Chapter Text
“I just can’t believe it,” Hobie repeated thickly as he sat at the cafeteria table, staring down at his jagged, outlined hands as if they had betrayed him somehow.
“Take it as a compliment,” Pavitr suggested as he patted him on the back supportively, “It means everyone thinks you’re super cool and a good leader!”
Hobie shook his head, “Dunno, mate. Seems like they just think I’d be a good plod.”
“Noooo,” said Pavitr, who had no idea what that meant.
“So you got elected!” Gwen snapped, “Big whoop! Just reject it if you don’t like it.”
“I can’t ignore a cry from the people, Gwendy!”
The conversation quickly devolved into an argument, with Pavitr trying to make peace between them. Miles sat on the outskirts of the group sipping a cafeteria milkshake, feeling fairly awkward and out-of-place.
Perhaps part of it was that Hobie, Gwen, and Pavitr had already established longer-lasting bonds and he’d only come along later. Perhaps it was that he still felt a teensy bit betrayed over Gwen not telling him things and leaving him out, and also letting an enormous spiderman with serious anger issues claw the shit out of him and tell him he was a mistake. It was anyone’s guess.
Yeah, Gwen had apologized a trillion times, and his closet was now filled with chocolate boxes and home-made (rather lumpy) spiderman plushies, sometimes fashioned after himself, or after other spiders. The apology gifts were all made from materials from Gwen’s world, and therefore had an odd and yet lovely painted look to them that wouldn’t stand out to the untrained eye, but to Miles firmly reminded him of Gwen’s soft lines and blended colors.
Also, Miles knew that Gwen had tried her best. She’d been following the rules, because she’d placed her trust in the older Spidermen. She’d been wrong, but she still cared about Miles and she swapped sides for him. Logically, he knew that.
Still, it was hard.
Not as hard as forgiving Peter B., though. As a matter of fact, Miles had been mostly avoiding him lately, and planned to continue the trend.
It helped that nothing bad had really happened. Miles’ friends had rallied to help him fight the Spot and his dad was still alive; and still captain. Spiderman 2099, though he renounced his actions and in a very awkward two minutes thanked Miles for saving the spiderverse, had been essentially displaced as head of the Spider Society in a charge mostly led by Hobie, who was always happy to overthrow authority but had perhaps not considered who would make decisions in his stead. After Miguel O’Hara was overthrown, it had been decided that a Spider Counsel composed of ten spiders would be elected in his place.
“And every spider will serve for two years before a new one has to be elected,” Miles had proposed, “Like the U.S. president.”
“Ugh, presidents,” Hobie had rolled his eyes.
Spider-Canada had raised her hand timidly, “Er, we don’t have U.S. presidents in our universe. Or a U.S., for that matter.”
“Um, don’t worry about it. It’s not important. Just…two years, yeah?”
“Presidents in my universe serve for ten years,” Sun-Spider had offered unhelpfully.
Eventually, they settled on three year terms. The elected spiders were Jess Drew, some weird Peter Parker with a cape who allegedly went to an alien planet populated by animal people, Maybelle Reilly AKA Lady Spider, the so-called Superior Spiderman who Miles thought seemed suspicious, Peni Parker, Spider-Byte (good for her!), Spider-UK, Hobie, Peter B., and…Lyla, bizarrely enough? Miles had been pretty sure she was programmed by Spiderman 2099, so that was confusing.
Anywho, it seemed to be going well so far. Peni and Spider-Byte had started up a friendly (for a certain meaning of the word) rivalry and you could often find them tapping away in different corners of what was formerly Miguel O’Hara’s office but was now the Spider Council meeting room, attempting to hack each other, which sounded a lot more interesting than it actually was. Lyla refereed---quite literally, with score cards and everything.
On the other hand, Jess had given birth a few days ago and Peter B. had decided it was his duty as another parent to give her advice and propose playdates while Jess tried to subtly leave, a harried look on her face and a screaming baby in her arms.
The so-called Superior Spiderman had been setting up weird little walking camera devices in different areas of the headquarters, which was worrying, and had taken to stalking around and telling Spider-people off for “code violations” such as cutting lines or putting nonrecyclable plastic in the recycling bin, at one point reducing a large cyborg Spider-Woman to tears as she wailed that in her universe LDPE was recyclable.
