts, with empty roads and graffitied canvases.
The two ended up inside a tunnel, finding a blank space on the old concrete wall before Hobie pulled out spray cans from the back that Miles hadn’t noticed him carrying before. Was Hobie planning on seeing Miles to do this today regardless of finding his sketches earlier? That would mean Hobie remembered Miles’s love of art and thought to see him just for it.
That thought made Miles unexplainably pleased, a comforting warmth starting to swirl around his stomach that felt nothing like the panic that had sat there twenty minutes prior.
Hobie stood back, looking over the empty space that they had to work with, before turning his gaze down to Miles. The shorter met his eyes, waiting, anticipating. No matter how ordinary the moments the two shared between them were, for some inexplicable reason Miles always felt like he was anticipating something when holding the other’s gaze.
Sometimes, because of that, Miles couldn’t look for long, or he felt like he’d get so lost in Hobie’s deep brown that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back out. Miles wasn’t sure if falling into them or never getting close enough to risk it was worse.
“Go on then,” Hobie prompted, gesturing to the wall. “Impress me.”
Impress me.
It didn’t feel like a challenge, but more an expectation that Miles was abruptly ready to reach. Those words— Hobie’s wish for Miles to achieve— struck a cord within him, something rooting deep within the few things that Miles desired, and right now Miles desired to do just that. Impress Hobie.
He picked up a yellow spray can, Hobie picking up an orange, and then on two sides of the same blank canvas they begun to create their own art. The tunnel’s silence was filled with their conversation, from random thoughts that danced around their minds, to stories of being Spider-Man. Miles’s time under the mask seemed so different to Hobie’s with the stories he was told from the other, but strangely Miles loved that.
Hobie was his own variation of Spider-Man, the non-conformist, anarchist that didn’t take any bullshit from what he didn’t believe in. And Miles was the anomaly Spider-Man. They worked. Miles loved that.
“Okay,” Miles announced, stepping back from the wall and letting the empty spray can drop to the ground. He looked over his finished work with an appreciating nod, proud of the outcome.
Hobie glanced over at him then, stepping back from his own work as he directed his focus onto Miles. Miles looked over to him, nodding his head towards his work with a confident line drawn in his lips.
“Whaddya think?”
Hobie’s eyes fell to Miles’s side of the wall, tracing over the black, yellow and green lines of Miles’s art that had come together to create an old school record player in the middle of large sunflowers growing out from the cracks in it. Hobie’s eyes lit up with approval, nodding with an admiring smile, as though treasuring the sight that was crafted by Miles’s hands and mind alike.
It made the pride within himself swell.
“Nice work, Morales,” Hobie complimented around a grin. “Like sunflowers?”
Miles shrugged. “It’s from a song a like.”
“I like it.” Hobie’s gaze tore away from the wall and fixed itself on Miles. Miles willed himself to not look away so soon.
“Your’s is really cool, too.” Miles glanced to Hobie’s work. A large, messy, hateful social comment in the form of art on capitalism. It was very Hobie. Miles liked it. “As most things are with you, though.”
Hobie’s grin stretched a little further on the left side of his mouth where his lip piercing was as he shot Miles a gleaming look. “Thanks, Sunflower.”
Miles paused, eyes shooting wide as he blinked at Hobie, caught off guard by the new nickname.
“‘Sunflower’?” He echoed.
Hobie gave a nod, before a shrug, then swooped down and swung his backpack over his shoulder. “Suits you.”
The older begun walking past Miles, back the way they came to leave the tunnel. He got a few steps before pausing, looking expectantly back to Miles.
“You comin’?”
Miles lips were parted, the sound of his heart beating softly in his ear, from where he could feel it heavily in his chest. He closed his mouth, the gentle swirling of warmth in his stomach shifting into a pleased electricity that sparked under his skin.
“Yeah. Yes.”
Hobie waited for Miles to walk in place beside him before starting again himself. It was already dark outside by the time they left, yet another full day spent within the company of one another.
“You know, now that I think about it I’ve never been to your dimension before. And I’ve know you for- what? Like, over two months now?” Miles mentioned, after swallowing a large bite of his burger.
