Chapter Text
Miguel’s skull was still buzzing a little when he came to.
Okay – the good news was his gizmo multiverse travel thing was mostly intact. It was keeping him stable at least. And he hadn’t landed in some kind of everyone-is-werewolves earth. Excellent news. Stupendous.
The bad news was his gizmo multiverse travel thing was just busted enough to mean he couldn’t open a portal and LYLA was out of communication.
And the really bad news was he’d gotten electrified into unconsciousness by a child about twelve minutes into this new universe and now was unmasked, mildly concussed, and tied to a punching bag with a bunch of bungee cords.
Pretty bad day for the multiverse traveling thing, overall.
—
The guy was awake, but not saying anything. He just glowered at Miles with creepy red eyes.
Miles pulled his cheap Spider-Man mask down farther over his face and glowered right back, crossing his arms over his chest, trying to puff himself up to look bigger. He was beginning to think that dragging a supervillain who most-definitely worked for Kingpin back to his uncle’s apartment was a mistake, but… too late now.
“Who are you?” Miles said, lowering his voice.
The guy did not seem impressed.
“None of your business, kid.”
“I’m not a kid!” Miles snapped, his voice breaking a little — shit, lowering it again — “I mean — you’re in MY city so it is my business..”
The guy looked Miles up and down, then down at himself.
“You know my feet are on the ground, right?”
That was true. And totally not Miles’ fault — this guy was like 7 damn feet tall and it had been hard to maneuver his dead weight into the right position.
“Yeah. So?” Miles said.
“So, this isn’t very intimidating. Is this your first interrogation?”
“What? Psh, no. No, I’m — I do this all the time. I’m the interrogator.”
“That why you’re wearing a shocking Halloween costume?”
Miles picked at the too-small spider-shirt. Maybe he should have stolen one of Uncle Aaron’s shirts.
“No, I’m —I’m also Spider-Man.”
“Spider-Man is dead,” the guy said, flatly.
“I’m the new Spider-Man.”
The guy snorted and rolled his eyes — he was kind of reminding Miles of his parents when they didn’t believe whatever he was telling them. And it was even more annoying coming from this stranger.
“Kid, I don’t have time for this …” he said, starting to fidget his hands under the cord.
“I am the new Spider-Man! I got bit by a spider and stick to walls and everything!” Miles said. He pulled his mask up, angrily. He wasn’t sure why it was so important to him that this guy believed him, but he stomped up to him and shoved his hand into the guy’s chest — where it stuck . Both to the guy’s weirdly textured shirt and the bungee-cords.
And kept sticking.
Shit, not again.
If the guy noticed Miles’ sudden distress, he didn’t show it. He just looked confused and a little alarmed.
“… When? When did you get bitten?”
“Uh — day before yesterday?” Miles said, pulling his hand back, trying to unstick.
“… you gonna let go of me?” The guy said, red eyes flicking down to Miles’ hand and back up to his face.
“Working on it.”
“Hang on,” said the guy — and suddenly Miles was flying across the room and hitting the wall, taking a chunk of bungee cord with him.
The guy dropped a foot back down to the floor — he’d kicked Miles across the room. The pattern on his shirt was more obvious now without the cord across his chest and the light reflecting off it —Miles had been too panicked in the dark to see it before, and then with tying him up, but —
“That’s — are you a Spider-Man?”
Miles scrambled to his feet.
The guy sighed and cursed under his breath in Spanish.
“… Yeah.”
“But I thought —wait, are you, like, another country’s Spider-Man? Are you Canadian Spider-Man?”
“Wh — Canadian?”
“Nobody knows anything about Canada! I would have heard about other places’ Spider-Man.”
“No, I’m not Canadian shocking Spider-Man!” The guy snapped. Miles jerked half a step back — the guy had fangs.
“Are you an evil Spider-Man? A supervillain Spider-Man?”
“No,” the guy gritted out between clenched teeth (and fangs).
Miles looked back at the mask he’d pulled off the guy’s face on the counter. That weird texture…
“Are you — from the future? And you’re my great-great-grandson?”
“N — yes. To the first part. I sure shocking hope not to the rest of it. I’m from the future — another universe's future.”
“That is … so cool, man! This is amazing! You can help me — Peter Parker, he said he’d help me learn to be Spider-Man!”
“Before he died.”
“Y — well, yeah.”
“Hm.”
The guy appeared to be thinking about something.
“And you can help me stop the collider, like I — I promised Peter …”
The guy looked up, “Collider?”
