wouldn't it be so nice to forget this all?

Miles can't look at him. "I’m a hero. I save people."
Hobie leans back, legs kicking against the brick of the brownstone. "You ever wonder," he says, soft, "if maybe you’re one'a the people you’re supposed to save?”
Miles doesn’t have an answer.
There is a time and a place for healing.
Miles stumbles his own way through.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

When Miles was young, young enough he can barely remember and most of what he has is memories filled in from his parents’ stories, they gave him his first sketchbook. Just a little thing, bought from the local bodega on a laundry detergent run, a couple of crayons on the side in bright, primary colours. He'd stared at it, confused, then understood once he'd gotten his grubby hands over the first few pages. After scribbles of dogs and trees and other meaningless things, he'd decided to draw everyone he knew— Mamí, Dad, Uncle Aaron, Kingston from a floor down, Junichi from a floor up, Mr. Mikkelson from the entry, Ms. Thalia from deliveries, Gavin from babysitting. Then he'd had to give up on that plan and go back to drawing anything, because he ran out of people.

That was how large his world was, then.

Miles looks down at his wrist. At the band of silver-gold around it, buttons humming with orange energy, reflected lines racing over its surface as it protects itself and him from alter-dimensional glitching.

His world, as it seems, just got a whole lot bigger.

Miles is standing in the center of the lab, platform lowered and sparking ominously like what it was apparently designed to do, and Miguel is before him. There had been a portal appearing from nowhere and the understanding that it was time, and he'd walked through, and now he's here, and there's a watch on his wrist, gleaming like the sun.

"Welcome," Miguel says, impassive, eyes blankly calm, "to the Spider Society."

Miles grins. Finally.

Admittedly, a little awkward—it's just them, everyone else back in their own universes, cleaning up messes that came when they had to spend three days fighting the Spot instead of defending their home base. That means it's only Miles and Miguel, the lab dark around—and yeah, maybe Miles' danger sense croons a bit at the sight, but it's fine.

Miguel certainly thinks so, because he's speaking like Miles is just joining for the first time and the past week hasn't existed.

Which. That's nice, kinda? Don't get him wrong, he's completely, entirely down for no casual chats about everything that happened, but it's a little unsettling.

But if Miguel isn't going to mention it, then Miles will take the heavy-handed hint and keep his trap shut. It's not like he wants to talk about it. Actually, he's quite content to bury it as far into his subconscious as possible.

"Thank you," Miles says instead of anything else, and reaches out—Miguel matches him, both of them in suits, and there's barely any hesitation. Barely any at all.

Miguel shakes his hand, tight and firm, and nods. Does the proper man-to-man nod, the one Miles has seen Jefferson do a million times, and there's something like pride blooming in his chest.

Kid no more, huh?

His grin widens until it tugs on his cheeks, almost bouncing from foot to foot. The buttons just beg to be fiddled with, fingers dancing over the silver-gold; his own watch.

With this, he can talk to everyone again—reach out, chat, meet up.

It'd been a long, long year and a half where that had been impossible. Nothing more than a distant hope called Princeton and the burning desire to make it reality, strung together with late-night physics studying and sketchbook pictures.

And now it's here.

"Focus, Morales."

He winces. "Sorry. What were you saying?"

"If you wish, you can join the spiderfolk that are on-call," he says, stepping back onto the edge of his platform. "Essentially, a few times a week, if another spiderfolk needs help with a villain, you can come and assist them."

Helping people? Yeah, Miles is down for that. "Of course."

"As a regular member of the Society, you'll have weekly meetings to keep track of everything, as well as weekly training," Miguel says, and there's a particular droning quality that comes over his speech like he'd practiced it. "More of a test to make sure you're able to fight alongside other spiderfolk. Gwen and Pavitr have theirs at the same time, and you'll be working together."

Excitement flickers through him—his friends, he's staying with them, they're all together—before the rest of the list catches up with him. "Not Hobie?" Miles can't help but ask, glancing around like the teen will just pop out of the woodwork, guitar braced and smirk in place. He doesn't, which is disappointing.

Miguel's jaw tightens, relaxes. "Hobie has not decided to come back."

Oh.

Something dark and oil-slick coils through him—because yeah, Hobie quit, rather than participate in the hunt. Chucked his watch out, went home, then joined Gwen's mad parade around the multiverse to find Miles and bring him home—but the thought hadn't, well. Really hit.

Hobie quit. Hobie's not in the Spider Society.

Miles finally joins, finally gets recognized as a proper Spiderman, and Hobie isn't here to see it.

Ants crawl over his skin.

"C'mon, guy can't even see my initiation? That's low of him." Miles rocks back on his heels with practiced ease, grin splashing over his face. Miguel isn't going to mention it. Miles isn't going to mention it. "I want to shove it in his face that I've got an official watch and he's got his little mock-up one."

Miguel looks maybe a little relieved that the meeting is being cut short, which, yeah. Same. Miles likes the guy, they reconnected after the Spot was defeated and the Canon Events were proven wrong, so they're fine now—but, well. A bit awkward. Hard to look at the guy and not see the train. The hunt.

But they're fine now. So.

"Lyla will send you the rest of the information," Miguel says. "And we'll talk more in our next meeting. But if you want to go to Hobie, he's on Earth-138."

Right. Miguel presumably doesn't know that Miles hid there on his desperate run from it all. What he doesn't know won't kill him.

"It's a plan," Miles says, flicking him a thumbs-up and a wider grin. Silver-gold flashes in the corner of his eyes as he moves his hands. A watch. "But seriously. Thank you, man. I'm ready for all of this!"

Miguel inclines his head. "You're a part of the Society now, Morales."

And he is.

He's been in New London before and it hits just the same as before, a wild, incongruous explosion of colour and light, wavering away and stitching together every time he blinks. The portal with its great golden halo almost seems to fit here, but everything seems to fit here; as Miles steps onto the rooftop Lyla spat him onto, the brick ripples like a stone over water, text flaring beneath the surface. Another blink and it's gone, back to brick, except grey instead of red.

How Hobie doesn't have constant motion sickness is one of the multiverse's great mysteries. Maybe eyes on Earth-138 are just built different.

But still, Miles knows this place—somewhat—and he remembers getting stitched up after Gwen and Peter fished him out of Earth-42. So he's able to lash a web around a great billowing smoke stack and skip over a train belching soot as he flies through the city, past bustling streets and the distant chime of ancient bells.

Lyla didn't put him too far away, though she clearly doesn't know where Hobie actually lives, and before too long Miles is able to see the building he remembers, a cut-out of newspaper and interwoven streaks of purple-blue. There's condemned tape stretched across the front, some official-looking document stapled to the door.

Also the distinct tread of a footprint over the paper, like someone kicked it with combat boots. Three guesses as for who.

He sneaks over, clambering from roof to roof, watching people with gold-grey outlines chatter and zip through their life. No one goes to the building, soon to be taken down as it is, and Miles is able to slip up the side and knock on the seventh-floor window, all polite-like.

There's a pause, the shuffle of movement on the other side—then Hobie Brown, both eyebrows firmly raised, yanks the window open and squints at him.

Miles waves. "Hello?"

Hobie sighs, the kind of bone-deep one that rattles his ribcage like an amp, but there's a grin perched on his lips, and he shifts to the side to let Miles in. He does so, unsticking neatly from the wall and peering around—it's the same as it was before, maybe a bit less cluttered now there isn't some half dozen spiderfolk all trying to cram up in the midst. Scattered piles of clothing, contrasted with a very nice selection of hair care and nail polish, gas-powered stove, various chemistry beakers and engineering tools. Hobie walks back over to his couch, one worn and old with more patches than open leather. He fits here, a piece of the collage, orange-yellow splashed against the blue-green.

"Took them plenty long enough," he says, flicking a finger at Miles' wrist. "Did Miguel really havta wait that long before givin' you one?"

Miles rolls his eyes, but does run his fingers over the silver-gold, marveling at how it sits on his suit. It's his, now. The multiverse opened up. "It's only been a week, man," he says, padding over. It's easy, familiar almost, to collapse on the couch, fighting for legroom amidst Hobie's lanky height and inability to understand sharing. Least he doesn't have his combat boots on so Miles ends up with only a foot on his stomach instead of a bruise. "We met up today for the first time."

"Not that ya need it," Hobie stays. He fumbles back a bit and snags his guitar, pulls it up to his lap—there are bandages wrapped around his fingers, a bruise blooming high on his cheekbone. New London's problems didn't end with the Spot. "Would've been jus' fine without."

Miles pushes his feet into Hobie's thigh. The boy swats him. "Then how could I visit you? Wouldn't want to deprive myself of this."

He earns himself a snort.

"Though you do make it difficult," Miles says. "Had to search for you, since my portal dropped me in some random corner of New London. No one knows where you are."

Hobie scoffs, flopping back into his couch like it'll swallow him whole. He traces the outline of a duct-tape patch in the cushion. "'course they don't know. Nothing left to track me with. Gettin' rid of that watch was the best thing I've done." He wriggles his wrist, where a blue-green-yellow band sits, outlined in spikes. "Anyway, I made my own. Much better."

Oh.

Miles stares at it, fingers running over his own silver-gold. Three days of nothing but chaos, of the chase, of Earth-42, of the Spot—all fighting to protect himself, to prove himself, to earn this watch. He's only had it for an hour at most and he's already growing comfortable with the weight, with seeing metal reflect in the corner of his eyes when he reaches out. He loves it.

And the one who'd helped him get this far had thrown his away.

"Hobie," Miles says, and there's something a little hesitant in how he says it, which he doesn't mean to, but now the words are out there and he can't take it back, so– "Why didn't you rejoin the Spider Society?"

"I quit, mate," Hobie says, all casual-like. He fingerpicks a bouncing riff with a hum.

"You don't believe in consistency."

There's a scoff. "'course I don't. Bloody lame to."

Miles laughs a little, though he's not sure why. He tightens his grip on his watch, shifting his legs away so he can stare uninterrupted at Hobie's face. The question bounces around his head like a star thrown from orbit.

"So why didn't you come back?"

Hobie looks at him, and there's something warm in his eyes, softening the lines of his cheekbones and reducing his piercings to little silver flashes. Forest green splashes over him, edged in pale yellow and blue. He looks at peace.

"I've got my home," Hobie says eventually. He stretches back, flashes a hand toward the window, the one with the broken shutters and missing pane in the top corner where a rock must've come through. In the distance, Miles can see billowing smoke stacks, the rumble of a million cars, the deep whine and groan of shifting buildings. "It's my home, an' I love it. Don't need any others."

"Not sayin' I'm not here for you, 'cause I am. Not fuckin' on-call for Miguel or anythin', but if one of yous need help I'll be there. That's why I made the watch." He leans back, curls his toes in and worms them between the cracks in the sofa. "Still your pal, all that sappy shit. Hell, give me a few days to get my world back up to snuff, and I'll be knockin' on your window next. Not givin' up on any of ya."

Hobie looks through the glass. His jaw tightens.

"But I won't be going back. I don't do societies."

But I'm there, Miles wants to say. Me and Gwen and Pavitr—why won't you come back for us? They can't be that bad anymore. They're changing.

"Okay," he settles on instead. Leans into the couch and shoves all those thoughts away, buries them deep beneath his wonder at seeing New London when he has enough time to appreciate it and his elation at seeing Hobie again. "Okay."

Silver-gold sits over his wrist.

"What've you been up to, then?" Miles asks, and hardly has to work to tug a grin up on his face. "'cause that bruise is new, and I'm pretty sure you've got soot on your forehead."

Hobie scowls something fierce, abandoning his guitar to rake his fingers over his face. "Motherfucker– showered twice to get this damn shit off'a me and you're sayin' it's not gone yet–"

They fall back into familiarity, into catchings-up and goings-on. Hobie grabs him tea and Miles regales him with stories of his parents' reactions to his secret identity. They're laughing, New London echoing beyond with trains and workers, and it feels right.

He goes home, eventually. Figures out how to input the coordinates, how to flick through the web of universes—wow, it's really spiders all the way down, isn't it?—and find his own amidst the tangle. Earth-1610.

It's so simple, to open the kaleidoscoping portal and hop through—such a simple, tiny little thing. His watch hums pleasantly as it guides him back, and then he's spiraling through the tunnels, learning to keep his limbs tight to his sides and face pointed forward, and he's popping out on the roof of his building. Home.

Would Princeton have made it so simple?

He stands there for a heartbeat, running his fingers over his watch, wondering what Hobie meant. His world is so much bigger, now.

But it's late, and he's tired, so he goes inside.

If taking a week before regrouping at HQ and being given his own watch felt like forever, this is infinity.

Miles pinches the bridge of his nose. "My phone is fine. I'm not taking a radio."

Jefferson Morales frowns, hands on his hips. "And what if there's a report across Brooklyn and your, uh, spider sense can't feel it? How will you know to go there? And what if the police start trying to catch you and you can't stay ahead of them? You need a radio."

"I'm– I'm in a skintight bodysuit, Dad, where would I even put it?"

"You're a designer, add a pouch or something!"

Pure, unadulterated horror. "Spiderman is not getting a fanny pack, are you kidding me–"

"Papi, the radio is a bit much," Rio says, hand on Jefferson's shoulder. He sighs, walking back to continue pacing around their living room. Miles squints at him.

Listen. He's glad they're so accepting of him being Spiderman, even if there were many long, long conversations and the full week of recovery before they would even contemplate letting him go back on patrol. That's fine, really, he was still healing after everything that happened, but it was eight impossibly endless days, and he's been gnawing at the bit to get back into the action. Can't trust Brooklyn will stay safe if he's not there to help out.

But unlike last time where he floated a vague message to Ganke to leave the window unlatched so he can get back, now he has to stay accountable to his parents. Which. A different beast entirely.

"It's only a few hours tonight, right?" Jefferson asks, pingponging onto a different topic now he's one versus two on the radio. "Only Brooklyn, not pushing yourself too far. Leave all the big threats to the NYPD, just small-time incidents."

"Just muggers," Miles repeats dutifully. "I'll stay in sight of CCTV cameras so I don't have to spend too long giving reports, I'll web everyone from a distance, no supervillains or head honchos. I know."

Jefferson huffs, which, a little unfair. Miles' got a great track record of saving the day and keeping himself masked in the process. A year and a half of said track record, which should be more than enough.

Rio bites her lip, pushing her braid over her shoulder. "Are you sure you're feeling up to patrol? You just finished healing–" he finished like five days ago, actually "–and if you get hurt, you can't go to school tomorrow; what if you only went on patrol on Saturdays, so Sunday was for recovery?" She reaches out, brushing her fingers over the lycra of his shoulder. "This doesn't feel like it would survive a paper cut, much less an attack."

"Mamí," Miles groans, swatting at her hand. "I've been doing this for, like, forever, I heal fast anyway, I'm fine–"

"I don't want you healing at all," Rio says, soft.