“To be fair,” Hobie started, “That first month and a bit was filled with savin’ the multiverse, and then radio silence before I came to visit you for the first time.”
Miles hummed in contemplation as he took another bite of his food, swinging his legs. “True.”
The sky had fallen into night, giving way to the scarce stars in the sky that were nothing more than a few glittering specs from where Miles and Hobie could see. They were perched on top of a rooftop, the same rooftop that they decided was their favourite since the first day that Hobie spent in Miles’s dimension with the shorter showing him around. Now, this rooftop was theirs. Their spot.
Miles had his legs dangled over the edge, mindlessly swinging them back in forth with one hand rested in his lap, the other clutching the takeaway burgers they had stopped by the nearest restaurant to obtain fifteen minutes earlier. Hobie was beside him, with only one leg slipped over the edge, his other knee tucked up to his chest where he was resting one arm.
“You’ll have to come visit me first sometime,” Hobie challenged, titling his head towards Miles.
“I never get the chance,” Miles complained with a quite chuckle around the words.
Hobie raised an eyebrow. “No one’s stoppin’ you.”
Miles shrugged half-heartedly. “You always manage to visit so soon! There’s never really enough time left between you coming and going for me to decide it’s been too long since I last saw you and make the move myself.”
That one visit from Hobie back from a few weeks ago now was a one off, that turned into a visit three days later, that now, three weeks later, had turned into a part of Miles’s life. It wasn’t routinely, Hobie didn’t stick to consistent visits that Miles’s could predict. But Miles was always anticipating if the day he woke up would be one that would find Hobie breaking into his room or finding him on patrol around the city.
Sometimes Hobie would visit his dimension multiple days in a row, other times it’d be every other day that Miles spent with Hobie around Brooklyn. And more recently, there would be times where the two would find themselves too tired after a full day packed to the brim of one another’s company, being Spider-Man and travelling wherever the day took them, so Hobie begun to stay the night.
Miles’s parents never knew, they weren’t even aware of who it was that Miles was spending all his time with on the first month of his summer break. Miles wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told them, he was almost certain that they would be more than thrilled to learn he had more friends around than Ganke. But subconsciously, Miles was protecting the memories of his and Hobie’s frequent days, keeping them locked away like they were a secret
As far as Miles knew, not a soul in the multiverse had knowledge of the friendship that he and Hobie had grown into over the last few weeks. No one knew who graffitied all those sunflowers down in Brooklyn’s backstreet tunnels, no one knew who was the second Spider-Man spotted swinging around the city with Miles, no one knew about the long subway rides and the across the city travels.
Just like no one knew about this rooftop being theirs. As much as this was their spot, as the weeks passed and Miles could spot more and more traces of Hobie across his city, Brooklyn was also becoming theirs.
He didn’t think anyone else needed to know, the days were just for them, after all.
“You tellin’ me to play hard to get with seeing you, Miles?” Hobie teased, putting on a serious tone, but Miles could still spot the mirth in it.
Miles leaned over and nudged his shoulder to Hobie’s with a roll of his eyes and a closed-lip, lopsided smile. “You know what I mean.”
Hobie sniffed. “I think you’re tellin’ me to play hard to get with you.”
Miles chuckled and Hobie released an amused breath. “I’ll come one day?” Miles offered.
“You better. I didn’t give you that watch for nothin’.”
Yes, the watches that Hobie had made for the few spider people that had earned his trust after everything settled, giving them all a way to stay in inter-dimensional touch with one another. Miles had his, had never taken it off, in fact. But had also never used it.
After the events of what happened, Miles didn’t want to be the first to see the others. He wanted to make sure that they all really were changing, since leaving him behind with no way of contacting him, only to find out all of them had a mission to erase Miles when he finally got the chance to reunite. From Gwen to Peter B. and all the others, they promised not to leave him with radio silence again.
So far, Hobie was the only one to keep up with that promise.