And, of course, Hobie had chosen to spend his first couple weeks as Councilman having an existential crisis about it. Miles was pretty sure he was dramatizing things a little.
Hobie, as if to prove Miles’ point, was now declaring, “Oh, woe that I’m forced to serve as authority though my anarchical nature begs me not to!”
“Stop rubbing it in my face !” Gwen dove across the table to tackle him. She was a bit sore she hadn’t been elected, though Miles personally thought it was probably a good thing, considering how exhausted the Spider Council members usually looked, especially after having to contain breaks in the universe, or do maintenance on headquarters. Miles had no clue how O’Hara had been managing with enough of a workload to nearly kill ten people---well, nine people, since Lyla actually seemed as chipper as always. Miles supposed that O’Hara had not really been managing anyway, though.
Miles flickered to invisibility as Gwen’s sandwich went flying while she and Hobie sparred on the table.
Miles left his milkshake on the bench and ducked away. Everyone else was too distracted with the friendly fight to notice.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like hanging around his spider friends. He actually tended to feel really lonely when he didn’t see any of them for a while. But it was hard. He was an outsider still, and even though Gwen had told him they all thought he was a real Spiderman, he still couldn’t shake the feeling he was a fake, infiltrating their spaces. Despite receiving a watch and being recruited as an agent like Gwen or Hobie, he never visited other worlds unless someone told him to, and he never visited headquarters unless someone came to his world and took him there with them. He mostly fiddled with the interface on the watch and hid it under his sleeves and felt really guilty all the time.
However, whenever he was at headquarters, Miles had gotten into the habit of visiting the holding cells. The holding cells were in the far end of headquarters, and had never been used before now, because every villain held in headquarters was usually contained in an energy field and sent back to their world.
However, the Spider Council had unanimously decided the Spot could not be let loose and while they figured out what to do with him they kept him in an energy field in one of the holding cells. Similarly, the Spider Council had been unsure of what to do with O’Hara. On the one hand, he was a Spiderman, and their former leader, who had only been trying to do good. On the other hand, he’d ended up doing a lot of bad, no matter how he said he’d reformed. Ultimately, they’d decided to put him in a holding cell while they figured out what to do.
Miles understood it was probably really weird to want to visit his enemies in prison, which was why he always stayed invisible when he went to the holding cells. Also, he didn’t want to deal with being yelled at by one or both of them.
As was normal, the Spot was slumped against the floor somewhat pathetically, humming Taylor Swift and flipping through a book someone had been kind enough to leave him. Around him an orangey-red energy field crackled, keeping him from using his spots.
A few cells down, O’Hara was pacing the length of his cell, across the floor, onto the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other wall until he came to the floor again. This was also normal, though Miles had seen him break it up with bouts of intense exercise.
Miles simply watched for a while, his spider sense pinging mildly at being near two people who had nearly killed him before, even locked up as they were. For a moment, O'Hara’s creepy red eyes darted over to the corner where he was, and he held his breath, looking down at his transparent body to be sure he was still invisible.
Eventually, he left and returned to the cafeteria.
“Miles! You just disappeared into the ether,” Pavitr remarked with a measure of concerned suspicion as Miles sat down at the table again.
“Bathroom,” Miles said shortly.
Upon returning to his universe, Miles briefly defeated some weird dude who shot rings at him called ---get this--- the Ringer . Miles would never understand how these people got so creative.
He then swung to class, crawling through a window in the bathroom and managing to only be a few minutes late.
He sat quietly in his seat while Mr. Donalson called attendance. Once he called Miles’ name, he frowned at him and said, “Go to the front office, Mr. Morales, and get a tardy slip.”
Miles’ mouth fell open while some of his classmates giggled.
“But I---”
“Front office,” Mr. Donalson pointed at the door.
Scowling, Miles aggressively got up from his desk and stomped to the front office, where he shifted foot to foot as the bored student aide at the front desk signed a tardy slip for him.
“You know, this has gotta be the fifth time I’ve seen you this week,” the student aide remarked as she held out the slip, “And it’s Wednesday.”
Miles snatched the slip from her, “Yeah, well. I’ve got things going on. It’s none of your business.”
She raised an eyebrow, “Sure thing. By the way, do you want a pin?”
She held up a tiny pin with BARBARA RODRIGUEZ 4 PREZ printed on it.
Ah; a student council nominee. Miles guessed she was probably a college applications extracurricular hound, too. Not that he had room to speak, given he barely had enough time in the day to make it to classes.