He trails off, and she senses weakness; tugs him into the sort of hug that's warm and melting and full of love. "I just want you safe, papi," she murmurs into his shoulder.

His traitorous heart sings.

"Yeah, mamí," he says, and there's something strangely thick in his voice. "I'll stay safe. I promise."

She curls him in closer.

Jefferson sets a hand on his shoulder as the hug separates, eyes warm. "You just stay safe," he says, voice rumbling. "That's all we want."

Well. It's not all they want.

"Alongside keeping contact to a minimum, stopping before two am, updates every thirty minutes," Miles parrots, wiggling his phone in their direction. "And if you call, I, ahem, don't care if you're flipping over the Brooklyn Bridge, you better pick up or so help me–"

Rio rolls her eyes, but she's smiling, and she grabs him by his cheeks and tugs him down so she can press a kiss to his forehead. He fights back only a little. "Go out and save Brooklyn," she says. "But then come back to us. Eres el más importante."

"I'll be back before you know it," he says, and grins, pushing his tongue between his teeth. Then he flicks open the window, tugs the mask down, and flies out into the city.

The nightmare curls around him.

He kicks the blankets off in slow, lethargic movements, eyes catching back up with the darkness coiling in his room, tucked alongside the bay windows and slithering over his posters. If he blinks he sees something else, so he doesn't blink, and his breathing smooths and evens out and calms down. Normal.

It's normal to wake up in the middle of the night, surely. A… defense mechanism. This way he didn't have to face the nightmare, and all it means is an interruption in his sleep, which happens anyway with patrol, so this is fine. The preferred outcome, actually. Much easier to deal with.

In the quiet of his room, the rumble of Brooklyn beyond, there's no Miguel, so he's fine.

Maybe it wasn't even a nightmare. Maybe he just woke up before Miguel would have talked to him, instead of anything else, and he was just a coward who fled to the waking world before they could have a nice, calm conversation. He can try to stay asleep next time. Rio would appreciate it—eight hours, and all that.

It's Sunday, and tomorrow he goes back to Visions for the first time in a week, and it's fine. Patrol went fine. He's fine.

He doesn't pull his blankets back up, because they're cloying and restraining and unsafe, but he flips onto his stomach and closes his eyes. It's simple, almost, to wrestle himself back asleep.

"D'ya think if I told them about everything I did, they'd let me skip class?"

Ganke pauses, glancing over. He's got an essay squished onto half of his screen, a youtube video with a new lego building set on the other. He's been there the entire night, Miles is pretty sure the essay is due in three hours, but the set looks like a model of the Dakota, complete with teal-green trim, so that's equally important.

Miles, currently cramming half the dorm room into his backpack with a schedule way too full for his liking, will just have to steal the set off Ganke when he inevitably buys it. Handy having a roommate with a decent stipend and an addiction to building sets.

"You already took a week off, man," Ganke says, doing an elaborate flip of his pen through his fingers in a way that does not make Miles jealous. "And mono only lasts so long."

"Concussion," Miles corrects, because things would get awkward if all his alibis started disagreeing with each other. "Not something contagious, then I couldn't come back even if I wanted to."

Ganke frowns. "Didn't you already fake a concussion, like, two months ago?"

Fuck. He sure did.

Miles groans, kicking his backpack to the side and flumping onto Ganke's bed. He covers his face. "Maybe I just tell them I'm Spiderman," he mumbles. "They could have, like. A hall pass equivalent for fighting supervillains."

"That'd go great. Really no way to go wrong. Salas doesn't even let us play explicit music without headphones, he'd definitely be chill with you sneaking out every night for patrol."

"You're supposed to be on my side," he says through his palms.

Ganke rolls his eyes. "Unwillingly. If Visions had assigned me any other roommate, I'd be having the calmest four years of my life. Not this. It's all your fault."

Miles sits up, jabbing a finger in his direction. "C'mon, dude," he says, with all the authority of someone who thought up this shitty saying in a stroke of mad genius and is going to drive it into the ground.

Ganke stares at him.

"That's not a me problem, it's a Lee problem."

"I hate you so genuinely much."

"You love me," Miles chirps, kicking his backpack back within accessible grabbing distance. It swallows his laptop and final textbook, and he's able to pull it onto his shoulders with only a few muttered complaints. "Otherwise you'd have told Salas about me long ago."

"Don't tempt me."

Miles pauses, halfway out the dorm door. "Thank you, though," he says, quieter than before. "For sticking with me. Keeping my cover up."

Ganke flaps a hand in his direction, eyes locked on the lego video, but there's a faint flush over the back of his neck. "No sweat, man. It'd look real bad on my resume if I let my roommate get arrested."

Miles snorts, turns, and disappears off to class.

Lyla sent him the schedule, with weekly meetings, weekly training, and several periods of time where he's on-call for backup. Intensive, yeah, but being Spiderman is all about intensity; so he'll learn to grab catnaps between assignments and carry protein bars with him. Easy-peasy.

Because there's a watch on his wrist that opens up the multiverse, and Miles thinks he would do anything to keep it.

So he ducks out right after chemistry, chucks his backpack onto his desk and strips his uniform off fast enough the tie nearly chokes him, then he's clambering out the window to a relatively protected section of roof. The portal blooms, fractaling and lashing out with great golden rays of light, and he throws himself into it with reckless abandon.

It's such a simple thing, traveling to different dimensions. All with the help of his watch.

It pops him out in the teleportation chamber, platforms littered with other portals spawning in and flickering out, and Miles waves at a few other spiderfolk as he pads out of the room. There's a map Lyla sent him he's done his best to memorize, and it only takes him five minutes to find his way to the proper area, open and wide with twisting industrial bars and looming faux buildings.

He's right on time, jittering in place, suit pulled up to his chin. Pavitr and Gwen are already there, chattering up a storm, eyes bright and voices brighter. And yeah, Miles already guessed it, already knew—but there's someone missing. Someone tall.

Hobie quit, and he's not coming back. Miles knows that. He does.

He's just. A little bitter, maybe. He finally gets to join the Society, to be like every other spiderfolk and not an anomaly, and the one guy who helped him out isn't here? And yeah, Hobie never seemed the type that would be in the Society, sure; but he could still be here. Training with them. Helping them out.

But he isn't. And that's fine. Miles curls his fingers around his watch and walks up to bump shoulders with everyone. A few minutes of chatting—they all meet up every few days, consistent despite their wildly inconsistent lives, and they're already streamlining into each other's presence like they were born there. Miles fist-bumps Pavitr, flicks Gwen's forehead, ducks away from a noogie with an only partially faked squawk.

Then they're off.

The strength and conditioning room looms before them, piled high with other training spiderfolk; there's the building leg press, the suspension cords, the holograms. As they enter, everyone's spider sense reverberates off each other and Miles can feel the echo, hairs raising on his arm, and they all glance over. It's mostly curiosity, checking out the newcomers, but Miles stands there, small, and hundreds of spiderfolk look at him, scaled throughout the room, masks up and eyes white-blank. Staring. Moving.

He doesn't realize he's stopped until Pavitr turns around, walking back to bump his shoulder. He leans in, eyebrows drawn. "Are you okay?"

Miles exhales, a little shakily. Beats old memories down with the force of mountains. "Yeah. I'm fine."

It's just training. And training proves himself to the Spider Society, which means he stays needed, which means he keeps his watch. So. Of course he's fine with it, because you don't become Spiderman by just lazing around. It's pretty easy to say that Miles' homemade parkour courses around Brooklyn don't match up to a full, technified thing made specifically for spiderfolk. If he's going to get strong, he'll have to do it here.

And that means other spiderfolk. It means everyone. It means all of them together.

But that's training, isn't it? They've got watches. They're all trusted by Miguel.

So Miles shakes out his arms, pulls a grin over his face. Knocks shoulders with Pavitr, watches the other boy's eyes brighten. "Totally fine, man. Ready to beat you!"

Pavitr sticks his tongue out. Gwen waves a hand to get both their attention before pointing to the ceiling, where a series of jungle-gym-esque bars and hoops loom like some eldritch beast. "Race you!" She shouts, and Pavitr's launching his bangle after her, and Miles doesn't look at the other spiderfolk, doesn't listen to his danger sense, and webs after them both.

Miles goes to his dorm. Lays down. Clutches at his watch with white knuckles.

He wasn't hurt. Training went normally, went fine, and they were laughing and joking and playing off each other. They went through HQ, through training rooms, and he walked out of them, free. His danger sense wasn't needed. Everything was fine. He's fine.

He's not alone in the room.

There's something that pushes him to flip onto his stomach, webslingers tight to his palms—he's not sure when he started sleeping with them on, but he does, and the thought of removing them sends something sharp and frantic through him—and head peering over the side. Sound, soft and rhythmic—breathing. Someone else is in the room.

In the darkness, his eyes struggle to adjust, but New York glimmers in street lamps and moonlight and he can trace where the sound comes from.

Ganke is asleep, face smushed into his pillow, beanie still on. His headphones are sprawled by his side, monitor running a watercolour screensaver that's casting yellow-orange light over his face.

He looks comfortable.

Miles watches him, and his heart rate calms, though he can't quite remember when it picked up. Ganke breathes, and he's asleep, and he's peaceful.

There's no one else in the room. His danger sense quiets.

Miles blinks, slow, and curls up. Falls asleep.

Hobie lives up to his promise—later than Miles expected, but whatever—and when Miles is sitting there, very content with his life beyond the maths assignment that's destroying him more than the Lizard ever could, there's something humming in the back of his mind. A reverberation, an echo.

Miles frowns, tugging his headphones down—and then, quite rudely, Hobie pops his whole upper body through the window less than an inch from his face.

He shrieks, tumbling back, arms flying wide; knocks everything off the desk in one fell swoop, heart in his throat, and hits the ground with a thump that feels far too dramatic for the relatively short distance he fell. "What the fuck–"

Hobie shoulders his way in, wriggling a bit to get his guitar through the narrow window frame. He perches on the desk, boots kicked up and tongue between his teeth, smarmy-ass grin bold over his face.

Miles corrects what he was about to say. "You dick," he complains, picking himself off the ground. "Couldn't have knocked?"

"Hullo to you too," Hobie drawls, hopping down. He's lit up in gold-yellow despite the cool tones of the dorm light, slotted out of place in exact opposition to how he looked back in New London. He wanders around, trailing his irritatingly long fingers over everything, flicking one of the fairy lights to watch the strand bob and sway. "How's the school life treatin' ya?"

"You're so lucky," Miles hisses, piling textbooks back on the desk, and kicking random papers under the bed to disappear until they're most needed and thus can't be found. "Ganke's off at his lecture now, I don't even want to think about what he'd do if you came in while he was here–"

"Knows about you bein' Spiderman, doesn't he? What's the problem?"

Miles huffs. "Spiderman, yes. Other dimensions—er, also yes—but it'd be surprising! You could give him a heart attack!"

Hobie raises an eyebrow.

"Shut up."

"Shuttin'."

Miles groans, resting his back on the chair. "Right insufferable you are," he says in what he rather thinks is a passable mockery of a New London accent. From Hobie's expression, it's not. "What are you doing here, though?"

"Wanted'ta check in on you. Said I would, didn't I? Promises an' all that." He sprawls over Ganke's bed, all long limbs and irreverence. "'course, wasn't lyin' that I had a lotta shit to handle back in my world, but that's fine now. Freed up my schedule some."

Miles frowns, slipping his laptop into his backpack since there's not a chance he's focusing on work now. "Wait, free? Could you come for training with us?"

Something flashes over Hobie's face. Anger in the corner of his mouth, jaw tightening, but something like sadness—something like grief— in his eyes. Something impossibly weary.

"Nah, mate. I'm not goin' back. Not now, not ever."

Miles winces. Touchy subject, apparently. But.

"They're not that bad," he says, though he can't summon a single thought as to why he's defending them. He should be the last one to do it, really, considering all they'd done—but there has to be a reason Hobie isn't coming back, and he wants Hobie to be there, and if he isn't, then there must be something wrong. The Society finally welcomed Miles in, so they're doing the right thing now. That has to count for something. "Me and Gwen and Pav are all training there, once a week—it'd be nice to have you with us."

Hobie runs his fingers down one of Ganke's posters, trailing streaks of papersketch like paint in their wake. His eyes are dark. "You all know my watch code. I'll train wit' you wherever you want—any dimension, any world—but not the Society. I won't be doin' that again."

Miles, for some strange reason, wants to bristle. The Society can't be bad—they gave him a watch, something that lets him see all his friends, opens the multiverse for a million other New Yorks, gives him freedom. They're not calling him an anomaly any more, Miguel gives him missions like any other spiderfolk, and he's not treated like a kid there. They can't be bad.

But he doesn't want to fight, and certainly not with Hobie.

Use your palms.

"Alright," he says, backing down. Flicks the corner of his comforter up, hangs his backpack on its peg. Turns the fairy lights off. "Then what do you want to do?"

Hobie gets off Ganke's bed, yawning, nudging his guitar's strap higher on his shoulders. "Don't know how often it'll be, but I can visit you plenty—pop in, help with fights, anythin' that strikes my fancy." He peers down at Miles, unfairly tall, wicks almost scraping at the ceiling. Miles, not for the first nor last time, wishes for Uncle Aaron's height. "What're you thinkin' of for today?"

Hm.

Where to take a punk in New York? That doesn't feel like something he can just plug into Google.

"I'm going to give you a tour," Miles says, sounding more self-assured than he feels. "Because you only saw my Brooklyn when you were fighting the Spot, and that isn't enough at all. No. We're doing this right."

Hobie huffs. "What, gonna show me all the empty skyscrapers on Billionaires' Row or Manhattan's gentrification? This won't be my first New York, mate."

Miles flaps a hand in his direction. "Yeah, but it's my New York. Nothing like it. I won't show you all the touristy spots—I'll show you the real places." He pauses, flicking his webslingers up to his palms. "And I'll race you."

Hobie tilts his guitar in his direction, grinning. "Challenge accepted."

Then it's a battle for who can get out the window first, Miles tearing his hoodie and sweatpants off with enough speed the fabric rips, and then they're flying over the city like birds.

"It's not New London," Hobie finally admits, perched upside down on the Woolworth's overledge with fresh street dosas in hand. His wicks trail upward, lit in yellow-orange, lounging with his back against the bricks. There's a grin splashed over his lips. "But I suppose it's not terrible."

Miles, who has absolutely not been waiting with bated breath for the entire tour, whoops.

"Just you wait until summer," he says. "Yeah, the sewers stink to high heavens but that's when Prospect Park comes out in bloom, and people just pour into Grand Army Plaza so I can load you up with enough souvenirs to drown in that aren't just tacky NYC shirts and hats—or the Smorgsasburg! I know your, what, fish and chips are the most exotic thing you eat, but you're going to love all the food there–"

Hobie snorts. "A'ight, fair enough, mate. No need to chatter my ears off now— I'll be there when all these fantastical events actually happen."