But, strangely, Miles didn’t mind so much that he hadn’t heard anything from the other’s yet, when his weeks were filled with the now familiar company of Hobie. Hobie was like the sun in a way, one singular place in the worlds existence, but even on just its own created the days that went by from simply shining, that the world didn’t need anymore than it to light the entire expanse of a day. And just like the sun, Miles grew to expect that Hobie would be back to see him like he knew that the sun would rise again after each day.
“You staying the night?” Miles asked. The two had finished their burgers and Hobie was shifting himself to throw both legs over the rooftop’s edge, before laying down on his back with his hands folded behind his head.
The older closed his eyes and hummed with an affirmative nod. “If that’s cool?”
“It’s cool,” Miles said almost immediately, but Hobie didn’t seem to notice anything off in the speed of Miles’s response, and he thanked that Hobie crashing at his after the particularly longer days was becoming more usual for them.
Hobie was starting to become a familiar presence in his bed when Miles fell asleep at night. And Miles liked those nights.
He liked the warmth of the older Spider-Man felt so close that Miles thought he could soon recognise him by the heat of his body if ever he became blind. Miles liked the comforting weight of their backs pressed flushed against one another when they slept facing away from each other, just as much as he liked his head being cushioned on the arm Hobie sprawled out across the pillow when they slept facing one another.
“Any new Spider-Man developments?” Miles heard Hobie say from his spot on the floor and his voice broke the younger from his thoughts.
He glanced down and back to Hobie, knowing the other was referring to his electricity. Hobie had taken a specific liking to Miles’s electric ability since being the first person to help him improve it, and was always interested in seeing Miles’s growth with it since.
“Nah, nothing more than you’ve already seen.”
“Shame.”
“Hey, Hobie. Can I actually ask you something?” Miles shifted himself to tuck one leg up, resting it on the ground as he turned his body to face Hobie a little more directly.
“Mm.” Hobie peaked an eye open.
“How did you know to use my palms. I mean, when we first met. You saw me charging up to break through to The Spot for all of a few seconds, and that was all you needed to know my strengths and weaknesses?”
Hobie opened both eyes, holding Miles’s gaze as he casually pursed his lips for a moment. “I just notice these things. Also been Spider-Man for longer than you, so I suppose with time it becomes second nature to pick out flaws of every person when you’re used to doin’ it for targets.”
Miles nodded as he took a second to glance away, back to looking over the city view. “That makes sense.”
Hobie eyed him closely, seemingly considering something for a moment before he continued speaking, drawing Miles’s gaze back to him. “Plus, you can also think about basic assumptions.”
Hobie untucked one of the arms behind his head, slipped his fingers around Miles’s wrist and pulled his hand up. Miles let Hobie handle him freely, confused, yet curious as to what Hobie was leading into.
Hobie held Miles’s palm out flat, before sliding his grip from the younger’s wrist to align his finger tips with Miles’s own. Miles felt the tips of his fingers tingle from that small point of contact, his mind incapable of focusing anywhere else.
“You use your hands like this and it’s clear you have the entire rest of your fingers and palms not contributin’ anythin’,” Hobie explained, voice low with the quite of the night from the way the city sounded distant all the way up here.
Hobie flattened his hand down on Miles’s, until the length of their fingers were trailing one another and their palms were flushed together. Miles’s breath caught in his throat.
“You use your hands like this, and all that electricity in your fingertips is bein’ spread across the entire width of your hands. Nothin’ but an easy guess, Miles.”
Hobie’s hands were much larger than Miles’s, he noticed, when he was suddenly confronted with a direct comparison, the bottom of taller’s palm ghosting at his wrist. They were also rough, not calloused, but scarred with years of injuries and Miles found himself captivated by the feeling, bound into a fixated need to absorb every last detail of Hobie’s hands.
“Right,” Miles remembered to speak after a few seconds, but his eyes never strayed from their hands and his voice sounded far away.
But Hobie didn’t pull back just yet. Instead, the older slid his hand up, their palms moving across one another and Miles only realised then that Hobie’s hands were both rough and soft around different places. He stopped his hand when the bottom of his palm was finally aligned with Miles’s and the tops of his fingers stood above the younger’s.
