Chapter Text
There are strangers in his apartment.
A family of three. Miles activates his invisibility and crawls in through his the brightly painted bedroom, mined with discarded action figures and monster trucks. In the living room, he finds the tiny owner driving a remote-control race car in front of the old TV set.
He stares at the couple on the couch for a moment, shoulders tight, and waits. For what, he isn’t sure. Part of him had grown so used to the glitching that he kind of hopes for it now. For this unassuming pair to flicker in the atmosphere and reappear as Jeff Davis and Rio Morales.
Nothing changes. Still the anomaly, his brain hisses in a familiar voice.
Panic wraps its fingers around his throat. He stumbles back toward the bedroom’s open door, messily assembling a new plan. Don’t jump to conclusions, Miles. Your head was swimming while you swung here, maybe muscle memory failed you this time and you ended up on the wrong street. In a building with the exact same blueprints as your apartment.
Weirder things have happened. Many of them over the past few days.
He can go to Brooklyn Visions. Find Ganke. His best friend will probably be right where he’d last left him, playing video games like the universe isn’t on the verge of collapse. Because it isn’t. He’s fine. He’s home. He’s just–he’s in the wrong apartment. But he’s home. Just in time to stop the Spot.
To save his father.
Miles backs toward the bedroom soundlessly and leaps out the window, flicking out a web.
Petty crime doesn’t take a backseat to impending universal catastrophe.
He counts three gunmen, two wielding bats, one sporting a rusted crowbar. All masked and grumbling at their lock-picker to amp up the pace. They’re huddled around the rooftop access door to a luxury condo complex a few blocks away from Miles’ school. Huh. Was that…built recently?
Anomaly.
Pivoting mid-swing, he throws himself into the fray. Startled sputters of “Spider-Man!” drown out the doubt. Of course they’re not surprised to see him, because this is his home, it’s his city to protect, despite what Miguel and a shady algorithm has calculated without his input.
A dubiously manufactured canon may not have anticipated Miles Morales, but New York always has, no stipulations involved.
The perps are on the ground in minutes, unconscious. Electricity flickers over Miles’ form in staticky bursts, no rhyme or reason to it. Like he’s back in Aunt May’s basement surrounded by seasoned spiders. All of the showiness, none of the control.
He hauls in a deep breath, clenching his fists.
“Whew, beat me to it, Miles. Didn’t see you confirm in the app.”
That’s not Miguel talking, but there’s slim relief in that. Who knew how many spiders from the society had been ordered to follow him here? The newcomer–that he would’ve probably sensed sooner if his powers hadn’t taken a nosedive–is probably sending out a mass alert through that stupid watch right now. And he can’t do another chase today. He’s got bigger problems. They all do, but Miles is so done trying to make them see that.
Miles turns around, not relaxing his defense.
This isn’t a Spider-Man he’s seen before–the red and blue’s definitely been a signature for several Peters, but the white spider across the chest is new. Then again, most of them were a blur. And that variety had been exhilarating, until the society decided that differences could be dangerous. Branded Miles as the dissenter, then purged him from the membrane.
“Wait, why are you…who…” Gears turning, the variant’s head tilts.
If Miguel chose him to pursue this cross-universe chase, there was definitely a good reason. And that scrutinizing look doesn’t leave Miles with the delusional prospect that they’re actually going to talk this through.
“You really,” Miles speaks–exhausted, but never, ever enough to give up–and raises his hands, electricity at the ready, “gotta let me go home, man.”
Spider-Man’s lenses widen. Miles isn’t sure what unsettles Miguel’s lackey. He followed him to his dimension and didn’t expect a fight? After everything?
But distraction was a tool that had gotten him off that ship hurtling for space, so he doesn’t wait for a response before blasting him.
At the last second, the spider dodges out of its path. Miles wonders, assuming he’s a classic variant, if his spider sense is half-decent. Something he could outmatch.
Or outrun, for now.
He flips off the building’s edge and turns invisible as he tethers to the next corner. Swinging might give him away, so he perches on a nearby fire escape and waits for the multiversal intruder to pass.
Spider-Man swings around the corner, head on a swivel. No discretion whatsoever. The Daily Bugle headlines would be a doozy. “Hey!” His gaze fixes directly on Miles’ fire escape and the teenager tenses. Spider sense isn’t supposed to work like that, is it? He glances down at his hands, making sure his camo is still up.
But the spider turns away, heading for the next street. Miles quietly sighs.
Then, one by one, his atoms flay him alive.
A cry escapes him before he can smother it with his palm. He tumbles backward off the railing, back slamming metal. Glitching isn’t something that gets easier–the universe doesn’t coddle disorder.
Anomaly.
Strangers in his apartment. A spider marked by a white symbol. His body scrambling to stay together without his confiscated watch.
Margo looking him up at him from the console. Her finger hovering over a kill switch, eyes swelling with sympathy.
She hadn’t sent him home.
As his mind races to a horrific conclusion, he almost doesn’t notice Spider-Man swinging right toward him, shoulders steeled for confrontation.
“Leave me alone,” he gasps out, scrambling up the side of the building to the roof. Once he gains some height again, he can free-fall into invisibility. Lay low somewhere and find…something. A loophole. Or maybe he could trail this Spider-Man back to his hideout, snag his traveling watch when he’s least expecting it.
Spider-Man whizzes over his head, neatly landing in a tumble on the rooftop. He pushes back on his upper back and leaps to his feet, hands splayed at his sides. Too close for comfort, but Miles has gotten out of narrower scrapes.