“Yeah, it’s this big — super-collider thing the Kingpin is using for … something. I saw it and then Kingpin saw me and –”
“Wait, wait. The spider that bit you — where did it happen? Near the collider?”
“Yeah, under some subway tunnels — I can take you there! The spider’s still there, I think — or, I mean, it was, yesterday. And then we can stop the collider!”
The guy nodded once, still looking lost in thought.
“And if I take you, you’ll help me and teach me … how to be Spider-Man?” Miles added, hopefully.
The guy looked at Miles for a minute, like he was studying him. Miles fidgeted uncomfortably.
The guy sighed, “Yeah. Fine. I’ll teach you.”
Hell yes.
Miles scrambled forward to untie the guy, but before he could take more than a few paces, the bungee cords fell apart, cut to pieces.
The guy straightened his back.
“How did you —woah —“ Miles took a step back again when he saw the claws emerging from the guy’s fingertips.
The guy rolled his eyes and, after grabbing his mask from the counter, stepped out onto the fire escape. Miles followed him.
“Are you a vampire?” he asked as the guy reached out to the bricks and grabbed on with his claws, heaving himself up with one arm to the wall.
The guy didn’t even look at him, “No.”
“You have fangs. And claws. And - and red eyes!” Miles said, crawling up the wall after him.
“Spiders also have all of those things,” the guy said, flatly.
“Spiders have red eyes?”
The guy paused for a moment and then shrugged, “…Okay — eyes, I don’t know.”
“You sure you’re really Spider-Man?”
“Are you?” The guy grumbled as he swung himself over the roof, leaving a trail of gouges in the wall where his hands and feet had been.
“Ouch,” said Miles.
—
The city didn’t look to be in any danger of immediate-collapse of reality from the rooftop— though, admittedly Miguel wasn’t exactly sure what that would even look like.
The kid was still yammering at him — something about pigeons — and Miguel tried his best to tune him out. He’d met a couple of other Spider-Men in their universes so far and they’d all been … chatty. Between that and the spider-bites and sticking-to-things and the spider-sense, maybe the kid had a point, he was definitely ticking the Real Spider-Man boxes more than Miguel was.
“Hey, I’m Miles, by the way, Miles Morales,” the kid said.
Oh right. Basic human interaction, he forgot about that — maybe he’d been spending too much time with LYLA.
“Miguel O’Hara,” he said, simply, “So, where’s the collider?”
“It’s …” the kid — Miles, said, looking around and over his shoulder at the buildings, “there, under Fisk Tower.”
Miguel followed where the kid was pointing. Shock, and he thought Nueva York had obnoxious buildings. He squinted at the blazing lights and looked away before his eyes started watering. He’d need to get a pair of sunglasses.
“Oh, Peter gave me an override key! We need it to destroy the collider.”
Miles reached into his pocket and pulled out a shattered bit of silicon and metal.
Miguel narrowed his eyes at it.
“Did you break this?”
“No! It broke.”
Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to face the city again. If his multiverse gizmo was fully operational, he’d be able to fix it or make a new one in a few minutes with LYLA’s help and a couple of paperclips — but fixing the gizmo itself was another issue. And the goober took precedence. Unless it was faster to fix the gizmo and then use it make a new goober —
“So, do you have a time machine?” Miles asked, suddenly at Miguel’s shoulder and making him jump a little and swear.
“What?”
“A time machine? Space-time travel box thing? How’d you get here?”
“No I have a — gizmo,” Miguel said, lifting his wrist briefly. Miles grabbed his hand and yanked it to examine it more closely.
“Woah, like a dimensional travel watch?”
“It’s much cooler than a watch,” Miguel grumbled, pulling his hand back.
“Looks kinda … busted,” Miles said, squinting at it, then looking up at Miguel, “Did you break it?”
“No,” Miguel said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it … broke.”
Broke by him landing on it after falling 20 feet from the sky.
The kid didn’t need to know that.
—
They settled on a destination— the Alchemax labs. Where Miguel would hopefully be able to make a new override key and fix his time machine-watch-gizmo-thing. Apparently, the school computers probably weren't going to cut it. Unfortunately the bus going there wasn’t leaving until the morning, so they had time to kill.
Miles had luckily been able to talk Miguel into going to an all-night cofee place after raiding Uncle Aaron’s closet for some less conspicuous clothes and a pair of sunglasses. Miguel insisted on wearing them inside — Miles kind of suspected that once you turned 30, you just became either super embarrassing or turned into a huge douchebag.
But huge douchebag or not, Miles had got himself a spider-mentor — he was going to take full advantage.
He stared at Miguel over the table. Miguel picked at the edge of the cardboard cup, not meeting his gaze.