Miles only watched, eyes tracking every movement of Hobie’s hand. His fingers reached to the top knuckle joint of the older’s, and then, seeming to notice the same information, Hobie curved the top of his fingers, bending them down until they were enclosing around the tops of Miles’s own.
“Hm,” Hobie hummed and Miles’s eyes finally left their hands, pulling away from the sight as though the older’s voice, however minute, was a calling he was simply unable to ignore.
Hobie’s eyes were still on their hands, watching them inquisitively, curiously. He gave Miles’s fingers a quick squeeze, before he was pulling his hand back, once again dropping behind his head and letting Miles’s fall away with it.
“Well,” Miles began, filling the silence before he could let his mind spiral with the feeling of Hobie’s hand tracing up his own, curving over his fingers and squeezing him. “Thanks for the advice. I don’t think I ever thanked you.”
Hobie clicked his his tongue, an easygoing smile pulling at his lips. “I didn’t do it for your gratitude.”
Miles laughed, shoulders relaxing as he looked back to the city. “I know.”
Miles was sitting slouched against the headboard of his bed a few nights later, flipping through the pages of his old sketch book, when he heard a thump land in his room.
He looked up, eyes calmly glancing over the page of his book, expecting the only person to suddenly appear in his room to be Hobie. But what Miles wasn’t expecting was the state that Hobie was in.
“Hobie!”
His eyes widened, fear shooting up through his spine and sending the hairs on the back of his neck into standing as he immediately darted upright. Hobie was standing near his window, chest rising up and down in rapid breaths as he heaved, his suit ripped and torn with streaks of dirt, and both new and old blood stains scattered across him. Miles’s eyes were instantly racing across the other’s body, rapidly scanning and picking up each injury.
But what caught the younger’s attention the most was the gash across Hobie’s stomach that was much deeper than the rest, creating a thick tear through his suit, still leaking with blood and thankfully the only injury that looked to be that deep.
“Holy- Hobie what happened?” Miles exclaimed, voice raised with tension as he sprung from his bed rushing to the other’s side.
“Miles. Morales. Good to see you, too.” Hobie pulled off his mask. His voice was nonchalant, but his body betrayed him as he tried taking a step forward and ended up stumbling over his feet.
Miles sped up, his fast reflexes getting him to Hobie in time to catch the taller as he collapsed into Miles’s arms. Hobie grunted, hands grasping at Miles’s biceps to steady himself, and the younger realised Hobie was trying to push himself back up.
“Woah, woah!” Miles slid his hands around Hobie’s back, forcing the other to lean his weight down on him, despite the difficulty of the difference in their height. “Easy.”
He heard Hobie huff a breath of faint amusement, before immediately feeling the other’s stomach retract to the abrupt movement as a hiss escaped through Hobie’s teeth.
“You got medical supplies, yeah?” Hobie spoke, slow and rough, yet his tone was the same as always. Miles wasn’t sure how he could be so normal about this when Miles was feeling the concern for Hobie sinking into him so bone deep that it was almost making him sick to see the other like this.
“Yeah, yes!” Miles rushed out, willing himself to focus and stay calm.
He was Spider-Man, he’s dealt with injuries before. Hobie needed him. Miles hadn’t dealt with that before.
“Um.” Miles’s eyes darted around his room, looking for a place to settle Hobie while he got the first aid kit he had stored under his bed, before his eyes landed on his desk beside them. “Okay, just, lean on this for a second,” Miles instructed as he shifted them both closer to his desk.
Hobie unwrapped his arms from the shorter, instead grasping tightly at the edge of Miles’s desk with his hands until the colour in his knuckles drained into white. Once settling Hobie against his desk, Miles quickly rushed back to his bed, immediately crouching down and taking ahold of the first aid kit handle, before pulling it out and up with him as he made his way back to Hobie.
He placed the kit on the table, coming to stand behind Hobie where he had his back to him, the taller leaning his front on Miles’s desk. He hovered for a second, unsure of how to proceed, before Hobie saved him to trouble and spoke first.