Miles rolls his eyes and shoves him. Hobie flicks a piece of fermented rice at his face.

They sit there, staring over the city, over the Manhattan skyline. He'll have to get back to his dorm eventually, that maths assignment isn't going to finish itself, but he polishes off his dosa and slips the wrapper into a pocket instead. Stays there, something warm in his chest.

"Do you love it?" Hobie asks.

Miles blinks. "What?"

"Your city," he says, but he's not looking over, eyes fixed on the distant buildings. "Do you love it?"

That's. An odd thing to ask, really. Because there's crime a-plenty, raging poverty, power imbalances, endless scaffolding instead of repairs, terrible infrastructure, subways that'll never make it one step above crumbling—but it's his home. There's a reason eight million people chose to live here.

"'course I do, man," Miles says, because it's barely even a question. "It's New York. Who wouldn't love it?"

Hobie looks at him. There's something considering in his eyes, almost sad—but then Miles blinks and it's gone, back to that teasing grin from before. "Right," he says, and leans back, legs kicking up against gravity. "It's enough, y'know? Your city. It can be enough."

"You're just painfully cryptic today," Miles tells him.

Hobie rolls his eyes. "Or maybe you're just painfully thick."

Miles levels a finger at him. "Unfair and untrue."

He tilts his hand in a so-so motion. Miles shoves him.

"But I'll keep visitin' you," Hobie says. The skyline reflects in his eyes. "Or you come to me, I don't mind—all's the same. Hard to look after my li'l artist when you don't contact me, so keep that door open, will ya?"

It'd be easier, Miles wants to say, if you rejoined the Society.

But he doesn't. Just grins, bumps his shoulder. "I'm not little," he says with a high, sniffling voice. "Another year or two and even you won't be taller. If I get up to my Uncle Aaron's height, I'll dwarf you."

Hobie snorts, a sharp bark of a sound, and shoves him back. "That's somethin' I'd pay good money to see."

"You will," Miles says, promises, and the skyline fills with laughter.

Life moves on.

Miles zips through classes with the bullheadedness that comes from having a roommate who can be bribed into sharing notes and the ability to study invisibly in the library long after it closes. He goes home on the weekend, suffers medical check-ups to the point he's going to start carrying a thermometer around on patrols just so he can pre-empt any questions his mamí sends, eats meals, chatters about life. Keeps his head up, smiles wide, forgets to sleep on purpose.

Designs a new suit. Removes the red streaks—because, fine, yeah, alright, under pain of death maybe they look like his armpits are bleeding—and wonders what to add for a long time. Eventually settles on gold; thin, iridescent stripes around his fingers that twirl up his arms like lightning. Kinda gives away one of his main powers, but it looks dope as hell, so it stays.

Goes in to meet with the Spider Society. Keeps being on time, keeps smiling, keeps training—goes on missions when they ask, sleeps less, works with the others like a dream. The watch stays on his wrist.

Ponders what Hobie said.

Some part of him knows, despite responding truthfully, he didn't give the right answer.

It's Sunday, not late but certainly growing close to it, and Miles swallows around a yawn wide enough to make air brush over his molars as he pads through the kitchen. Just his suit, watch secure over his wrist, but there's time enough for a glass of water before he heads off. It's been a long day already, only small-time villains on patrol but a lot of them, and there are two tests tomorrow he's only hazarded a glance at his papers for. So. That'll go great.

Glass of water also sounds great, though, so he creeps through the kitchen and fumbles for a ceramic mug with buenos días sol written in cursive over the side. The pile of dishes in the sink clatters as he swivels the tap around.

Rio pokes her head out of her bedroom, eyebrows raised. "Where are you going?"

In lieu of an answer, Miles makes a halfhearted gesture at his suit, doing his best to drown himself in the cup. Should be pretty obvious.

But instead she frowns, lips pursed. She's in pajamas, an oversized shirt that's definitely Jefferson's with sweatpants below, and there's a little streak of toothpaste over her cheek. About to go to bed, then. Makes sense, given her early hospital shifts on Monday. She looks at his suit almost hesitantly. "You're going back again?"

Miles blinks. It's been some three, four weeks of his new schedule that's held fairly consistent throughout. Surely she's adjusted to it by now. "Um, yeah?"

Her frown deepens. "How often are you going to that Society of yours?"

For a moment he wants to lie, to fall back into that comforting anonymity where his parents knew nothing and he was just a kid to them again, where Miles Morales didn't mean anything more than son— but he swore he wouldn't. That he would tell them everything.

Mostly everything.

"Twice a week?" He offers. "Once for meetings, once for training—then I'm on-call for a couple days. I don't always go in when I'm on-call, though; just when they need me." You know. What he's been doing for a month now.

But for some reason this information seems new to her—or maybe it's the first he's laid it all out. Worry crawls over her eyes. "That's so much. Don't they know you still have school and friends and a life, not just work?"

Miguel treats him like an adult now, actually, not some kid who needs his hand held and a schedule with naptimes built in. Miles shakes it off with a laugh, setting the mug in the sink. "I'm fine, mamí. You don't complain when your job keeps you up late—why should I?"

A very fair argument, by his standard—but Rio's face crumples. That worry in her eyes spills away to reveal sorrow.

"Oh, mijo. Why do you want to grow up so fast?"

Miles' throat tightens.

"I don't want to," he hastens to say, because he doesn't. He still hucks popcorn at Ganke's monitor when they're watching that shitty Furious and Fast movie for the seventeenth time, still stays late after training every time to race Pavitr around HQ, still sneaks into Gwen's room to hang stupid little post-it notes on her walls while she's sleeping. "I'm just– maturing."

Rio steps forward, reaching out to grab his cheeks. He lets her, glancing away.

"You don't have to," she whispers. "You're already so mature, papi, holding Brooklyn on your shoulders. Why do you need to save other universes? You're already saving New York."

Miles swallows. "They gave me the watch," he says, a little helplessly. "I can't just take that and not help them out."

Her jaw tightens as she runs her fingers under his eyes, over the bags he knows are there, palms warm against his cheek. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to.

"I'll be back later," he says, soft. "I promise, alright? I won't stay too late. I'll be home before morning."

Rio's face stays sad but she pulls him in, pressing a kiss, feather-soft, to his forehead. He bows with the motion, watch heavy around his wrist.

But then she steps back, and Miles drifts away, and he goes to pull up a portal.

It's time for the meeting, after all.

Patrol flies by in an explosion of light and movement—webbing through the towering skyscrapers, spiraling over the streets, doing a flip over the promenade just because. In the blooming spring, the sun gleams, throwing orange-yellow over everything, and he's warm and bright as he flies around. Minimal villains, which is fantastic, and he's already helped return two runaway dogs to their leashes and webbed a halal cart before it could roll away. So. Great day, really, and he's got a few more hours before he has to get back to wrap up that chemistry assignment–

"Spiderman!" Someone squawks, all startled and ecstatic, and Miles flicks out another web to ground himself before peering down.

There's a kid, all mid-grown limbs and impossibly wide eyes, staring up at him. She's got her phone out with a call blinking away on it, someone's voice echoing tinny and distorted to his height, but she barely notices it. Just keeps staring at him.

In the pins on her jacket, hidden amongst the pink-purple-blue and what looks like a frog, is one with his face on it.

"Oh my god, Spiderman," she breathes, braces peeking from her lips. "You're– what–"

Miles smiles in the way that curls up his eye-lenses, throwing out another web so he can stand on the brick of the building next to them. About ten feet up, plenty to keep talking. He flashes her a peace sign. "In the flesh!"

"Oh my god," she repeats. But then she pauses, suddenly self-conscious; peers up at him, arms tucked in. "Um. Do you– can I have a picture?"

There's something warm in his chest.

"Of course you can."

He wakes with a shaking, shuddering breath.

Electricity crackles against his fingers, racing over the blanket with luminous static—Miles barks out a growl and pulls it back, blue-yellow-blue, under his skin. It hums and dances, vicious, like a caged beast.

He doesn't need it. He's fine. Everything is fine.

The world is quiet and distant; he shoves his way upright, shoulders hunching in, staring through the window cracked open. New York never sleeps and the bustle of noise wraps around him like a blanket, lit up in pale streetlamps. Ganke's asleep, curled soft and slumbering under his blankets, and he's the only one in the room, Miles knows. He's got every sense on edge, and there's only one heartbeat other than his, and he's very aware of that.

Because he's alone, and that means he's unthreatened. That he's safe. In the coiling darkness of his dream, Miguel was there. But he isn't here, so Miles is fine, and that's all there is to it. And even if he was here, it would be fine—because Miguel is different. Treats him like an adult, lets him go on missions, gave him a watch. It's just Miles who is being a coward by dreaming of him like that, with fangs and claws and wildfire eyes. He shouldn't be having nightmares, not anymore. Things are fine now.

He sleeps so infrequently. He just wanted tonight to be calm.

But there isn't time for worrying about what-haves and could-bes. He's got an essay to finish tomorrow and hours of patrol to get on, and he needs sleep, no matter how little it seems to need him. So Miles curls up, rolls over, and closes his eyes like that's all he needs to go back to sleep.

It isn't. He lays there, staring at the ceiling, wondering why it had to happen, why it had to happen to him, wondering, wondering, wondering. And then the light is lancing through his window, and Ganke starts bustling around the dorm, and he might as well get up because it's morning, and that's what people do in the morning.

So Miles gets up.

Spiderman always gets up.

New London wails its arrival, drones buzzing overhead; Miles creeps, invisible, through sprawling archways and rain-rotted posters until he reaches that purple-blue building. There's more condemned tape stretching over the entrance, another paper on the front—it'll be torn down soon. Knowing Hobie, he's already got a backup, or maybe he'll just spread his wings and take off to whatever building will be his perch for the moment. Hard to tell with him.

But there's faint music, something soft and fingerpicked echoing through the upper window, and he skitters up the side with speed that comes from mere hours of sleep stretched across a week and ash on the back of his tongue.

"I was thinking," Miles says, turning visible and popping through the flat's window. "Is it better not to talk about things?"

Hobie, sprawled over his couch with boots kicked up and guitar on lap, chokes. Like, proper chokes, eyes flying wide and hands thumping on his chest. "Bloody fuckin' hell, give a bloke a second of goddamn warning before you pop through his window–"

"You have a spider sense," Miles points out, not incorrectly, but perhaps a touch vindictively.

"Yeah and I use it for the normal shit, like weapons and baddies and drones, not my good friend stickin' his gob in when I'm distracted–"

"Coulda had a heart attack," Miles says, chipper.

Hobie squints. He shifts his weight back, tugging his bonnet off to free his wicks, and aims the neck of his guitar at Miles. "Next time I visit ya, I'm hookin' up an amp and wakin' your whole damn building."

That thought does, in fact, inspire fear, but Miles just smiles as broadly as he can and comes through the window, latching it all polite-like behind him. "Spiderman or not, Salas would kick you to the streets before you finished the first chord." A pause. "Maybe."

Hobie grins back, the kind that perches on his lips like a particularly satisfied cat, and slings his guitar off his lap. Kicking his legs off to the side, he inclines his head towards his duct-tape patched couch, regaling on his half like a throne.

Miles doesn't sit, though. Paces around the repurposed living room, past piles of clothes and chemistry beakers set up in a manner that would definitely get clocked by the health code. He should sit, he's definitely tired enough to warrant it, and if given a chance he'd probably curl up here and sleep for a week but that would mean missing patrol, missing Society obligations, and he can't.

Last night keeps bouncing around his head like an asteroid thrown from orbit.

Hobie doesn't frown but his grin fades, settling into something halfway with his brows drawing low over his face. He seems to replay their conversation, and his eyes narrow. "Better not to talk about things," he repeats, drumming his fingers over the fretboard of his guitar. "What's that supposed'ta mean?"

Miles grimaces, arms wrapping around his sides. "So. Theoretically, if I had a problem with someone in the past, would it be better to tell them that I've changed? That I don't have that problem anymore?"

Hobie stares at him. "Theoretically."

Miles winces.

His painted nails tap, a little accusatory, on the guitar.

"Okay," he decides, hard pivoting because apparently Hobie is not going to give him the privacy of pretending like this situation could be about anybody else. "Is it better not to talk about problems? Like, if it happened in the past and it was wrong, and we both know that now, then we don't really have to bring it up, right? Water under the bridge?"

It sounds so stupid. It is stupid. Miles knows that Miguel knows it was wrong—that's why he's changing the Society, why he gave him a watch, why Miles is invited on missions and kept on-call. He wouldn't do that if he still thought the Canon Events were true. So. It's stupid. He shouldn't be asking this.

He should already know.

"People don't like what they aren't," Hobie settles on. "And if talkin' means they havta confront that, then they won't. Lighter on their shoulders. If they don't talk about it, then it never happened. Lot easier to swallow than think 'bout what they did."

Sometimes it's hard to recognize that Hobie is only a year or so older than him. There's a wisdom to what he says that comes across in ways his dad's lectures never did.

"But even if they already know, doesn't mean you do." There's something sharp in his eyes. "You shouldn't havta jus' figure it out. They should tell you it was wrong."

Yeah. Probably. But Miles already knows. So it's fine.

Hobie leans in, pulling his weight off the couch until his elbows bump over his knees, guitar slipping to the side. There's a question written across his eyes, clear enough it's almost displayed by the words scrawling over the cushion he's sitting on. It's a painfully obvious question.

Miles kicks at the ground. "Miguel."

Hobie's lips twist in that particular way of his whenever Miles brings him up. And yeah, sure. Miles should defend him, almost wants to, but he's exhausted and the nightmare curdles on the tip of his tongue and maybe he's not in a defending kind of mood. Not in any kind of mood at all, really. The longer he keeps going only sneaking naps in around assignments and patrols and missions, the longer everything feels fuzzy and grey, stuffed in like packing peanuts.

And. Look. Miles knows, alright? He understands the situation, sees Miguel's side of things, sees his own—and with the Spot defeated, he was proven right, and they both know that. So. Objectively, he already knows the answer, so he doesn't need to ask it. His voice comes out soft and unsure. "He's changing, isn't he? Getting better?"

"Yes," Hobie says, eyes narrowed. "But that's not whatcha want to ask."

Miles curls his shoulders in. Glances away. "What he did was wrong, right?"

"Dead fuckin' wrong," Hobie says without hesitation, almost hissing. "An' there's no question about it. He was wrong, Miles."

He looks down.

"You know that, right?" Hobie asks, and there's something pleading in how he says it, like he wants to push understanding into Miles' head with his words alone. "You know he was wrong?"

"Yeah. I know." Miles sits down, next to beakers full of webfluid and gizmos that would summon engineering scholarships by the planeful. He rests his hands on his knees, webslingers pressing against his palms. "It's just. Nice, I guess. To know someone else thinks so, too."