“No thanks,” he said. She frowned, which made him feel a little guilty, but not enough to take a pin.
He went through the rest of his classes mostly normally and spent the evening playing Mortal Combat XIV with Ganke.
The next day, when he walked to a bakery for a muffin, he noticed that the lot next to the bakery was completely covered by tarps and surrounded by large concrete trucks and other machines. As he ate his muffin, one of the machines would beep loudly every few seconds as it lifted and lowered.
The bakery owner scowled and glared out the window, her words almost washed out under the loud sounds of the construction, “Wish they would just shut up---struction and disturbing my cust---”
Her face grew pinched and she gave up, turning back to the counter she was cleaning while shaking her head.
The rest of the week went by normally too. Miles got a 7 out of 10 on a pop quiz in AP Physics, which kind of sucked, he fought a bunch of guys in ski masks robbing a convenience store, and he promised a twelve-year-old he would find her lost cat.
This was what he was doing on Thursday, swinging around with posters and tape in his arms and looking out for a ginger cat named Buttercup while he put up MISSING CAT posters on random walls and poles.
By the end of the evening, he no longer had any posters to hang and he retired to his dorm to slump in bed while Ganke crunched chips and did homework. Miles also had homework he needed to do ---and he would, in a moment, just once he'd rested a little.
When Miles woke up it was dark. He lifted his head from his pillow and groaned when the movement pulled on his sore shoulders. After everything, he'd had some pretty nasty wounds and had been basically forced to take things easy while different Spiders took up slack. Thankfully, Peter B. no longer felt the need to "supervise" him, but in the time he was resting his muscles had atrophied a bit and he was still working to build back the strength he lost.
Miles briefly wondered why he'd woken up, and also why he felt a faint clutch of anxiety in his stomach. Then he heard three steady knocks, not on the door, but on the window.
He scrambled to the floor, feeling his head to make sure his hair hadn't formed any weird embarrassing shapes while he'd slept.
At the window, he expected to find Gwen or Hobie or Peni---people who thought it appropriate to knock on windows at night.
His heart stopped when he instead found the deep red lines forming the ominous outline of Miguel O'Hara's mask.
Miles did a few calculations very very fast. One, to find from where he could escape that would take the least time. Two, to figure out where he could move the fight that wouldn’t put people in danger. Three, to figure out what O'Hara was even doing---
Before Miles even had time to think things through fully, O'Hara’s fingers came under the window and he pulled it up silently and smoothly---the window was oiled and never locked, due to how many people came in and out through it, Miles included.
With an embarrassing squeak, Miles took the path that would cause the least danger for civilians, and dove right at O'Hara, smacking into him and making his hands lose their grasp on the wall, instead forcing him to support himself only by the grip of his feet on the wall.
Miles, now crouched on top of O'Hara’s vertical torso, reared a fist and slammed it down towards his face.
“Calm down,” O'Hara commanded, blocking his punch with an open palm and closing his fist over Miles’, the scratch of his talons pressing into Miles’ knuckles.
“Don’t tell me---” Miles reached a foot behind him, balling up his spare fist in the fabric of O'Hara’s costume, and kicked the wall hard, tearing O'Hara’s feet off of the wall with a crunch of brick, “---what to do!”
Abruptly, they were hurtling toward the ground, struggling against each other as O'Hara attempted to get a line of his fluorescent red webbing out to one of the buildings and Miles snatched the line before it could get more than a foot from them, wrapping it around his forearm and yanking until the webbing snapped where it emerged from his carpal zone. O'Hara made a high-pitched noise comparable to a rattling AC unit, and then they hit the concrete.
Miles staggered to his feet, having fallen off of O'Hara’s chest in the impact. He blinked through dust until he saw a slight divot in the ground where O'Hara was lying, wheezing slightly. O'Hara dragged himself to an upright position and coughed, a nasty, dragging sound.
Miles quickly jumped into a fighting stance, before he realized he wasn’t wearing his mask and fumbled in his pockets for it.
“Morales,” O'Hara hacked a bit more, “I don’t want to fight.”
Miles managed to find his mask and yank it over his head, “Oh yeah? So I guess you just came to my room in the middle of the night to have a party?”
O'Hara got to his feet, his body lowered cautiously. His left foot skidded against the edge of the crater as he spread his base out for a solid stance. The ends of his extended talons nearly touched the ground, and his masked face was an immovable wall.