“A little help gettin’ outta the suit?” Hobie turned his head slightly over his shoulder, enough to glance at Miles.
Miles blinked dumbly for a moment. “What?”
“You need to get my stomach wound cleaned, yeah? I need outta the suit for that, and right now I think I just might collapse if I take one of my hands off here.”
“Right! Yeah, of course.” Miles forced himself to get a grip, shaking his head as he stepped closer to Hobie, raising both hands.
His fingers felt for the small zipper at nape of Hobie’s suit, before pinching it and pulling it down. The first pull was sharp, one singular motion that made a small break between both sides of the suit, causing Miles to pause for a moment as the reality of pulling down Hobie’s suit came crashing into him. It poked at his stomach in small knots, and made him work with hesitant hands.
Miles internally slapped himself back into focus. Hobie was in pain and needed medical treatment. Miles didn’t have to be weird about this.
He clenched the zipper between his fingers once more and continued the trail down Hobie’s back, he moved slow and careful, not wanting it to get stuck or risk causing the other anymore pain. Miles slid it down over Hobie’s spine, eyes moving with the zipper as more and more of the older’s skin was unveiled.
He zipped it down over the curve of Hobie’s waist and the dip of his lower back, until the track had reached its end, and Hobie’s suit was parted in two to reveal the smooth surface of his back. Miles swallowed. He swallowed hard.
“Okay, now- just.” Miles stepped closer once more, until their bodies were brushing, as he lifted his hands back up to the top of Hobie’s shoulders again. “Lemme just get this off you now.”
He tucked his hands under both sides of the open suit at the top of Hobie’s back, then pulled them off the taller’s shoulders and down the lengths of his arms until the suit finally dropped forward to dangle at his waist. Miles released a sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Morales,” Hobie said as he begun twisting himself around to lean back on the desk instead, to face Miles. Miles took a step back to give him space.
The shorter nodded, stepping over to grab the first aid kit, flipping it open as he stepped back into place. “God, man,” Miles mumbled, as he pulled out a cloth from the kit, soaking it in saline solution before placing the rest of the box back down.
He brought the cloth up to the wound, eyes tracing along the deep cut line with a displeased frown tugging at his brows, his jaw set in a firm line. He glanced up to Hobie, taking a breath to focus on the matter at hand before getting wrapped up in the details of how his friend ended up like this in the first place.
“Can i start-” Miles shot a look down to the cloth hovering by his wound in a vague gesture of permission. “-you know?”
Hobie nodded with his eyes closed, head titled up to the ceiling. “Knock yourself out.”
Miles got to work, pressing the cloth gently to Hobie’s skin and shooting a curious glance up to the other when he didn’t so much as flinch. Miles supposed he was used to cleaning injuries like this by now.
“How did this happen?” Miles asked, keeping his eyes trained on his wok.
“Usual Spider-Man business. You know how it is.” He did.
Miles let a beat of silence pass over them as he frowned, deep in thought while he mulled over his next words. Then, tentatively, he spoke up again. “And you came straight here afterwards? Not a hospital?”
His hands paused for a moment, looking up to find Hobie’s eyes open this time, already looking down at Miles’s and watching him. Miles stilled under his gaze, but like a prisoner held captive by unbreakable bars, he couldn’t pull his eyes back down and break free from their weight. So he stared into the deep brown of their depths, endured the intensity staring back at him and forgot for a moment the situation they were in.
Until Hobie finally broke the silence and spoke, answering Miles’s question. “Can’t support capitalism now can i?”
Miles huffed an exasperated breath, fighting the strong urge to roll his eyes. Of course, even when injured Hobie was going to be stubborn. Miles thought he was the stubborn one between the two, but maybe they were more similar in that area than he originally thought.
He looked back down to Hobie’s wound, continuing the cleaning process.
“I know you have your whole screw the government beliefs, but you shouldn’t risk your life over it.” Miles shook his head in disbelief, the concern that travelled through his bones was now sinking into his stomach and making him simmer with worried irritation. “I care about that stuff too, because you care about it. But to care you need to be alive.”