Friday rolls around and Miles trudges home from patrol, yawning. A couple of bruises pepper his upper back and there's a building with a Spiderman-shaped hole through the foundation, but knowing New York, they'll probably set it up as a tourist trap until the city can clean it up. Cycles and all that. Coming full circle.

But now he's home, and he's got a good few hours until Rio makes dinner, and that's plenty for his physics assignment. Ganke, the little shit, hasn't finished his yet and is doing a fantastic job of ignoring Miles' texts even though he's got his read receipts on, and so Miles is left sprawled over his desk, glaring down at his laptop like he can scare it into finishing the thing for him. Dubious results so far.

His mind stays full of webslinging and missions and maps of the Spider HQ. Hard to fit physics amidst the mess.

Miles cranks his Post Malone louder, rocking back on his chair, and dives into the world of electromagnetism and relativity. If someone uses five hundred joules to move a heavy object in six minutes, how many watts did it take them to–

There's a knock.

He pauses, tenses—no danger sense simmering in the back of his mind, and the knock comes from his door, not his window. Miles slips his headphones down his neck, lyrics mumbling out into the wider air. "Yeah?"

The door creaks open, and there's the blue-black of his father's uniform, captain's badge bright over his lapel. Miles flicks a glance at his clock—man, six already, he's never going to finish this in time—before looking back. "What's up, Dad?"

Jefferson walks in, a paper bag clutched in one hand. Just off his shift, looks like, sunglasses on top of his head and that lingering weariness from a week under the NYPD that means he'll probably curl up on the couch later tonight with a can of hopstate IPA.

Miles, who had definitely not stolen one when dared by Hobie, doesn't know why anyone would drink that.

"I brought you something," Jefferson says, shifting his weight a bit between his feet. He holds out the paper bag—small, with red-white letters on the side.

Miles blinks. "Thanks?" He shoves his laptop to the side, nearly knocking his lamp off—actually, not again, he's broken this poor thing like four times already, he flicks a bit of web and jams the thing securely in place—and sets the bag down. Reaches in.

Pulls out a beautiful, beautiful chisel-tip marker.

"Oh!" Miles grabs the rest with greedy hands—two dozen, all warm tones, butternut squash yellow to burnt umber. Already his mind races, sprawling together in sunlit skylines and Mumbattan's pastel buildings, and his fingers itch for his sketchbook. "Hel– heck yeah, how did you know I was running out of these?"

Jefferson rubs the back of his neck. "You left all your supplies here last week. I wasn't snooping, but it was hard to miss them."

Oh. He did forget them, didn't he? Every week, he always carts them from dorm to home, because being without them is like missing a limb—but he hasn't drawn anything in a week. Just. Been too busy.

He's been too busy for a long time, now.

"Thanks," he says again. Curls up, a little protectively, over the markers. "I love them, seriously!"

Jefferson sets a hand on his shoulder, and Miles only mostly leans into the touch. "Glad to hear it, Miles." He pauses, looking at the open laptop, at the assignment waiting patiently for the next answer. "I know you're going to Princeton, but I don't want you to lose this love, alright? You're fantastic at it. Better than anyone. And they're not for tagging, even though I know I can't stop you, but–"

"I'm not going to Princeton."

Jefferson trails off. Miles, whose brain has just caught up with his mouth, trails off with him.

What?

"What?" Jefferson asks.

Miles stares at his hands. At the markers. "I don't think I want to go there anymore," he says. "Back to, um. Art, I think."

Jefferson stares at him, which, fair. They've got a meeting with the guidance counselor in two weeks explicitly for strategies to get into Princeton. This isn't so much coming from left field as a separate game entirety.

But now that he's started, he can't stop. "I wanted to go to other dimensions," Miles says, and there's something raw in admitting it out loud. He didn't– he didn't hate physics, didn't hate the concept of it, even if going to New Jersey would have torn out his heartstrings to say goodbye. But it'd seemed so important, at the time. After a year and a half away from the only people he thought understood, all he could think about was being near them.

He'd known them for three days.

"But I don't need to go there for that anymore, y'know? I've got–" he gestures, a little helplessly, to his wrist. To the watch, silver-gold, lit up with pale orange. He never takes it off, not anymore.

With it, he can go to any dimension he wants. What could Princeton give him past that?

"I don't know," he settles on, because it feels too soon to be decided even if he thinks he already is. "Maybe it's just a temporary thing and I'll want to go there again later. But. For now, I think I want to stay here."

Jefferson keeps blinking.

"Okay," he seems to settle on. "We'll have to talk together about it, since this is a big switch, but whatever you want, we'll support you." He chuckles a bit. "But if you do decide not to go to Princeton, you need to tell your mom that. She'll be so happy you're staying in New York."

Staying home.

"Yeah," Miles says, a little thickly. "I definitely will."

There's been plenty of bombshells this conversation and Jefferson has apparently reached his limit, squeezing Miles' shoulder before pulling back. "Dinner in an hour," he says. "Pollo guisado, so don't be late."

"I won't!"

Jefferson nods and leaves, shutting the door gently behind. New York echoes, humming, warm, through his window. He can hear the TV turn on between the cracks in his door.

Miles looks at his physics assignment, blinking away on his laptop. Halfway done, due tomorrow. Ganke still hasn't responded to his texts.

He closes it, grabs his sketchbook and new markers, and goes downstairs to sprawl over the couch and draw.

Miles coughs, hand over his mouth even with the mask; there's smoke and dust clinging to the lycra, staining every breath. A normal mission, some over-powerful villain who's made it her personal mission to bring Nieuw York to the ground, but one with odd sensory abilities—so Miguel had called him specifically.

Miguel chose him. Miles from three months ago would've been ecstatic, gnawing at the bit to prove himself; Miles from now is just tired. He's been tired for so long.

His chest aches. He's breathing. He needs to keep breathing.

The apartment building rumbles and groans, load-bearing walls giving up their purpose, and Miles skitters through doorframes and empty hallways. Grabs a family, tosses them through the window, rolls them to the ground on a strand of web. He hears the villain, a tall, hulking woman with white-black eyes, shouting something, but he's stumbling through the apartment complex before it collapses, getting everyone out. His feet keep missing. All he breathes is dust.

"Keep up, Spiderman!" Someone barks—the spider he's on a mission with, someone he doesn't recognize, suit done in stark white-maroon-gold. They fly past the window, grab the civilians he throws out, keeps engaging with the villain.

"I'm coming," Miles manages, gasps. Hurls a web and himself after it, racing outside, only visible as a grey-streaked blur.

He has to keep moving. There's a mission to complete. He can't lag behind.

Rio stays up with him, curled over a steaming bowl of water, hacking dust-flecked mucus out of his lungs for the rest of the night.

He gave the report, held himself together as he said alongside the other spider who he doesn't know the name of and didn't speak a word to, and delivered it to Miguel without so much as a cough. Just a normal mission. Didn't mention anything wrong, because there isn't, and got sent home. Plenty of time to sleep before he has to get to school tomorrow. And he'll sleep, and he'll eat, and he'll show up to the next mission bright and chipper because if they send him on missions, that means he needs a watch, and it stays on his wrist.

He wheezes again. Rio rubs soothing circles over his back.

When Hobie taps on his dorm window, nails painted black and leaving little papersketch trails in their wake, Miles doesn't let him in but instead sneaks out himself, skittering up the side with only a moment of hesitation to make sure Ganke stays firmly passed out on his bed. Hobie pads up after him, strolling up the building in plain daylight despite how Miles tries to tug him up faster, and then they're both skipping off to Gowanus for either a high warehouse to talk on or enough hipsters that Hobie will blend in, however unwillingly.

"Right peppy you are," Hobie says, kicking his heels over the edge of the brick. It's bleeding into early evening, and the Wednesday rush hour skitters below them like ants. Hobie's got his jacket perched on his shoulders, new patches running up his arms. Hot glue bubbles poke from the edges of his older ones. "S'only been three days since we've last seen each other."

"Yeah," Miles says, drumming his fingers on his thighs. "Lot can happen in three days, though."

Hobie flicks his gaze over. Doesn't say anything but leans in a bit, bumping their knees together.

Miles had a whole speech planned, but he feels like he dropped all his notecards and can only pick them up out of order. "You're, like. A DIY guy, right? Know how to build things?"

He cocks his head to the side. "Depends. What kinda 'thing'?"

"A health monitor?"

Hobie narrows his eyes. "M'not about to help anyone to monitor you, mate. Thought you already got plenty o' that and I'm not 'bout to contribute to your frankly pitiful circle of privacy–"

"Oh my god," Miles moans into his hands. "Okay. Forget I said anything. Health thing, how about? Health device? Health analyzer?"

Hobie stays squinting.

This went a lot better in his head. Miles rolls his shoulders back, fingers splaying over the sun-warmed brick of the repurposed warehouse. Breathes in only air, lungs free of dust, stares over the familiar skyline.

"My mamí," he says, and it comes out soft. "She worries, y'know? And I've been calling her on patrol, keeping her updated, but– she worries when I go off on missions. I'd like to give her something so she knows how I'm doing."

In the distance, though it's impossibly far away, he thinks he can see the window to his room, fire escape wrapping around, posters and fairy lights within.

"She didn't ask for it," Miles feels the strangest need to clarify. "I think she would be fine if I kept up my calls and check-ups; but that means she has to stay up the whole time, and then Dad does too, and they're both so busy. I don't want to do that to them. And this way, if something goes wrong and I can't call, they'll be able to know, I guess." There's something quiet and morbid in the thought. "Not that– not that I think I'll die on a mission, but I don't want them being lied to. They should know."

Hobie looks at him. His gaze drifts, glacially slow, down to Miles' wrist, to the silver-gold wrapped under his jacket cuff. There's that curl to his lip again.

"No tracker," he says. "No location, no identity, no nothing—jus' health."

Miles, quietly, exhales. "Was kinda hoping you would say that," he admits. "I don't– I want her to know I'm safe, but not—not everything. Just that I'm okay."

Hobie's eyes reflect the Brooklyn skyline, wide and sprawling. "Are you?"

Miles doesn't look at him. Keeps watching New York, legs kicking over the side of the building, fingers wrapped on the edge. "I'm fine, yeah," he says, and is proud of how steady his voice is. "Not great, y'know? But I'm okay."

Silence stretches over the clatter of people and distant rumble of subways.

"I'll make it," Hobie settles on, serious, but then leans in. Something distinctly cat-like purrs over his words. "Now, o' course, what it looks like depends on somethin' else entirely."

"Dude, I refuse to get outed as Spiderman because you wouldn't design something that blends into my dimension."

Hobie rocks back, flicking his wrists in that particular little motion that Miles knows means his webslingers are once more snug on his palms. "Wouldn't dream'a it—as long as you, hm. What was that tricky li'l statue you showed me last time?"

Miles frowns—they've been giving each other tours pretty consistently, meeting up in the other's dimension every few days. Everything blurs together a bit, but he's pretty sure they went to Staten Island last time. "Uh, Tear Drop Memorial, I think?"

"That's the one." Hobie stands, stretching, the spikes on his jacket bristling around his ears. "Beat me there, an' I'll make it all boring and normal."

Miles blinks at him. "Dude, that's across the bay."

Hobie grins. "So it'd be pretty damn embarrassing if the Londoner figured out your ferry system first, wouldn't it?"

Miles rockets to his feet. A challenge like that isn't about to go unanswered.

"You're going down, man."

Miles says he won that race. Miles, who is also a liar, starts gathering clothes baggy enough to hide a new accessory.

When Miles wakes up, curled around his pillow and with one sock mysteriously abandoning him, there's a message beeping on his watch. He blinks, slapping at it with bleary unconsciousness as iron shoots down his spine.

But it isn't Miguel, isn't a mission. Just something from Pavitr, asking when the four of them can train together again.

Oh. Something fond and warm pools in Miles' stomach.

He met with them two days ago—in Mumbattan this time, capitalizing on Pavitr's endless desire to train and thus his knowledge of all the fun parkour spots, though Gwen had spun promises of a course she'd developed back in her world. Hobie had come out all sprawling and lanky, fitting right back with them like he'd never left, and–

It's nice. It's really, really nice. He'll keep training at HQ, he knows—to prove himself, to show Miguel how he's improving.

But. They can keep training, just the four of them, outside that.

It's a little tricky though, which is why they can't make a specific date and have to keep sending messages to piece together what days are next—have to fit the schedule around Hobie's shows and Gwen's band practice and Pavitr's kalaripayattu lessons and Miles'–

Well.

Miles' nothing.

He doesn't have any conflicts, really. Just school, patrols, and missions. Dinner with his family on Fridays, sure, but half the time he misses that because he's on-call, and studying with Ganke always seems to fall by the wayside, and his sketchbooks are gathering dust on his desk. Being on-call means he can't go to sleep, and the thought of missions means he sits there, tense, waiting for a summons that might or might not come. No time for training there.

He's got the same schedule, the same requirements as Pavitr and Gwen. It should be simple for him to show up on certain days, to make a clear schedule that fits around everything he does. It should be simple.

It isn't.

Might be free Saturday! He responds, and wishes he knew for certain.

Miles yawns, wide and powerful enough something sparks around the corners of his mouth. It doesn't help. He slaps himself across the face, nearly knocking his headphones off—that doesn't help, either.

What it does do, however, is echo loudly enough through the flat that there's a knock on his door.

Miles freezes, a touch guilty, but it's not like he can exactly erase the sound. "Uh, come in?"

Rio pokes her head in; there's a towel wrapped around her head, and now that his headphones are off, he can vaguely remember hearing the hair dryer blustering in the opposite bathroom. Her eyebrows are pinched tight. "Mijo, what are you already doing up?"

Miles, very carefully, doesn't glance at the clock. "Oh, I had an assignment. I just got up," he says, like a liar, because apparently it's morning and he stayed up the whole night.

She stares at him. Miles fights the urge to wilt under her eyes—because yeah, maybe he doesn't look the best. Sleep comes in fractured hours around studying and missions and periods of time blinking at the ceiling, and he knows there are sallow bags on his face and a twitch to his eyes that probably shouldn't be there. Today is particularly bad, given they're approaching the end of the semester and tests are piling up, but, you know. It's fine. He'll sleep on Monday—no, he's on-call Monday. Tuesday. He'll sleep on Tuesday.

"Just– studying," he says, a little weakly. "Dad'll take me to Visions in a bit, and I want to be done with this guide before I get there. Gotta be ready for the test, right?"

Rio frowns, stepping forward. She looks over his shoulder at his laptop, where the study guide for chemistry sits, waiting for him to finish. The test is in two days, but Miles is really only solid on making his own webfluid, and everything else chemistry-related does not, decidedly, come super natural to him. So. Studying.

"Are you failing?"

Miles balks. "No!"