“I came to help you,” O'Hara said lowly, “If you could stop being stupid---”
Miles flung himself at O'Hara, a foot rocketing towards his head. O'Hara caught his shoe in one hand and yanked him over his shoulder, using his foot as a connection point with which to slam him into the ground.
Miles had the air knocked out of him as he face-planted directly into the concrete. He wheezed, and then gasped as O'Hara yanked him up by the ankle and held him upside down.
His head swinging dizzily at O'Hara’s knee level and his limp fingers dragging against the ground, he felt all the blood in his body rush to his temples, and the prickling of the new scrapes on his face.
“Are you ready to listen?” O'Hara asked, shaking him a bit by the ankle like he was a scruffed puppy.
Miles, scared if he opened his mouth he was going to throw up, didn’t respond.
“Good,” O'Hara said with a tone of satisfaction, “Now. If I let you down will you promise not to attack me? …Again.”
Miles swallowed the spit collecting in his mouth, making some sort of movement with his head.
“Do you understand?” O'Hara repeated in a harsher tone, almost grating out of his mouth, “¿Entiende usted?”
Oh. He used the respectful you , Miles thought, how polite.
O'Hara shook him again when a response was not forthcoming, which only made him more nauseous, prompting sharply, “¿Bueno?”
“¡Sí! Yes! And I’m gonna throw up on you if you don’t put me down!”
O'Hara lowered him to the ground, and Miles kicked his foot out of O'Hara’s grip and rolled to his feet.
O'Hara crossed his arms over his chest warily, “So.”
“ So ,” Miles mimicked his posture, puffing his chest out a bit, “You escaped.”
O'Hara scrubbed his fingers (claws retracted) over his face, seeming suddenly exhausted, “No. No, I…I was released.”
Miles raised an eyebrow underneath his mask in disbelief, “Oh, really?”
“You should have been informed. Check your watch.”
Miles, feeling itchy about taking his eyes off O'Hara, tapped at his watch grudgingly and looked at the recent messages.
There was one from Peter B., one from Hobie, one from Peni, and one from Spider-Byte. They all said some version of the same thing; the majority ruled to let O'Hara out, don’t worry he won’t kill you.
Somehow this made Miles even less comfortable than when he’d thought O'Hara had escaped by himself. However, it also meant he couldn’t do anything about it without going against the Spider Council.
Which meant…
“Fine. What do you want?” Miles asked him, “And then could you get out of my universe?”
Miles got the sense that O'Hara was gritting his teeth, “Yes. One of the requirements for my…release was that I, eh, talk to you."
"About…?"
O'Hara pulled his mask back over his head, perhaps in a move of de-escalation, leaving his flesh-and-blood face bare, the harsh, flat panes of his face lit variably by a streetlight which painted it bright white, or shadowed it to darker tones on another section. He would be attractive if he did not look so unpleasant, his mouth twisted like he was sucking a lemon.
"Before I am admitted back into the Society I need your… approval ," he spat the word out like it disgusted him, or like it was that lemon he'd been sucking, "You only need to tell them you approve and that's it; I'll be off your hands. Easy as bread.”
“Easy as pie? Piece of cake?”
“Whatever. What do you say?”
“Hmmm,” Miles tapped his chin thoughtfully, “No.”
O'Hara’s eyeball twitched, “And why…not?”
“Maybe I don’t approve,” Miles shrugged, his tone getting harder with every word, “Maybe I still don’t trust you after you attacked me and sicced a bunch of Spiders on me and tried to stop me from saving my dad.”
And told me I was a mistake. And told me I wasn’t a real Spiderman.
O'Hara stared at him flatly, “You’re seriously still upset about that?”
“I--- Yes! Of course I am! I don’t have to forgive you just because everyone else decided it’s all good.”
O'Hara, his lips pulled back from his teeth, the crooked points of his upper fangs curved slightly behind the akimbo, slightly smaller, lower ones, bent over Miles, his voice deadly quiet, “If you don’t approve, then I have to stay here until you do. I can’t go back to my position, I can’t get my--- And you will have to deal with me.”
Miles’ eyes tracked the slight twitch of his hand for his wrist, where he noticed O'Hara no longer had a watch, but a thick, humming black band that closely resembled one of those house arrest ankle monitors. Below it was the same sort of day-pass bracelet Miles had been given when he visited the Spider Society for the first time.