Miles looked up and was met with the gaze of Hobie burning through him.
“You tellin’ me you’re scared of losing me, Sunflower?” Hobie’s voice was a light tease but it hit the nail on the hammer for Miles.
“Honestly.” Miles threw one of his hands out in a wide gesture, before dropping it back to his side. “Yeah. You’re my friend. I can’t lose anymore of you again.”
Hobie’s gaze was hot and Miles thought he might be in the centre of its flames, yet he wasn’t burning. He felt the fire, and he felt the warmth, but Hobie’s eyes were curved soft around the edges as though he was melting Miles instead.
After a long lapse of silence Hobie hummed, for what Miles was beginning to understand meant the other didn’t know what to say, so instead he filled his responses with gentle noises.
Miles finished up quick, then searched his closet to find the biggest set of comfortable clothes he could, before giving Hobie the privacy to change and helping him over to Miles’s bed. Miles lowered them both down, Hobie wincing as he fell down on his side, before the younger was following close behind him.
Miles slid into a place at the head of his bed, crossing his legs and sitting up as he guided Hobie to lay his head down on his lap. Miles wanted the other to be as comfortable as possible and knew with his fresh wound that Hobie wouldn’t be able to lay on his side tonight.
“I’ll check your wound again tomorrow, though the super-healing might have dealt with it by then. Hopefully.”
Miles rested a hand down on Hobie’s forehand and the taller seemed to relax into his touch, the familiarity of them in Miles’s bed readying for sleep hopefully a comfort for him.
“I might not deserve you, Morales,” Hobie admitted, lips tugged up in a small lopsided smile, eyes closed.
Hobie had come to Miles with this, had trusted him alone without another thought to go seek safety anywhere else. And Miles really, really liked that he was who Hobie chose.
Hobie had it the other way around. He didn’t know what he’d done to earn the unconditional trust of Hobie Brown.
Miles didn’t reply, only shook his head and started to rub his thumb in a soothing motion across Hobie’s forehead, lulling him into the most comfortable sleep he could achieve in his state.
After that night, the next time Miles found himself laying down in bed with Hobie, the other was well healed.
Miles was sitting up, legs crossed as he looked down to Hobie who was resting on his back, arms pillowed behind his head. They’d recently gotten back from a long day out exploring the city and all intricate spots that Miles had yet to discover before he started finding them with Hobie. Now, they were relaxing, letting the excitement of the day fade into slow, lazy conversation, and right now the topic was Hobie’s piercings.
“Did they not hurt?” Miles questioned, eyes jumping across each shinning jewel pierced into the other, with curiosity and phantom pain just by looking at them.
“Pain is relative,” Hobie replied immediately, shrugging with a matter-of fact tone. Miles should’ve expected as much for a guy who didn’t believe in consistency.
“Okay,” Miles huffed, shifting himself to flop back onto the bed to lay down like Hobie, staring up at the ceiling. “But which one hurt the most then?”
It was quiet for a beat and Miles turned his head to the side to look at Hobie while he waited for the other to decide on his response. Hobie’s eyes were contemplative, scanning the ceiling in thought as though it had the answer.
Eventually, “Lip. The tissue around the mouth is a more sensitive one.”
Miles turned over to lie on the side of his body completely. “You didn’t care, though?”
Hobie turned his head to the side to meet Miles eyes, shrugging. “They look cool, don’t they?” He replied as though that was an answer enough
And, of course, Miles knew that they looked cool.
“If I were to get a piercing, then, where would you recommend?” Miles challenged, genuine curiosity behind the question.
Hobie hummed, shifting himself to lie on his side, facing Miles in turn, as though to get a better look. He eyed the younger’s face closely, Miles watching Hobie’s brown eyes jump across his features, pulling the structure of his face apart in a single gaze to find what he would consider the perfect spot. Miles steadied himself, trying not to fall under the weight of Hobie’s gaze and keep his expression carefully schooled.
“A Helix cuff,” Hobie settled on. Finally.
The silence was beginning to stretch for too long, Hobie’s eyes were drawing him in too deep.