"Then you're fine, papi," she says, brushing a hand over his shoulder. "Grades are good, but they're not the most important, okay? Get some sleep. Take care of yourself." She takes his head in her hands, pulls him in to kiss his forehead. "You're always so busy."

Miles closes his eyes and leans into it. "Sorry," he whispers, though he's not sure what he's apologizing for. "I'll try."

The gun skitters over the ground, bouncing once, twice on the concrete before Miles flicks his other hand out and webs it down.

"Man, we don't do that here," he tells the mugger, a tall, broad guy with a pale blond beard peeking out from his medical mask. "There are shelters that can help, y'know? Don't need to take from other people."

The guy looks less than inclined to listen to him, so Miles flicks two more webs and pins him to the wall. Pauses, listens to the snarled curses, and sends a third to cover his mouth. Flicks a little peace sign at the CCTV camera at the corner of the bodega he knows from personal experience has a great view of the alley.

But then there's a snuffle, something wild and harried, and Miles is hit like a bowling strike.

"Oh my god, thank you, thank you so much," the would-be victim babbles, clutching at his arm like they're not aware of it, eyes white-rimmed and shaking. They're short, wrapped in a cardigan that feels much too thick for spring and golden, wire-rimmed glasses that make their eyes bloom behind the frames. "I thought– oh my god, I thought he was going to shoot me, I thought I was going to die–"

"Hey," Miles says, pitching his voice into that calmer, slower tone he uses in situations like this. Spiderman can only be quippy half the time, when he's fighting the villains—other times he needs to be a hero in different ways. "You're okay, alright? Totally fine. He won't be bothering you."

They let out a low, wavering breath, little tracks of water splashing down their cheeks. Then stiffen, like they realize they've been digging their purple-black nails into his arm, and release him, stepping back with wide eyes. "Sorry, sorry. Just– thank you. Thank you."

"No problem," he says, and knows he's smiling wide enough his eye-lenses curl up at the edges. "I'm happy to help."

There's a summons to HQ on his watch. Miles sits there and looks at it.

Looks at it for a long, long time.

Miles slips into the lab, shoulders drawn tight to his sides and grin firmly settled in place. It wasn't a mission summons but he's still just in his suit, not that he hardly takes it off anymore, and his fingers rub over his webslingers just for something to do. Not that he needs anything to do. He's fine.

There's a deep, ever-present hum of technology in the lab, wires crisscrossing over the floors and walls, monitors and holograms blended together in the murk. Dark enough for Miguel's hyper-sensitive eyes, yeah, and Miles resigns himself to squinting as best he can.

Overhead, the platform creaks. Doesn't lower, because apparently this meeting isn't dramatic enough for that, and Miguel slips down to meet him with a lashing of rust-red web. His suit emerges from the darkness. Red-blue.

Miles doesn't stiffen, because he's fine, but he takes a moment longer before his tongue goes through the motions. "What's up?"

Miguel walks forward, face that impassive blankness he always seems to wear now. "You've been traveling to Hobie's dimension," he says, apparently skipping any pleasantries or questions about well-being. "Is something wrong with Earth-138?"

Miles blinks at that, because yeah, not exactly what he expected. "Um. I have been, yeah? How did you know?"

Miguel stares at him, a little furrow between his brows. "All watches have a tracker. You know that."

Oh. He didn't know that. Is he– is he supposed to know everything to do with his watch? Was he supposed to figure it out?

Miles didn't know that.

"He quit," he says, and there's something a little bitter, a little wanting, in his voice. "Hobie quit, y'know? So. I mean, I guess I thought we could—should—stay in contact with him? But if I'm not supposed to, I, uh, I could stop, if you wanted me–"

Miguel holds out a hand. Miles shuts right up.

"Dios mío, Morales, I'm just trying to understand," Miguel bites out, hand over his face. "Is something going wrong in his world? Do I need to send spiderfolk there?"

"No, he's fine. I'm just–" he trails off, biting at his lip. Because– it feels like a waste, isn't it? Using this incredible, brilliant technology just to, what—visit a friend? Pop over to another dimension like he's checking on someone down the hall?

"I'm just visiting him," Miles says. It comes out quieter than he wanted.

Miguel stares at him. In the darkness of the lab, Miles can't read his expression, and his danger sense croons. But it's fine. Everything's fine.

"Keep your exposure to a minimum," Miguel says eventually, already turning back to his platform. "Don't be seen too much."

Miles looks at the ground. Thinks of the watch. Thinks of the multiverse. "I won't," he says, and there's this vicious, rotting urge to say sir.

When Miles knocks on the window, knuckles causing words to ripple over the glass like skipped stones, he wonders. Wonders whether Miguel now knows where Hobie lives, where he sleeps. Whether when the building is brought down and the Spiderman flies off to another corner of New London, Miles will lead Miguel right back to him again.

He didn't know about the tracker.

Hobie walks over, sashaying to the beat—there's some sort of album crooning shittily from a speaker that looks thirty years older than anything Miles knows, and Hobie's got a shirt that barely covers half his chest and bruises peppering around his collarbones. He nudges the window open with a hip and leans back, digging through a stack of newspapers with the corners burnt, and tosses something over.

Miles, halfway through the window, fumbles to catch it in time.

It's a thin band, stitched together like fabric for all it's made of metal, blue-green melded with iron-red. No screens but buttons speckled over its sides, a few half-completed sentences that trickle in and out of legibility, little spikes around one side and a fishbone weave clasp. It weighs surprisingly little. He blinks at it.

"Finished your monitor," Hobie drawls, meandering back to the corner of the room he's commandeered as a kitchen. The condemned building isn't connected to heat or water but he's got a gas-powered stove humming away, steam trickling from the top of the kettle. "No tracker, no nothin'. Just your health. It'll work 'cross dimensions, links to a li'l screen I made, give me a sec to find it–"

Miles stares at it, running his fingers over the buttons. That was startlingly fast. He should probably say thanks. He is going to say it, actually, as soon as he can—it's just.

He keeps thinking. Keeps wondering.

Hobie, kicking aside a table that clatters high with paper plates, pauses. Looks back at him, something discerning in his dark eyes, and then he's abandoning his quest and walking over. He slings an arm around Miles' shoulder and not-quite guides, not-quite shoves him over to the couch, not removing his arm until Miles is sprawled over the duct-tape-littered surface with his legs kicked up. He takes over the other half of the couch, rearing back so his bare feet brush over Miles' sides.

"Not that I expect teary confessions or anythin'," Hobie says, still grinning, voice light, but there's an undercurrent of worry. Something sharper. "But normally you're plenty chatty. Somethin' change?"

Miles swallows. Looks at the monitor.

Looks at the watch, silver-gold, over his wrist.

"Miguel asked why I'm coming here so much."

Hobie's eyes narrow to twin pinpricks. "That's none o' his damn business."

"I think it was supposed to mean well," Miles says, and isn't sure why he does. "That. He asked if your world was okay. Whether you needed other spiderfolk."

If Hobie's lip curled at the mention of Miguel before, this is a proper sneer, darkening his face and catching on the edges of his piercings. He stays on the couch but there's something like a live wire in how he tenses, eyes flicking to the window like the man's going to be standing outside.

And he wouldn't be, he wouldn't, but if there's a tracker in Miles' watch, he could be.

"Don't need 'em," Hobie says, drumming black nails over his thigh in a ferocious beat. "Won't ever need 'em, if I've got somethin' to say. Not that buncha damn stoppers." There's something fanged and furious in his eyes. "S'not 'bout saving worlds to them, not mine, not any. They want to maintain. Keep 'em the same."

Then he stiffens, turns to Miles like he wasn't planning on saying it so plainly. That grief, sharp and weary, returns to his eyes.

"They're not that bad," Miles says, and isn't sure who he's defending them to. "Besides. I have to stick with them, y'know?"

"Why?" Hobie asks, and he's quiet but there's something frantic in the question. He leans forward until he's against Miles' sides, legs tangling together, hands cool and grounding. "Don't havta do anythin'. So why stay?"

Miles laughs a little, though it isn't funny. "Spiderman always does both."

"You're already doin' both, mate. Spiderman and Miles Morales. Bein' in the Society is just adding a third to the plate."

He curls his arms into his sides, clutching the monitor tight. His watch hums, silver-gold, pale orange. He needs to keep it. He can't lose the multiverse, not again, disappear back into the year and a half of no one.

"Everyone else does it." Not Hobie. Hobie quit. He doesn't want to think about that. "It's– I'm handling it. Today's just– a bit rough, yeah? Happens to all of us. Wasn't expecting Miguel to ask about that. Everyone else can handle it. I'm fine."

Hobie rests a hand on his shoulder, feather-light. "Gwendy 'n' Pav aren't on-call, mate," he says, and there's something tragic in how the words meet the air. "They go for training and meetings, or missions if Miguel asks for 'em specifically—but not on-call. Focusin' their own dimensions. Their own lives."

Oh.

He didn't know that.

There are a lot of things he doesn't know, he's realizing. That weight sits heavy on his ribs.

"My powers," he says, a little helplessly. "They're perfect for taking down anomalies. I'm able to help so many people."

"An' how much of that," Hobie asks, quiet, "is you helpin' the Society, rather than them helpin' you?"

Miles doesn't know.

He sits on the edge of a brownstone, heels kicking on the bricks, mask pulled up to his nose. Below, police skitter and scurry around the corner bodega, pulling out the three webbed muggers he strung from the ceiling in a practiced little cat's cradle. The webbing will dissolve in thirty minutes or so and the criminals have their mouths exposed and airways all safe, but there's something entertaining watching a bunch of grown men and women figure out how to get the muggers in the back of the cop cars when they're stuck stiff like boards.

There's a disposable carton in his hand. The owner had pressed it into his hands as soon as he'd taken them down, eyes teary and wide, and she'd refused his attempts to give it back with all the strength of a tiny Filipino woman who barely came halfway up his chest.

So Miles sits on the roof, watching everything clean up, and he nibbles on a half dozen ube crinkle cookies still tender from the countertop food warmer. They seep, vanilla and nutty, through him. Powdered sugar dusts over his nose.

There's a lot to love here, he thinks.

"We'll engage him in Auburndale," Spiderwoman says, grey eye-lenses darkening. They're catching a breather near Greenport, in one of the brief moments where her world's version of Doc Ock goes on elaborate diatribes of villainy and modus operandi and all other things that'll end up resulting in his capture. "Get him away from the main power lines, try to break his connection to the server." A pause. "Wait, I know you—electricity, right? Think you could overload his systems?"

Miles stares at her. I don't know you, he wants to say. She's like him, senses reverberating off each other and bouncing back in an endless spiral of spiderfolk, but he doesn't know her. She doesn't know him.

"Probably," he says instead. "I just have to get close enough."

She nods back, poking her head back out from under the sheltered bridge. "Fine with me."

So Miles throws himself forward, always forward, and venom builds and crackles under his fingers. There's a mission to complete. He doesn't know who he's completing it for.

Even without a tracker, Hobie finds him, because he always does.

Miles is out on patrol, lingering in that hazy state between evening and night, sun still spilling over the distant horizon and catching the edges of buildings in its fiery tongues. There's a cut in his suit he's ignoring, perched on the side of the Manhattan Bridge to peer over the Brooklyn Flea. He keeps little stashes like this over the city, pockets where he stuffs water bottles and protein bars alongside sticky notes with frowny faces so people don't get any ideas, and he's nibbling on something vaguely peanut butter-esque. Ten minutes, that's his limit, then he'll have to get up again.

Of course, that plan is somewhat derailed as a pair of long legs skitter down next to him and Hobie slings an arm over his back.

Miles, whose spider sense is a tightly wound beast these days, just rolls his eyes and knocks shoulders with him. "Fancy running into you here."

"That's my line," Hobie says, rocking back. No mask, but it's not like anyone could clock him here, and he's not the type to care about that anyway. He rests his chin on his palm, smoke clinging to his jacket.

They sit there, watching people scurry around the flea market, vendors doing their best to both get people to buy but also to leave as closing time rolls around. Customers with bags piled high stride off, cheery and chatty, and the air fills with the smell of chili dogs and steamed bao.

"Right pleasant without all the smog." He's leaning back, squinting at the horizon, legs kicking over the side of the bridge. Pink-maroon against the golden sun. "Still not New London, but your Brooklyn isn't the worst, I s'ppose."

Miles rolls his eyes. "It's beautiful," he corrects. "Sorry you're too blind to see it."

"I see it plenty," Hobie says, long fingers reaching out to frame the distant Freedom Tower. "Feels like half the time I'm out to see you I havta go searchin' 'cross the city. What's the reason this time?"

"Patrol, man. You know how it is. New York wouldn't be New York if there weren't a million criminals every night."

Hobie doesn't look over at him, but there's something tangible in how he shifts his weight closer. "When's the last time you took a day off, mate?"

"Um." Miles doesn't want to think about it. "Been a while, probably?"

His voice is soft. "Not too healthy, that."

Miles doesn't offer a response, finishing his bar. He's fine, really.

The people keep bustling below, loud. Miles sets his wrapper back in the little cubby, alongside the empty water bottle and roll of bandages. He'll need to replenish this one soon, grab more at a local bodega and scrounge together another twenty boxes of protein bars to dot across the city. He watches his health monitor, the little band of blue-green, dangling from his ankle.

Hobie drums his fingers over the metal plating of the bridge, eyes distant. "If I asked ya to show me somewhere new, where would you take me?"

Miles squints. "I've given you plenty of tours," he says with some affrontion.

"Not me. New for you. Some place you've never seen before."

He frowns, turning to face him. Hobie's still looking over the Brooklyn Flea, legs kicked back, shoulders relaxed. Eyes soft.

"Don't really have time to find new places, man," Miles hedges. "Patrol, missions—you know how it is."

Hobie stares at the skyline. He brushes a finger over one of the patches on his jacket. "New York can hold itself together for a day, can't it?" There's something soft in his voice. "I won't tell ya to do anythin'—that's up to you. But I think it'd be good."

Oh.

Miles leans against the bridge, against the lingering graffiti stains from some project long since washed away. "Alright. I'll think about it."

There are a lot of things Miles would do differently if he had access to a time machine, but he's pretty sure the first one is walk straight up to the lottery drawing machine and give it a vigorous kick.

Why did he think he could go to Visions, again?

The maths assignment swims before him. It's due in two hours and he's made it a brisk fourth of the way down the page.

But he's not alone in his room, he knows that, and, well. Worth a shot.

"Ganke, my man, love of my life, fantastic roommate, best roommate–"

"Which question."

"...the one about the logarithm."

Ganke, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh loud enough to have Salas threaten to collapse the place on their heads, leans back. Pauses his game with a look of such longing that romance writers would come pouring out of the woodwork to study it. "You owe me," he mumbles, but starts digging through his backpack to pull the paper out.