“You…aren’t allowed to travel universes anymore, are you?” Miles realized, “You’re on, like, spider probation.”
O'Hara did not say anything in response, but his grimace was answer enough.
Miles looked him straight in the face and laughed. And laughed. And kept on laughing.
He had his hands on his knees, and was wheezing soundlessly by the time he was done.
“Jeez,” Miles reached under his mask to wipe away tears, “This has been great. Really. But if you don’t mind I gotta get back to my room before anyone notices I’m gone. Chau!”
He attached a line of webbing to the wall, and quickly launched himself up and over O'Hara’s head, leaving him still standing in the alley. When Miles looked back from his window, he could still see O'Hara, stuck still and stiff. Miles could read clear anger in the line of his shoulders.
Well. Too bad.
Miles knew eventually he would have to deal with the issue, but at the moment he could care less. He threw himself in bed again and only got what felt like five minutes more of rest before Ganke was smacking him in the head with a pillow and telling him it was time to wake up.
He accidentally forgot to put socks on and tried to pull on his jacket before he’d put on a shirt, but he finally managed to get himself dressed just in time to narrowly avoid being late to his first class of the day. At the very least, it was Friday and he would get to chill out at home soon.
Miles nearly nodded off twice. He was going for a third time in the middle of a lecture about "methods of development" or something like that when he heard his name crackling on the speaker system.
He blinked fully awake, feeling like he'd been doused in water.
The class was all looking at him.
The loudspeaker went on, calling a few different names, one of which Miles recognized as belonging to the Barbara girl who'd asked him to support her presidential campaign a few days ago.
"Will these students please report to the principal’s office," the loudspeaker announced, finally clicking off.
The class did their customary giggling and whispering that happened whenever someone was called to the front office. Miles valiantly ignored them.
A small crowd of three other students had formed in the waiting room of Principal Spencer’s office by the time Miles got there. He recognized the Barbara girl and tried to avoid eye contact.
The door, with it’s window covered by blue tape for shelter-in-place purposes, suddenly slammed open, and Principal Spencer, her wispy, whitish-blonde hair hanging at her shoulders and a large smile splitting her face, appeared behind it.
“Students!” she crowed excitedly, “Come in, come in! We have something really wonderful for you, really---”
The four students, throwing looks at each other, filed into the office. It was a large room Miles had only been in once before, with a high ceiling and a big wooden desk right in it’s center. Sitting in front of the wooden desk was a younger man, likely no more than thirty, with combed red-blonde hair and a pleasant, slightly-lopsided smile that showed off his neat, white teeth.
“Hello---” he raised a hand but was cut off.
“This,” Principal Spencer said with relish, “Is Chairman August D’Angelo of Roxxon Corporation. He’s a very important man.”
D’Angelo laughed, looking a bit embarrassed, “Uh, yes. That is, I’m the chairman of the Board of Directors at Roxxon. You can sit, all of you. Please.”
The students sat in the plastic chairs arranged around Principal Spencer’s desk. Miles took note that there was one grumpy-looking senior boy he didn’t know who wore glasses attached by a string around his head, a blonde sophomore girl with star-shaped hair clips, and the Barbara girl with a bunch of pins stuck to her skirt (though none of the pins were promoting her presidency, at least).
“So,” D’Angelo started, spreading his hands, “First of all, I want to say it is lovely to meet all of you. You may not have known this when you woke up this morning, but you have been selected, out of all of your peers, to be a part of something big. Roxxon Corporation and Affiliates will be starting a new program for promising young students in your city intended to give you the life skills and experience necessary to do big things! You four are lucky enough to be some of the first students accepted into Rock on, Roxxon !”
The blonde girl with the star clips raised her hand awkwardly.
“Yes…Trisha Burgman, wasn’t it?”
She looked surprised he knew her name; he must have looked at their student profiles, “Yes, that’s me. Um, Mr. D’Angelo---”
“You can just call me August,” he smiled warmly.
“Right, well, I was just wondering if this will count for volunteering hours?”
D’Angelo’s smile slipped a bit, “Uh. No. I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said, but Miles could see her checking out already. He kind of felt bad for the guy.
Decisively, he raised his hand.
“Miles Morales, right?”
“Right, Mr. uhhh…August. So how do we get started?”