Miles’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah?”
“What ‘bout me?” Hobie said instead, with a slight raise of his eyebrows. “If you were to put another piercin’ on me, where would you?”
The way Hobie worded that question had fantasied scenes jumping to the forefront of Miles’s mind. Thoughts of he and Hobie sneakily locked away in Miles’s bathroom as the taller sat up on the sink with Miles between his legs, a needle and a slice of lemon in hand, readying to be the one to add another piercing to Hobie’s body.
There was something so strangely intimate about that scene in Miles’s mind. Maybe because of how personalised piercings were to the other, and it suggested that Miles would be apart of that love then, too. Warmth swirled around his stomach and Miles imagined where he’d stick the needle, which part of Hobie’s body that the other would allow him to engrave a mark into by his hands.
“Tongue,” Miles blurted out before he was thinking, the decided thought immediately translating into his mouth, tumbling off his lips.
Hobie’s eyebrows overtly raised this time, his lips pulling in intrigue. “Tongue, huh? Wasn’t expectin’ that.”
Miles didn’t know what response that was, the warmth in his stomach suddenly shifting into nervous flutters and he started backtracking. “Ah, well- I don’t know much about piercings, so. You’d know more than me, I just was thinking it’d look cool.”
“You can touch them of you want.”
Miles blinked.
“What.”
“My piercin’s. You said you don’t know much. Learn.”
Hobie nodded his head at him, as though in a gesture of encouragement. Miles wasn’t sure how Hobie had this way of keeping the conversation so flawlessly smooth each time the younger thought he was sailing them into rougher waters. And he didn’t know how Hobie’s reply ended up being that, but Hobie was looking at him with these big, expectant eyes and Miles he-
He wanted to touch.
So he did. Lifting his hand, slowly but surely, Miles let the tips of his finger’s smooth the surface of Hobie’s eyebrow studs. Hobie’s gaze remained on Miles’s face and he could feel it as clear as a tattoo, without meeting it back.
“Does it hurt?” Miles asked, voice nearing a whisper it was so quiet.
Hobie chuckled, a low deep sound that vibrated from the back of his throat. “Not a chance. They’re all well healed.”
Miles’s hand moved from his right eyebrow piercings to his left, fingers skimming over each piece of silver until his hand was trailing down to Hobie’s nose ring, sliding over the thin, rounded surface with fascinated eyes. The moment was quite and his movements were slow and soft and Miles thought he was being drawn into an unconscious state like sailors hypnotised but a siren’s song.
And just like that, in an unconscious compulsion, Miles followed the flow of his movements to Hobie’s lip piercing, too.
Hobie’s breath caught. But his eyes didn’t move. And Miles was all but helplessly entranced.
Miles hummed as he traced the lip ring like he traced Hobie’s nose ring. His finger gently skimmed the surface of the other’s lips in the process. They were soft, Miles absently noted. He smiled, small and private and finally lifted his eyes up to see Hobie staring down at him.
Miles paused, snapped back to reality by the look he could recognise circulating in Hobie’s eyes; that deep, so inexplicably suffocating gaze in the centre of a carefully controlled face. It took Miles another second to process what he was doing.
“Sorry,” Miles said hastily. Heat crawling up his neck and leaking onto his cheeks as he immediately retracted his hand. “I wasn’t-”
But before Miles could retreat in on himself too far, Hobie caught the shorter’s hand in his own. Miles paused for the second time that night.
He looked at Hobie with wide, almost preceding eyes, and the other only let his slip close, lowered their joined hands to the gap between them and didn’t let go.
“It’s alright,” was all Hobie replied before silence filled the room.
Miles gawked at Hobie’s resting face, waiting for the beating of his heart to calm. Hobie started to rub a soothing line along the back of Miles’s hand and slowly the younger’s body started to relax with the silent lullaby of that gentle touch. Hobie’s hands were big, so big, and warm and Miles’s eyes were falling shut as well.
He shifted himself just a little closer to Hobie, keeping his hand held safe in Hobie’s as they fell into the comfort of sleep.