“You’re Spider-Man, right? Another Spider-Man?” The man’s voice is careful. He sounds young, definitely younger than Peter B. Like his Earth’s Peter Parker before he–
“Miguel told all of you exactly who I am,” Miles says impatiently. “I don’t know how many more of you are on their way right now, but I’m giving you a chance to back off.” He lets his powers crackle in his fists, hopes they shield how much he trembles in the wake of his brutal discovery.
He’s not home. His dad makes captain in two days. In two days, his dad d–
“Now,” Miles forces himself to add when the spider doesn’t budge. Running was his best course of action when hundreds of spiders gave chase. Faced with just one who’s got nothing on him but a few years, he’s ready to take him.
“Miguel?” There’s recognition there. Not shocking. But Spider-Man’s body, for some reason, loosens in understanding. “You’re from the society?”
“Not anymore.” Miles narrows his eyes. “But you knew that.”
“I didn’t, I…never joined up.” He looks away for a moment, as if in the throes of memory, and clears his throat. “Look.” He turns back to Miles. “I don’t know why you ran, or where you’re originally from, but…I know you’re safe here.”
He wants to wrap himself in that sincerity, a shield from even the strongest of cross-dimensional glitching, but he’s heard it before. From Peter B. Telling him he’s the reason he had Mayday, the reason he was ready to try again, no matter how scary it seemed.
Then his watch had gone off, securing their location. And Miles wished his heart had felt as sturdy as the webbing he left his old mentor trapped in.
“Where’s your watch, huh?” Miles demands. “What’s the ETA on your team?”
Spider-Man raises both his forearms. “Don’t have one. I told you, I never joined.”
“Why not?”
“I was…” He lowers his arms, rubbing his wrist absently. “In a bad place, when I met Miguel. Couldn’t wrap my head around what he was selling then.” His head lifts and he studies Miles. “Maybe that was for the best.”
Despite himself, Miles wants to believe him. He’d been chased out of Nueva York by the people he thought would get him, simply by virtue of their shared spider sides. He’d had plans to carve his college career out of the once-unbreakable hope that he would master physics well enough to facilitate travel to his fellow spiders.
And they didn’t want him. It was a sting he thought he could smother amidst the greater urgency of stopping the Spot. But it’s there still. Nipping at his ribcage and worming into his heart.
He swallows hard. His venom fades.
“You’re this dimension’s Spider-Man?” He hesitates. “Peter…?”
The man’s lenses widen briefly. “Uh, yeah. Wow. Sorry, even with the whole variants thing having been explained to me, it’s just…kind of a doozy. Plus someone guessing my name like that while I’m in the mask is something I’ve had many, many nightmares about. Usually involving some sort of blackmail scheme with the Bugle. God, does your dimension have a Jameson?” He shudders and shakes his head. “Anyway. Yep. This dimension’s Spider-Man. One of them. Arguably the less cool one.” He holds a hand out. “Peter Parker.”
Miles shakes his hand, eyebrows furrowing. “One of them?”
“Kinda thought you were him for a split second earlier. You two both went with the black and red color scheme. So cool.”
He stares up at him, stunned. “Wait, but–you called me Miles earlier.”
“Yeah, I…” Peter tilts his head, then quickly catches on. “…was referring to this Earth’s Miles. Spider-Man. Are you–you’re him, too? Miles Morales?”
Miles nods, speechless.
You’re not supposed to be Spider-Man, Miguel had shouted at him over the din of the lightening-fast skybound train.
He had wondered, with pain like the sharp twist of a knife, if that was a universal truth, as intrinsic as the canon. None of his own variants had crossed his path at HQ. He was a wild card, haphazardly shuffled into the deck.
Miles hadn’t considered that maybe they just hadn’t accepted the invite. He doesn’t blame them–Peter or this Miles he has yet to meet. He’s learning to follow his gut, too.
“I need to get home,” he blurts out, while Peter still seems to be processing his identity with fascination that’s palpable through the mask. “My dad, he’s–there’s someone really bad coming for my New York and he’s gonna get caught in the crossfire if I don’t do something.”
Peter nods slowly. “My…specialty’s more neurotechnology than multiverse theory…” He stops, something in the younger spider’s demeanor causing his voice to soften. “But I’ll do what I can, Miles. I promise. Nothing’s going to happen to your dad.”
“If I don’t–“
“Nothing,” Peter reiterates and Miles falters. That steel-made conviction in his voice confounds him. Like the matter was personal, and therefore settled.
He doesn’t know what the Spider-Men of this Earth have grappled with. But while he’s here? He may as well try to find out.
“Come on.” Peter claps his shoulder. “We’ll take the scenic route back to Queens.”
“Why the scenic route?”
“Because clear skies have always done us spiders right. Annnd I’m technically still on patrol. Mind jumping in if we run into trouble on the way?”
He shrugs. “Think I did pretty good taking over your job earlier.”
“That’s how it is, huh?” Peter laughs, backing toward the edge of the roof. “Guess I have to crash your neighborhood when we figure out a portal.”
It’s nice, for a moment. Imagining a spider friend that might actually visit. Not for the ulterior motives of the spider society. Just…because.
Caution tells him not to be so quick to string together new bonds. It scolds, if this Peter Parker knew anything about what you’ve done to the canon, he’d turn on you too.
He decides it won’t hurt anyone if he lets a thread of a smile form under his mask. Shutting out the world isn’t something Miles Morales has ever been very good at.