D’Angelo---August seemed to get back in his groove, “Yes! Well, you need to sign some paperwork with your parents, no big deal…”
He dropped a giant stack of papers on the desk, and chuckled awkwardly, “These are for all of you. It’s not…actually that much.”
Miles, suppressing a sigh for the sake of being polite, took the thick stack August handed out.
The senior boy looked interested, though Trixie frowned at the paper and Miles guessed it was trash-bound. The Barbara girl also looked very thoughtful, though Miles couldn’t parse what her expression meant.
“Do you kids have any questions?” August asked.
Barbara raised her hand and opened her mouth, but was cut off before she could speak by the senior boy.
“How were we chosen, specifically?” he looked somehow both serious and bored at the same time, “If I can ask. It’s only that I was wondering if it was grades, or achievements, or something.”
“Anthony Davis, right? Well, Mr. Davis, I can’t tell you specifics,” August leaned forward secretively and Trixie leaned subtly back, “But I will say we were very selective in our process.”
Barbara jumped in, “What exactly will we be doing with Roxxon? It’s only that Roxxon has so many subsidiaries. Lots of fingers in different markets, I’ve heard.”
“That's an excellent question! Barbara Ro---”
“Yes, it’s Barbara Rodriguez, you memorized our names and faces, it’s very impressive,” she said quickly. Miles personally thought she didn’t sound all that impressed.
“Yes. I’m sure you know Roxxon is involved in energy, research, and technology. I’m willing to bet you at least know someone who uses Roxxon mobile. You’ve probably eaten chips or soda produced by Roxxon subsidiary CrunchCo. You’ve probably used apps engineered by Roxxon Technologies. You’ve probably driven cars or motorcycles fueled by our diesel, or charged your electric vehicles with stations run by Roxxon in our new Roxxon Sustainable Living initiative,” August had started counting off his fingers, and he shrugged as he continued, meeting vulnerable eyes with all of them, “I’ve been in exactly your position before. Uncertain about the future, scared you’ll disappoint your parents, worried you’ll miss your opportunities to do something you’ll really love.”
Miles shifted uncomfortably. It was true, everything he said. That was exactly how Miles felt.
“You didn’t really answer the question.” Barbara’s voice cut through the air.
“You’re right, I didn’t. That’s a shrewd observation,” he chuckled, “All I have to say is the best thing about Rock on, Roxxon! is that you get to choose where you go. It’s really a program focused on what teenagers want. It’s all there for you. You just have to be willing to take it.”
Barbara’s eyes were still narrowed.
What’s her deal? Miles wondered.
Principal Spencer sent them to their next class after August was done, congratulating them intensely on their way out.
“Think you’re gonna do it, Barb?” Anthony asked Barbara as they walked. Miles momentarily wondered where they knew each other until he saw the pin on Anthony’s shirt that said Daily Visions , the name of the school paper (which Miles had always thought sounded like a paper for psychics). If he remembered correctly, Barbara was also an editor for the paper.
“Hm. Probably,” Barbara said, her voice fading as she and Anthony took a hall opposite to where Miles was going, “I just think the whole thing is weird…”
Miles got back to his class and stowed away the papers in his bag, ignoring the curious looks his classmates shot him.
That night while he was supposed to be packing to go home for the weekend, he instead looked up Roxxon. It was…confusing, mostly. What came up in the largest quantities, and what was clearly the most recent, was information about a clean energy initiative and electric cars. There were also plenty of articles mentioning Rock on, Roxxon! , though most of them were pretty vague, essentially boiling down to a bunch of different news blogs copying from the same interview with the Roxxon CEO. Miles pumped his fist and made Ganke give him a weird look when he found the original article the interview was from.
Mr. Dario Agger, seven feet tall and with a razor sharp sense of style, describes his new program intended for the most important contributors in any business: teenagers.
“I think if I had to explain Rock on, Roxxon! in one word it would be…groundbreaking,” his voice is charismatic and energetic, which is to be expected from the man behind one of the most innovative and exciting companies of our day, “We’re really doing something different here. This isn’t your mom’s after-school program.”
We both take a moment to laugh at his impressive wit---
Miles exed out of the tab.
“Dude,” Ganke poked him in the shoulder, “Can we go to sleep now? I wanna turn off the lights early ‘cause I have a test tomorrow morning and I need to study before class starts.”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry.”