"I owe you the world," Miles agrees.

"Try to keep that attitude next time I need a pair of kicks, won't you?"

"Don't push your luck."

He almost expects, this time, to wake up. It's been a long, long time since he's had a night of undisturbed sleep, whether by alarms or missions or dreams, and it's just like normal that he jerks out of his blankets, eyes wide but unseeing, heart hammering in his chest.

No one else is in the room. He's fine.

Par for the course, really.

Coffee and Contemplation, the sign proclaims, letters thin and spidering over the frosted glass window. It's a narrow building, tucked between a real estate agent and convenience store, with cream-pastel walls and ivy-lined counter visible within.

Miles nudges the door open, a bell ringing cheerfully. Music, something soft in piano and gentle strings, swirls around him with a croon. With you sitting there behind me, I'll take you to distant places–

In the late morning, that odd period where work has already started and lunch hasn't rolled around yet, there's barely anyone in. Just a tired man slumped over a laptop with Chanel-quality bags under his eyes who barely blinks, let alone acknowledge the new person. A woman is behind the counter, setting her phone down and smiling at him; she's got warm, velvety eyes and butterfly clips in her hair. Her name tag says Ayten. "Hi! What can I do for you?"

"Um." He did not, decidedly, plan this far ahead. He's in his suit, a hoodie thrown on top; had been out on patrol when he happened to swing by this place and Hobie's words echoed through his head. "What, uh, do you recommend?"

She laughs, tongue between her teeth. "Coffee, probably. If you're going for our most popular, I've been making a ton of rose cappuccinos now we're heading back into spring."

Miles has been drinking exclusively energy drinks for what feels like centuries. "Sounds great?"

"$6.25, then," she says, tapping away on her tablet.

He fumbles through his wallet, hands her seven ones—why is he doing this, he barely even knows what a cappuccino is, let alone a rose one—before pausing, looking around.

"Can you tell me more?" He asks. "About this place?"

Ayten blinks, flicking through the register and handing him three quarters back. He drops them in the tip jar. "What do you mean?"

"I've never been here before," Miles says, rubbing a bit at the back of his neck. "And I'm, uh. Interested in small businesses. So. Do you know more about this place? Its history?"

That warmth in her eyes blooms out, fond and familiar. "I'm the daughter of the owner," she says, smile settling over her face. "I can tell you more, yeah."

Miles looks over the espresso machine, the live-edge wood shelves, the hand-drawn menu with chalk dusted over the edge. Listens to the lo-fi and the click of the man typing on his computer.

"I'd love to hear it."

Miguel's voice rings, heavy and pressing, through the lab. "You're late, Morales."

Miles freezes, shoulders tucked in. A grin splashes, light and hesitant, over his face. "Sorry, man," he offers. "Was grabbing dinner with my family, lost track of time. You, uh, know how it is."

It's a meeting. Just a normal, regular meeting that he only remembered when he was halfway through his sancocho and had to run, shouting apologies and tripping over his suit, and throw himself through a portal. He's only fifteen minutes behind schedule. It's not that bad. He's fine.

Miguel sighs. It comes out like a growl. "Don't be late again," he says. Maybe it's unconscious, maybe it's deliberate, maybe maybe maybe—but his eyes flick down to Miles' wrist.

To his watch.

Miles tenses. "Of course I won't," he says, words spilling from his mouth. "Never again, always on time, sounds like a plan?"

If Miguel is confused by his immediate switch, he doesn't mention it. Just huffs, turning back to his monitors. Pulls up holograms with Lyla hovering over his shoulder, summons a calendar with plans for the future, tracing fingers—not claws, just fingers, just hands— over the screens. Their normal meeting. Normal. He's tall, looming, and there's silver-gold over his wrist.

Miles clutches at his watch with desperate fingers. He smiles when Miguel glances over, and it sticks to his face like tar.

He comes through the portal and immediately falls to his knees. He's not breathing, hands scratching at his chest, black over his eyes. There's the kitchen, everything shaking and shuddering as the gravity reverts to normal, and there are people here—heartbeats, echoing, danger sense crooning in the back of his skull.

Arms around his shoulders. He blinks, bleary, pupils flexing in and out of dilation, at his mother. Rio's grabbing at his sides, crouched before him, wine glass abandoned with scarlet seeping into the floorboards.

"Mijo, mijo," she says, choked. "Are you injured? Are you okay?" There's a screen in her hand, blue-green-orange, the companion to the health monitor that's always wrapped around his ankle. "It– it doesn't say you're hurt, what's wrong?"

Miles drags in a breath. It shudders through his lungs, tight and pained, and he sags forward. Presses his head into her chest.

"I beat him, mamí," Miles whispers. "I beat him. I shouldn't be scared of him anymore."

She doesn't know what he means. Of course she doesn't—he never told her of the chase, of the hunt. She'd never let him go back to the Society, back to it all, if she knew what they'd done.

But Miguel's better, now. The Society is better. So he doesn't need to tell her.

Rio clutches at his back, pulls him in closer, peppers kisses over his head. He can feel himself shaking under her fingers, eyes fixed on the ground that's hazing before him. Danger sense hisses, iron-cold, in the back of his mind.

She curls around him. "Why do you keep going back, papi?"

"I need the watch," he whispers. "I can't see my friends without it, I can't see the multiverse—I need the watch."

It sounds like a plea more than a reason.

"I found one," Miles says. "A café."

Hobie hums. They're sitting on the edge of some crumbling warehouse in New London, papersketch of yellow-amber, a paper tray of fries between. Miles keeps trying to take the crisp ones before Hobie does. He fails.

"They're tucked away in this little corner of Flatbush. Called Coffee and Contemplation. Pretty small, but they've got a great menu. I didn't even know you could have that many different styles." Miles mimes stirring a cup with a fry. "Still not a coffee-coffee guy, but Ayten—she runs it most days—has been helping me figure out what I like, mostly lattes and cappuccinos. She says I should be ready to jump into cold brew soon, and maybe house drip eventually. Or a pour-over."

"Lotta fancy words," Hobie says, drumming his fingers over his thigh. "You've been enjoyin' it, then?"

Miles smiles. "Yeah. I don't go to that part of Brooklyn often, so it's nice. To have a reason." Hobie slow-blinks like a cat, all pleased, and Miles rolls his eyes. "Alright, fine. Hats off. It was a good idea."

"I didn't say anythin'," Hobie purrs, angling a fry towards his face. "That was all you, mate."

"You were definitely thinking it."

He just leans back, spikes gleaming over his shoulders. There's a lazy grin splashing over his face, something warm and streaked through with sunset orange, and his piercings catch the light like they're made of fire.

Miles sticks his tongue out.

They wind their way through the rest of the fries, and Hobie does a trick shot with his webbing to launch the paper tray into a trash can far below. He makes it, barely, and they rib each other about who could have done it better as the city bustles on around them. It's comfortable. It's nice.

"I'm going to try and take a picture near them, as Spiderman," Miles says, kicking his heels over the brick. "Not immediately, since that might be, uh, suspicious, but try to get more people knowing about them. Keep their doors open. Ayten's been the only one I've seen working there, and I know she's out of high school, but that's a lot of hours, right? Especially when you're running it essentially by yourself."

Hobie looks away from him, towards New London. "She chose to, didn't she?" His voice is quiet. "Wanted to work all that time?"

Miles blinks. "I mean, yeah. But she mentioned they're searching for new employees but haven't found any yet. So. I think she's doing that many shifts because no one else can, y'know? Someone's gotta take up the mantle."

Nails painted black curl into ripped jeans. "But you don't think she should do that much."

For the strangest reason, Miles feels like the conversation has switched topics, for all the words seem to keep being about Ayten. "Um. I guess?"

Hobie doesn't say anything to that. Just stares over the skyline, wind catching the ends of his wicks. There's salt on his fingers from the fries, ghosting over his gloves. He's got something tight to his jaw.

Miles shifts. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, mate," Hobie says. "Just thinkin'."

"Ganke!" Miles chirps, booting the door open with a hip. There are two caramel cappuccinos clutched in his hands, steam curling around his face. "Gaaanke."

His roommate, who has had two years to get used to this, tugs his headphones off and watches him with the wariness of a dog realizing it's on a drive to the vet. "What did you do."

Which, ouch. Fair, but ouch.

"Nothing," Miles proclaims, padding forward. "I got you something."

Ganke blinks as he sets one of the to-go cups down on his desk, poking at it like something radioactive. "You brought me coffee?"

"Good coffee," Miles clarifies. "Not that house drip the cafeteria tries to say is edible. Double shot of espresso too, because we're going to need it with this physics assignment."

Ganke, halfway through a hesitant sip, squints at him. "Is this a bribe?"

Well. Too late to cover for it now.

"Maybe. I, uh. Wanted to work on it together?"

There's a pause as Ganke sets his cup down, licking a bit of froth off his lips. He looks confused. "What?"

"We've mostly been bonding over Spiderman things," Miles says, rubbing the back of his neck. "And I, uh. Don't want it to be only that. So! Coffee! And you can tell me what you've been up to this weekend while we both cry tears of agony over the due date."

Ganke stares at him, but then a little smile crawls over his face, glasses fogged at the corners from the steam. "Alright," he says, kicking his chair back so he can grab at his backpack and pull out the assignment. "But only because of the bribe. If this is going to continue, I'll need more coffee."

He grins, bright and proud, and settles onto his own desk with his cappuccino perched on his knees. "I'll ask Ayten what she recommends next."

"If you bring me a pumpkin spice latte in spring, I'm moving out."

Miles snorts, nearly knocks his cup over, and spends the next ten minutes getting into a beautifully heated argument about seasonal drinks before either of them even look at the paper.

Miles exhales, touching down behind the other Spiderman; he's a tall, broad thing of a guy, shoulders wide enough for a building to perch on, suit done up in grey-red. There's a scale pattern over his sides and armour up his limbs; makes him look more like a reptile than a spider. The bulk and the muscle of the mission, while Miles skittered back and forth to zap whenever the Rhino got free.

She's not free now, though. Pinned in a concrete crater, horn snapped at the base, armour shredding away in crackling bits. Not unconscious, because apparently this version of her has been so genetically enhanced she might not be able to be knocked out, but not able to keep fighting.

But she's not just on the ground. She's pinned there by a crackling orange-red shield. An anomaly containment device.

She roars, vicious and snarling, banging on the interlocking web with fists that leave bloody smears with each impact. Her eyes are completely black but wild, enormous on her bruised face, and she keeps hitting the shield. Thrashing. Fighting.

She's trapped.

"Keep your head up, Spiderman," the other says, glancing away from where he's flagging down the police.

Oh. Miles had walked forward, right on the edge of the shield. His hands are tight by his side. "Sorry," he mumbles, stepping back. He can't look away.

Miguel needs a report. He should go back. This New York is saved.

She howls, striking the containment force again and again and again.

Miles looks down, where his nails have bitten into his palms. Blood spills, iron-sweet, over his arms.

"Don't misunderstand me," Rio says, a touch hesitant like she's worried she'll chase him off. "I'm happy you want to help. But where did you get those?"

Miles, clutching the bag like a newborn child, winces. "Um. Another dimension?"

She stares at him. "Mijo."

He folds like wet paper, as always. "Okay, listen. Pav started talking about spices and I thought it was just, y'know, English to Marathi miscommunications, but when we started translating and looking things up, we realized that my universe just. Doesn't have those spices. And then he said I had to try them and I know I'm not a good enough cook and, uh. You are?"

Sandwich method. More compliments.

"You're the best cook I know," he says, pouring earnestness into his voice. "And there's, uh, this one–" he fumbles through the bag, very carefully not showing her the frankly unrealistic number of herbs and spices he ended up with. Miles has never been very good at saying no and Pavitr had been so earnest and every spice vendor in Mumbattan knew Spiderman and was happy to offer their best selections. So. Maybe he has a little more than he should. "–asafoetida, I think? No, wait, he said that one was best for vegetarian meals–"

His fingers find a thin paper envelope. "This one!" He pulls it out, squinting at Pavitr's loopy handwriting over the side. "Radhuni! Good for earthy flavours, apparently."

Rio stares at him. She's got her arms crossed, smears of tomato paste wrapping around her wrists, hair piled high to keep out of harm's way. "I'm already making arroz con gandules," she says, gesturing at the dutch oven with her spatula.

Miles blinks. "But that has spices, right? So why can't we just use these instead?"

There's a long pause.

"I'm not letting you graduate Visions until you learn more about cooking," she says with a long-suffering sigh.

He winces—ouch—but leans down a little, wrapping his arms around the bag and blinking at her with eyes as wide as he can push them. "Can we try, please? I really want to know how they taste."

"Your bisabuela would have a heart attack," Rio mutters, but dutifully grabs the envelope he holds out to her. "But yes, I suppose these will work."

Miles, very quietly, whoops.

It's delicious. Familiar, since the base is the same, but there's an uncharacteristic heat on the back of his tongue and the whole thing comes out a deep maroon-red, since he also convinced her to add some ratanjot.

Jefferson comments on the taste and can't seem to understand why Miles laughs through a glass of water. Rio's crow feet crease as she smiles.

There's no one else in the room. It's just him, and them, quiet in their little corner of Brooklyn and laughing about silly things—no HQ, no Society, no Miguel. He can't remember the last time he's smiled this much. Everything else bleeds away and he forgets, for one fragile, gentle moment, that he's got his suit on and his webslingers curled around his wrist. He's just there, safe, content.

He goes to other dimensions, experiences all their wonders and glories and brilliance—and then goes home. Always goes home.

As they're cleaning up, tucking the leftovers into the fridge for lunch tomorrow, he wraps her up in a hug. Pulls her close.

"Te amo, mamí," Miles whispers. She hugs him back.

The Green Goblin bellows.

It's a simple enough mission—the local Spiderwoman doesn't have the firepower to deal with the newest threat to her world, not in the strange vertical New York she's got going on that's way more prone to collapsing. So she asked for help. Miles was on-call, and he had chucked his laptop into a random corner of his dorm room and jumped through a portal a second later.

But he wasn't the only one brought in.

Miguel is here.

Spiderwoman handles the perimeter as Miles and Miguel move forward, muscle and power, talons and lightning; the Goblin doesn't seem to have a goal other than destruction, wild and frenetic, and they're trying to lead him to a more isolated area. Trying to restrain him. Miguel has a shield and his venom. Miles has his electricity. He's fine. They keep moving.

Training from HQ hammers away behind his eyes—stay alert, stay coordinated, stay ready— and he knows what he needs to do, what he should do, but he keeps slipping away to focus on civilians. Keeps leaving Miguel's side.

They're fighting together. He needs to be there.

Wind whistles and screams as he webs himself up, skittering past wreckage and cluttered groups of civilians—the Green Goblin roars, ricocheted by Miguel's punch. No wings but his four arms latched deep into the surrounding concrete, holding him from being thrown too far back, and he bellows with fangs large enough to really ruin someone's day. He's snarling, no words, just a manic rage in his eyes.