“So …”
Miguel’s eyes flicked to Miles over his glasses.
“… Spider-Man lessons?” said Miles.
Miguel sighed, “Yeah, alright. Ask away.”
Miles wasn’t sure he knew what he was expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“Okay, uh… how do you unstick to stuff?”
“I don’t know. Retract?”
“… seriously?” said Miles.
“I don’t stick to anything, that’s all I got.”
“Then how do you —“
Miguel hooked an unopened sugar packet on a claw and balanced it on his fingertip, letting the loose sugar fall on to the table.
He gave Miles a flat look.
“Claws …“ Miles said.
“Talons.”
“Talons, right. … Wait, am I gonna grow talons?”
“Probably not,” Miguel said, tiredly.
“Am I gonna be super tall and gigantic?”
“That’s … regular genetics.”
“Am I gonna grow fangs?” Miles was unable to hide the mild nervousness in his voice.
Miguel scowled.
“I mean, they’re cool! It would be cool to …”
Miles kind of wilted under Miguel’s flat stare. This wasn’t going well.
Miguel finally relented and leaned back in his chair, “Don’t worry, I think whatever you have going on is it. Has been for the rest of them. I'm just different.”
Miles perked up, “The rest of them? You’ve met other Spider-Men?”
“In other universes. Same story. Right time, right place, bit by a spider, spider-sense, sticks to walls, super strength,” he finally took a sip of the coffee, “etcetera.”
“But you’re … different.”
“I had more of a … attempted murder via genetic tampering thing, not a spider bite.”
“Woah … wait, what about web shooters? Do you have those? If I’m gonna Spider-Man, I have to be able to swing.”
Miguel looked thoughtful for a moment, “... Yes. I… have those, but they’re…”
Miguel scowled again, seemingly to himself and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt under the sweatshirt he’d taken from Uncle Aaron’s. There was a divot in his forearm near the wrist.
Miles blinked, “Wait they’re ...they’re in your arms?”
“Yes.”
“But how does that – I mean, don’t — with real spiders, it comes out …”
“Yes.”
Miles stared at Miguel.
“But you —“
“No.”
“Just the wrists?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I just wanted to check, because … regular spiders –”
Miguel actually very nearly smiled a little as he rolled his sleeve down, “Trust me, that occurred to me too.”
“... You think there’s a Spider-man out there who does have …”
“I can almost guarantee there is.”
Miles tried to think of another question – but was interrupted by yelling outside.
A middle-aged man in an ugly coat was being pushed out of the restaurant next door and was definitely pissed about it.
“What? Don’t you guys have layaway in this universe!” the man yelled as the chef turned and stomped back inside.
Miles and Miguel both turned to look out the window at that.
“... Peter?” said Miles. Miguel was already out the door. Miles ran after him - but he was gone.
“I’m glad you guys are gonna go out of business! I give you six months, tops!” the guy yelled again. People on the street were starting to avoid him.“Your burgers aren’t even that good! You’re overrated! You’re – hlp!”
The guy vanished over the top of a building, dragged by a web attached to his back.
Miguel – mask back on, leaned over the edge of the building and gestured for Miles to follow him -- before being pulled back suddenly himself by a web to the back of the neck. Uh oh.
Miles scrambled up the wall to join them right as the maybe-Peter had one hand under Miguel’s chin, pushing his head back. Miguel had his claws dug into maybe-Peter’s coat.
“Hey!” Miles yelled, running forward – and then fell back, a little dizzy. The same feeling he’d gotten when he met Peter – the other Peter.
This maybe-Peter obviously felt the same, because he blinked for a half-second – just long enough for Miguel to pull his mask up and surge forward to sink his fangs into the maybe-Peter’s neck.
Maybe-Peter seized up in Miguel’s grip, like he was frozen – and Miguel dropped him on the floor.
“He really needs a shower,” Miguel said, looking faintly disgusted and wiping his mouth.
“Dude!” Miles yelped, gesturing to maybe-Peter “I thought you said you weren’t a vampire!”
“I’m not.”
“Then why did you bite him?! Is he dead?”
Miguel waved Miles off, “No, he’s fine, I have a paralyzing venom.”
“... That was not the answer I was expecting,” Miles said, slowly.
“Why do you think spiders have fangs?”
Alright, that was fair.
“Okay , okay – What do we do with him now?” Miles said, looking down at the maybe-Peter Parker.
Miguel pulled his mask back down over his face and paused.
“Well…”
Fifteen minutes later, they were back in Uncle Aaron's apartment with maybe-Peter webbed to the punching bag.