Miguel matches him blow for blow, spiraling around with rust-red webs and talons; Miles needs to get close. Needs to zap him. He can't fail, can't mess up when there's a watch on his wrist, can't lose the multiverse again.

He grabs a group of ten and throws them to Spiderwoman, who grabs them and lowers them with a ladder-esque construction of silk. Off he's running, always running, clambering up decaying buildings, staying to the perimeter. The Goblin cracks across Miguel's chest and throws him back, skipping like a hurled stone over a rooftop garden, talons digging into the metal with a screech and explosion of sparks.

Miguel tears himself back upright, snarling, but the Goblin isn't looking at him, catching sight of Miles perched on the edge of an apartment complex. His four arms windmill for speed, bruised and beaten, eyes hungry.

Miguel rises. The sun sets behind him, shadows cast at his feet, mask-eyes wide and talons extended.

He moves.

Miles stands there. He tries to take a step forward and his feet stick, concrete cracking around his heels in the way it hasn't for a year. His heart skips and stutters.

"Morales!" Miguel barks, and it's loud and it's deep and it crashes through Miles' head. "Get up! You need to move!"

He's trying. He's trying and he can't and his feet stick.

The Goblin bellows, something vicious and triumphant, and moves—Miguel shouts a curse and swings in, reaches out, eyes wide–

It's concern. It's concern and Miles knows it's concern, because he's in danger, because the Green Goblin is coming closer, because Miguel is reaching out for him. The world narrows, tunneling in until all Miles can see is that hand extending, red-blue suit wrapped around, talons extended. Miguel is shouting. He looks concerned. He is concerned. It's just concern.

His hand reaches out. "Morales!"

The building buckles and groans. Miles stares, eyes impossibly wide, feels the train rumble underneath, hears the scream of the spiderfolk, knows his feet are stuck. He's trapped. He's trapped and Miguel is reaching and his mask is red and his talons extend and he's trapped he's trapped he's trapped–

Miles blinks awake.

Everything is quiet.

He's wrapped around himself, small as can be, and there's no destruction, no crumbling buildings or howling villains. How did he get here? He can't remember—there's the Green Goblin, the rust-red of webs, something flying before his eyes. And fangs. And claws. And Miguel's face, looming before him, shouting–

And then he's home.

Miles uncurls; his legs are tucked to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and there's something hard against his back. Bricks damp with late night dew, seeping through his suit. The world is dark and humming around him—later than it was, how long has it been? He squints at the sky with bleary eyes, because it's the sky above him, velvet-black and clouded. Night. Was it night before? He can't remember.

But something is familiar—the skyline tracing before him, lit in gold-blue, Freedom Tower overhead and the rumble of cars below. Brooklyn. He's on a roof, one he knows, littered with open gravel and the hum of an air conditioning unit. There's a mural somewhere behind him, he thinks, but he doesn't want to look at it—will it be Uncle Aaron or Jefferson Morales? Is he actually home?

His mind moves sluggishly on.

The mission. He'd been called in, alongside Miguel, and try as he might, he doesn't know if the Goblin got taken down. He's– he's still alive, so presumably it was, but he can't remember how.

As he always seems to do, he looks at the silver-gold on his wrist.

There's a message asking what happened. Another ten minutes later saying that the Goblin was dealt with. A third telling him he needs to come in for the report. They're from an hour ago, long enough that Miguel is back at HQ, that he's waiting for Miles. That he's expecting him.

Miles drags himself upright on shaking legs. He wasn't injured, he thinks, but there's something taut and shivering in how he moves, like his limbs don't belong to him. But he has to get back. He has to keep proving himself.

He's pulling up the coordinates, clicking away on his watch, and he's got the destination in and he's standing at an empty wall of an empty alley and he should go. Miguel is worried. Probably knows he's not lost in the multiverse with the watch's tracker but Miles just disappeared on him and that's bad so he needs to go back and prove himself and keep the watch. He should go. He needs to go.

Don't be late again, Miguel's voice barks.

He needs the watch.

He can't do this.

There are coordinates already prepped but he stumbles past them, searching for something else, anything else, and his fingers know more than his brain—Earth-138 surfaces past the murk, the portal lashing out in gold-green, and he's throwing himself through as his danger sense shrieks.

Maybe Hobie's set up perimeter alarms or something, because he's much less surprised this time when Miles creeps through his window without knocking. Just tilts his head back, a chipped cup in his hand billowing steam, fishnets up his legs and wings curling from the edges of his eyes.

But then he drops the mug and darts upright, helping Miles through the window, gaze wide and panicked; gets an arm around his shoulders, drags him to the couch, dumps him in the middle. "Hey, mate," he says, quiet, soothing, but there's something taut in his voice. "All fine here, yeah? Jus' breathe. Keep breathin'."

Miles is breathing, actually, but he can't seem to muster the air to say that, so he curls up and pants into his knees. The world's spinning around him, black on the edges.

He can't look at his wrist. He can't look away.

Hobie, unwilling to leave his side, stretches back and tugs a blanket from under a pile of clothing. It's a beaten, weather-worn thing, green-blue, and he wraps it over both of their shoulders. Uses it to pull Miles in closer. Everything he touches gets streaked in dust, his suit covered in remnants of collapsing buildings, but he can't speak yet to apologize. Just huddles under the blanket, chest pressed to his legs.

But eventually his lungs inhale when he asks them to and the world shudders back to stability, knuckles white where they dig into his thighs. There are noises, the thump of some quiet music, a heartbeat at his side. There's no one else in the room. He knows this, and he clings to the information, tucks it away in his chest. There's no one else in the room.

"You wit' me?" Hobie asks, hand splayed over his back. Miles nods, a little weakly. "Okay. Okay." There's something that not-quite wavers in his voice, mostly projected calm but with a shake that makes him sound like the teenager he is, trying to stay collected in an uncollected situation. "Not hurt, right? Uninjured?"

Miles nods. "M'fine."

Hobie makes some disbelieving noise, leaning in. Under the blanket, he's warm and stable, pressed up against Miles' side like a crutch. "Alright," he says, quiet. "Then what happened, Miles? Are you okay?"

Is he? He doesn't know what that means anymore.

But the answer isn't yes, he thinks.

Words come slow and painfully, but they come. "I was on a mission. Fighting a Green Goblin. It was fine, it was all fine but then I saw Miguel." He inhales, strangled. "And I know he's different, that he's a hero and he's doing the right thing, but I saw him and my feet stuck and I couldn't think and–"

He buries his face in his knees. The world echoes, loud and pressing and enormous, around him.

"I'm trying," Miles whispers. "I'm– everyone else can do it. They patrol and live their lives and go to meetings and be on-call and they're fine. It's just. Why can't I? Why am I always the one that can't do it?"

Hobie's face crumples.

"Miles," he says, quiet, opens his mouth to say more—but nothing comes out. Just the grief in his eyes.

There's a hand under the blanket, rubbing soft circles over his back. Miles stares at his knees.

How many months has it been? He can hardly keep track. Everything blurs together under missions and tests and training that are the most important thing in the world when it's happening until the next one replaces it, and then that's the most important thing and then the next one is and he keeps jumping, running after the next thing to prove himself, to keep his watch around his wrist. Every time he goes to HQ drags at him, brings up wounds that never healed and memories that are still raw, but he keeps going back. Spends days preparing and days recovering but then goes in, again and again and again.

He keeps going back.

"I had to prove myself," he whispers. He feels small in this moment, curled beneath the blanket, tucked away on a duct-tape patched couch in a corner of New London that's going to be torn down soon. "I needed– I didn't want to lose my watch. Miguel never said he'd take it away, but– I kept thinking. If he did, and I lost the multiverse again, I would've. I don't know."

Hobie's hand stills, for a second.

"He didn't threaten me. Didn't say I had to prove myself." Miles tucks his chin in. "But I was already an anomaly, already a problem. If I started saying no to missions or on-call times, when would he just– decide it wasn't worth it? That I needed to go back?" He lets out a choked little laugh, clutching at his legs. "God. It's stupid. It's so stupid. I know he wouldn't do that, he's trying to make amends. Treating me like a regular spiderperson. It's so stupid."

"It's not," Hobie says, sharp. "Not stupid, Miles. He treated you like a mistake, like a villain— jus' 'cuz he's playin' nice now doesn't mean shit. You have every right to be scared o' him."

Miles grits his teeth. "But I shouldn't be."

The words drip, acid-green, over the couch.

"He's a hero, trying to save the multiverse—was wrong, yeah, but understood that. Changed. He gave me a watch and lets me on missions and doesn't treat me like a kid—I shouldn't. I shouldn't be scared of him."

Air scrapes at his lungs.

"I should be better," Miles whispers.

It tastes like a confession. Maybe it is.

He curls in on himself.

"You joined the Society before me," Miles says, very softly. "You know– they do good. They're trying to help."

Hobie stays quiet, hand still circling over his back.

"Tell me," Miles says, in that low, pleading way that's not a command, not a request, but something deeper. "Why can't I understand that? Why can't I move on?"

There's silence as Hobie processes that, eyes soft and sad and weary. He leans in, pressing his forehead against Miles', wicks spilling over their shoulders. Pulls back, the blanket sliding down his sides.

"You're not askin' to move on, mate," Hobie says, gently, so gently, like the words will crack and shatter if he says them any louder. "You're askin' why you can't jus' forget. Why you have to heal from this at all."

Miles looks away.

Healing. He did that already, watched claw marks close and lighten and smooth over, mere crisscrossing lines over his skin instead of anything more. And he's not broken, not anything like that. Just last week he grabbed coffee with Ganke and laughed about stupid things, watched the game with his dad and jeered the whole time at the opposition, helped his mom cook with new spices and relished the flavours. He's. He's still functioning. There's no healing needed.

But he can't sleep and he barely survives training at HQ and every time he looks at Miguel, his heart shakes like a rabbit in a trap, wild and frantic.

It shouldn't happen. He shouldn't be afraid.

But it does, and he is.

"They're better," he says, a little quiet. He wants to believe it. He does.

Hobie leans against him. "Even if they're not bad, doesn't mean they're good." He wraps his hands around Miles', lets the lingering warmth from the tea pool through their fingers. "And I don't think they've ever been good for you."

Under the blanket, in the abandoned building, the words echo.

Miles stares at his hands. There's no paint, no marker streaks over his fingers; just dust and grime, smeared together by sweat. They don't look like his hands.

"What do I do, Hobie?" He whispers.

"Go home," he says, soft. "I'll be right behind ya—havta grab somethin'—but home's where you need to be. Back to Miles Morales, not Spiderman, not lapdog of the Society—jus' Miles."

Oh.

"Okay," Miles says, and there's something heavy and pressing in his chest that retreats at the thought, pulls jagged claws from his consciousness and slips back to sleep. Home, where he is both, where he saves the day for people he knows and texts Ganke stupid things and tries new coffee creations he's never heard of and just—just breathes. "Okay. I'll go home."

It's still night when the portal spits him back on the roof, ink-black and spiraling. Miles stumbles once, legs shaky, arms splaying wide—catches himself on the far wall, fingers spread over the mural. Velvet-soft the air curls around him, interlaced with smog and cigarette smoke and vanilla spices from some open kitchen window.

Miles shakes out his head and stares off the roof, at the city beyond. At Brooklyn, wide, yearning, open.

He wonders, then, when eight million people became too little. Why he dreamed of far-off universes and worlds beyond counting instead of what he already had. Why everything had to be new instead of home.

There's a burning, helpless love in him, looking over the skyline.

It's not Nueva York, not Mumbattan, not Nieuw York, not Earth-42, not New Yorça—it's Brooklyn.

It's home.

Maybe it always was.

Miles spiders down the fire escape, feather-soft, and sticks his fingers to his window. It slides up easily and he dips inside, ears pricked—the faint sounds of the TV in the other room, light splashing under the doorframe. It's late, midnight scratching away at the rising moon, but they're waiting for him to get back from his mission. Staying up just to see him before he goes back to Visions tomorrow.

Warmth, soft and fragile, through his chest.

He looks around his room, at the posters up on the walls, the figurines stacked on his shelves, the sketchbooks gathering dust on his desk. The fairy lights latticed over his ceiling, intermingled with glow-in-the-dark stars in vague impressions of constellations. His home, splashed with his personality, with who he was before and who he is now.

He stares at it. Thinks about catching catnaps between missions, skipping family meals to choke down protein bars, forgetting his markers every other week. Thinks about losing Miles to Spiderman , and losing Spiderman to the Society. Thinks about healing.

Keep going, Uncle Aaron had said, but going doesn't mean running, and Miles thinks he's only been running for a long, long time.

He can't do this anymore.

There's a mirror in the corner, tall, edges lined with old polaroids and stickers. Miles walks over to it, eyes adjusted to the dim gleam of streetlamps through the window. The floor creaks, soft, beneath his feet.

He stares at himself. Imagines his reflection twisting, growing taller, stronger—with talons and fangs and ruby-red eyes.

Miles looks, and Miguel looks back.

"I don't think you're a bad person," he says quietly. Because he doesn't. Miguel built the Spider Society from a want to do good, to keep the multiverse stitched together when it tried so hard to fracture apart, and he's kept doing that in face of everything. All his actions can be traced back to a well-meaning goal.

"But I don't think you're a good person for me."

The words hang, heavy like planets, in the room. Miles reaches out and brushes his hand against the mirror, dispels the illusion.

There's a knock on the door.

He blinks, looking back—he must have made some sort of sound because the door cracks open and Rio pokes her head in, hair mussed up and eyes bleary, but she's looking at him and she's smiling.

"Miles?" She nudges the door wider, the hallway light clicking on. "How did the mission go?"

Right. The mission. It seems so distant now. He shrugs.

Rio walks over and grabs his hands, keeping him from picking at his nails; she wraps her fingers around his, careful to avoid his webslingers, wedding ring bumping against his knuckles.

"Mamí," he huffs, trying to pull himself out of her grip. "Mamí, por favor, I'm trying to do something here–"

The door swings fully open and Jefferson's frame appears, blocking out the light. They're both in pajamas, soft shirts and sweatpants, and he's got a yawn half caught between his teeth. He's alive.

Miles stares at him, and that warmth in his chest threatens to overflow.

"Hey, Dad," he says.

"Hey yourself," Jefferson says, finishing his yawn with a palm over his mouth. "Everything go smoothly? Normally you come through the front door."

Miles shrugs again. He's not sure there's any way to explain everything that's happened in the past few hours.

Rio frowns, pulling him closer. "Something's changed," she says, brows furrowed, peering up at him with discerning eyes. "You're acting different. Are you okay?"

That's been the question, hasn't it? Miles thinks he knows the answer.

"No." He curls his arms in, hands still locked in hers. "I'm not, mamí. I don't think I have been for a while."

They both stop.

And yeah. Miles tends to fall under cracked jokes and quips and casual handwaves—he wouldn't say it that plainly, wouldn't say it at all. Maybe that's the problem.

Miguel didn't talk to him, and Miles didn't talk to anyone else. How was he ever supposed to work through his thoughts about it all? It's not like he's been breaking down sobbing or throwing tantrums, but he's– he's different, now. Changed in ways he's only noticing now he's looking back at his path, seeing how far he strayed.

"Miles," Jefferson says, not hesitantly, but with caution. "We– I think we noticed. Does it have to do with the Society?"

"Yeah." He looks to the mirror, to the red-eyed man standing within it. "I didn't tell you guys everything that happened there. And I thought I could get past it, just keep moving—but I can't. I can't forget everything and move on."

Rio makes a soft sound, fingers tightening around his.

Jefferson steps forward, reaching a hand out to rest on Miles' shoulder. "We're here for you," he says, voice rumbling through his chest in the way it does when he's trying to be quiet. "What do you need, Miles?"

"I don't know," he says truthfully. "But I'm staying here, now. This is my home, and I– I don't think I knew that." He laughs a little, staring at his hands, intertwined with hers. "Kept running off trying to find it when it was right here. Searching for people that would understand me when I have you guys, and I have New York."

The city echoes around them, ancient, enormous. It sings.

"I'm Spiderman," he says, and there's that familiar pride in his chest, matched by the warmth in his hands. "And I'm Miles, too. I think I forgot that."

"Miles," Rio breathes, all soft and warm and full of love—she tugs at his hands to pull herself forward, wrapping arms around him hard enough he squeaks, burying her face in his shoulder. "Mijo. Whatever you need, we're here for you. Anything."

His heart swells.

"I'm going there," he says, and there's no pool of dread at the thought. "And I'll– I don't know. But I'm going to tell him what I feel, and I'm going to come home, and I'm going to stay."

Jefferson steps forward and wraps them both up, arms encircling and warm; they all stand there, a clump in his bedroom, foreheads pressed to shoulders and chests locked. It feels safe. It feels like home.

"I love you guys so much," Miles murmurs, and they hug him tighter.

Miles clambers up the fire escape, metal ringing beneath his feet until he switches to walking on the brick to avoid waking anyone up. It's silver, moon gleaming overhead, and as he rounds the lip of the brownstone there's warmth splashed beneath him, the last lingering touch of the sun even at night. He stands there, back against the mural he knows by heart, and looks over the skyline.

Hello, he breathes, and New York breathes back.

Miles stares, hands outstretched. There's a world out there for the taking, bright under his fingers, and it's messy. It's bitter. It's hungry and poor and starving, clawing for attention, and it's his— not his, because no one can own a city, but he belongs here. It's for him. And it's for Ganke, for Rio, for Jefferson, for Ayten, for Chaya, for Alvaro, for Dustin, for Jada, for Lenny, for Saúl—and for the eight million other people he hasn't met. Hasn't met yet.

I love you, he says, and he says it to New York, to Brooklyn, to the sun-warmed concrete beneath his feet.

And hears, in the rumble of subways, in the whine of cars, in the bustle of people, I love you too.

Hobie finds him, sat on the edge of the roof, feet kicking over the brick. The fire escape trails below him, graffiti stains under his hands. Still night but morning is coming, taking away the bite of the air, spring sitting perched and content in the rising warmth and humidity. He pads over, no guitar, and sits down next to him, bumping shoulders.

"I love it," Miles says, in lieu of greeting.

Hobie's eyes soften. "Was hopin' you would," he says. He stares over the skyline, what's visible in the haloed streetlamps and late-night windows.

Miles listens to his heartbeat. The only one on the roof but not the only one in the city, eight million spread before.

Hobie shifts closer, pressing their shoulders together. "Need to make a choice, mate." He's uncharacteristically quiet, leaning in, eyes locked on his. "Doesn't matter which way. Jus' gotta make a choice. And it's gotta be your choice."

Miles exhales. Looks over Brooklyn, over his home, over his love. At the world he'd lived in for so long and only just started to figure out what it is.

He doesn't want to lose the multiverse. He can't, he thinks, and maybe that's what terrifies him—for all he's been shaking over the past months, still he clutches at his watch, still he thinks of what he can do to keep it. It opened the world, the worlds, and sometimes it's all he can think of.

The Society gave him that access.

It wasn't the only thing they gave him.

"I think," he says, soft. "I think I need to heal. I can't keep going like I am." It aches to admit it aloud, but it's true. He's fitting sleep into his schedule like an afterthought, always throwing himself forward, accepting every mission and every on-call time and every training period. The cloak of authority, of responsibility, draped over him and he welcomed it, sank further into it, tried to keep climbing.

He's not a kid. Miles isn't, not anymore, and he won't let anyone call him that.

But he's only fifteen.

"And I don't think I can heal at the Society."

Hobie wraps a long arm over his shoulder, tugs him closer. He's warm, a balm against the night, and he leans into Miles' side. Doesn't say anything, because it's not needed, and Miles rests his head on his jacket.

It feels like the right choice. For all it hurts, it feels right.

He doesn't want to lose the multiverse. He won't lose his friends, he's not going to do that again, but–

But–

There's silver-gold over his wrist, with a tracker, a monitor, an off-switch held by Miguel. It's freedom, it is, but it isn't, at the same time.

Hobie's got an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close, warm as a radiator at his side. And on his wrist, dangling against Miles' ribs, is a band, littered in spikes, metallic and stitched together.

He's never thought of it before. Didn't search for any other option.

But now Miles looks at him and wonders.

"Hobie," he says, and there's that hesitation again, gnawing at his ribs. But he needs to ask. "Can you make me a watch?"

Something like pride flashes over Hobie's eyes, bright and relieved. He reaches for his back, still keeping an arm over Miles' shoulder; where his guitar would normally sit is a bag, something black with not a single matching button. He elbows it open to pull something out, handing it over.

It's a watch.

Miles stares.

Yellow-orange, warm, metal curled around itself and studded with amber spikes.

It's a watch.

"Started makin' it right after the fight wit' the Spot." Something flashes over his face—that same grief from before, sharp and weary. "I tried to help you get out. Wouldn't make your decisions for you, since that's the whole bloody thing wrong with them, but I knew you wouldn't jus' leave unless something happened. Until it got bad."

And. Yeah.

Miles can see it now, in that stupid manner of hindsight being twenty-twenty. Hobie, constantly at his side, showing him the world outside the Society; someone to lean on, giving him a different perspective, willing to talk about everything that had happened instead of just sweeping it under the rug. Trying, trying, trying to show him.

Maybe they aren't bad. Maybe they're getting better, even—Miguel is trying more, treating him like a normal spiderperson, gave him access to the multiverse. That's a beautiful, potent thing.

But Miles didn't need that. He needed to heal.

And instead, he fell right back into those that made him have to heal in the first place.

"Yeah," he whispers, curling his arms around himself for no other reason than a desire to be small. "I know, now. What you were trying to do."

Hobie exhales. Closes his eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't faster."

"I don't think I would've taken it well," Miles admits. "If you had tried to get me out earlier. I would've thought you were trying to– I don't know. Say I wasn't good enough."

His grip tightens. "You are, Miles. Don't need some Society tellin' you whether you meet their batshit requirements. You're enough."

Oh.

That's.

That's nice.

Hobie takes his hand, feather-soft, and wraps the band around; it's smaller, lighter, with a dial and two prongs that curl around his wrist like a second webslinger. "No proving yourself," Hobie says. "No missions, no special trainin'—it's jus' yours. Won't take it back for the world."

It's that simple. It can't be that simple.

Miles stares at his hands, at both of them; silver-gold, yellow-orange.

And he knows what he needs to do.

"I'm going to the Society," he says, and pulls himself up; stands on the edge of the roof, legs stable again. "Can you come with me?"

Hobie stands. "O' course."

At night, the Spider HQ is quiet and empty, hallways like liminal spaces and the teleportation room's lights flickering on as they arrive. No other spiderfolk, though Miles can hear them on the upper floors. His danger sense stays whispering in the back of his head.

Hobie looks almost painfully wrong here, in the sterile corridors and narrow windows; light blooms and bleeds off him, spiraling through the rainbow, and his boots kick up half-complete sentences and jagged outlines with every step. There's a bristled quality to his shoulders, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, and Miles not-quite stays in his shadow as they walk through.

The lab door hisses open as they approach it—right, the tracker on his watch. Miguel had asked for him to come back hours ago, so he's probably been waiting. Beyond the frame, the lab is dark and crowded, cold.

But he's not here for that, anymore. So Miles walks in, shoulders back. Hobie's right at his side, space-heater warm, boots clicking on the tile. Not saying anything, but a comforting presence. Miles' danger sense keeps crooning.

The lab echoes with their footsteps. He walks over, to the spot of orange in the dark—Lyla, perched over Miguel's shoulder, hovering next to the twisted machinery. It's sterile in here, brushed grey and empty. There's no one else in here. He sees everyone.

Miles exhales, a touch shakily, and leans back. Bumps shoulders with Hobie.

"Morales." There's a rumble as the platform wakes from sleeper mode—already lowered, monitors and holograms spinning over its surface, a broad, red-blue figure standing in the middle. "Are you injured? You left in the–"

But then Miguel turns around, mask peeled away from his face, and finally sees them. Stops.

Hobie, sprawled next to Miles and taking up as much space as possible, flicks a lazy salute in his direction. His eyes are narrow things, lips pursed, and he doesn't have his guitar but his fingers strum over his sides with an unheard beat.

In the silence of the lab, they stare at each other.

"Hobie?" Miguel asks, voice bewildered. He tends to use first names, Miles realizes, for everyone but him. Another distance, another step between them; something to separate, to soften the edge of their history.

He doesn't know whose benefit that's for.

"Hey, Miguel," Miles says. "I'm fine. I wasn't injured."

Hobie stays at his side but doesn't say anything, fingers drumming over his legs, giving him the stage. There's a thrum of anxiety at the thought, at the weight—but this needs to be said.

Miguel stares at him, scanning his form like he should be bleeding through the lycra, but apparently he doesn't see any gaping wounds and he trusts that more than Miles' confirmation. "Okay," he says, slowly, like he's not sure what will come next. "Then where did you go? You left in the middle of battle."

Right. There's a flash of guilt—because he abandoned Miguel in a fight against a Green Goblin that was proving itself plenty capable of smashing that vertical New York, and he just fled. That's not the act of a hero.

But Miles doesn't think he should have been there in the first place.

"I went home." Where he now knows his home is. "And figured some things out."

Miguel looks… a bit frazzled, almost, arms tight at his sides. Still keeping his voice calm, eyes impartial, but the thing peering past the ironclad leader is taut. "And that couldn't have waited until after the mission?"

No. It couldn't have.

His eyes must say that because Miguel pinches the bridge of his nose, Lyla fritzing over his shoulder. "What did you figure out?" He says, almost biting the words out—not angry. He's not angry. His talons stay retracted and he stays on the platform and his fangs aren't visible. Miles stiffens regardless.

That, he thinks, a little weakly. That's what I was figuring out.

He should tell the full story, lay out how he arrived at his conclusions; but that's not necessary. There's really only one fact that matters anymore.

"I'm scared of you," Miles admits.

He takes no pleasure in how Miguel's eyes widen. It's bitter, tasting the words, hating them but knowing they're true. He doesn't want to do this, to dredge up memories that had been buried for so long—for all he knows it's necessary, there's something cruel in saying it, like dangling failure in front of someone's face when they're trying to better themselves. It feels vicious. He doesn't want to do this.

But Hobie is there. Still saying nothing, no distraction—just someone that Miles can lean on. Can rely on.

Can talk to.

He's needed to talk about this for a long, long time.

"I know you're changing. Trying to fix your mistakes. And I appreciate that, I really do–" He looks at the ground. Feels the words rise, fighting gravity, up his throat. Miguel is still staring at him, eyes wide, Lyla silent. The lab hums and echoes.

Miles beat him. Evaded the hunt, saved his dad, defeated the Spot—he won. He should have won.

"But I'm still scared of you. I think I always was."

In another world, he isn't. In another world, this never happened at all.

But in this world, it did, and Miles needs to heal.

He slips his watch off, the silver-gold humming in his hand. It's so simple; such a small, precious little thing. It opens the multiverse.

But Miles walks forward and sets it, very gently, on the edge of the platform. The click echoes through the lab.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he is. He wishes he didn't have to do this, that he could have just moved on—but that isn't moving on. It's forgetting, and Miles can't do that. "It's not forever. I'll come back one day, when I'm ready. But I'm not now. I need time to heal, and I can't do that here."

He looks at the watch. Really looks at it, the buttons he knows by heart, the familiar silver-gold, the flash of it reflecting in distant lights.

There's yellow-orange on his wrist.

Miles steps away. Looks up at Miguel.

"So I quit."

The words drop before him like they're made of iron.

Miles looks away, arms tucked in. Feels shame, almost, at the declaration—but then Hobie leans in, pressing into his shoulder, sun-warm and stable. Nothing said—nothing that needs to be said, maybe. Miles didn't have a speech here, no pre-planned phrases and clever twists of language; just said what he felt. What he needed to.

And, as the last of his echoes fade away to shelter silence, he thinks he did all he could.

Something about the quiet seems to shock Miguel back into awareness—Lyla is gone, disappeared from his shoulders, and he's cast in the darkness of his lab. He looks uncomfortably alone on the platform, raised above everything else, holograms splashing amber light over his face. There's no Hobie, no New York for him.

Miles stares and wonders. Wonders why.

"I understand, Morales," Miguel says. There's a stiff-formal way he speaks, shoulders tense, face calm and impassive. The leader of the Spider Society speaking, rather than a person. "If you want to come back, we'll welcome you."

And that's it.

They're still not talking about it. Miles thinks he was expecting that—they never would, maybe. Miguel has to be the leader first, strong and unbreakable, and there's no room for expressing regret. For admitting failure when he has to keep the mantle of the multiverse on his shoulders.

I think you need to heal, too, he thinks. Where is your home? What do you love?

But that isn't on him to solve.

Miles steps back, leans against Hobie, looks around the lab. He'll come back here, he knows—he became Spiderman to help people, and his powers means that there's a multiverse out there he can help.

But not now.

So he nods. Miguel nods back.

And Miles leaves, fingers wrapped around yellow-orange, and goes home.

Notes:

what do you mean you can tell I want to move to New York, I was so subtle
but yes! this fic was born from the idea that Miguel is too emotionally constipated and Miles is too eager to please and the problems that would come from that. law of equivalent exchange - for every story showing Miguel getting better, there's got to be one where he's not there yet
trauma is valid! healing is valid! and sometimes healing is letting go of what caused you trauma and learning to love life again!

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