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Three years since Miles had met all the spider people - and was subsequently chased down by said spider people - and he was close to starting his first semester at college.
Since the end of his multiversal manhunt, all of his closest friends had visited, except one. Hobie Brown. He hadn't seen the older spider since that last gathering in which he had hugged everyone goodbye and made them all promise that things would be different this time around. That nobody would become a stranger.
He wasn't exactly sure what it was that had him thinking about Hobie this much, just that the man was always on his mind in one way or another. He knew how pathetic this made him seem to the other spiders, asking about the anarchist every time he saw one of them. He earned himself a pretty big range of pitying looks. Although it was different with Gwen, who had taken to frowning and telling him to “Just go and visit him” which Miles figured would be a little rude since he wasn't even sure he was welcome, never mind the fact that he had not been invited.
He thought of the boy more often when he was painting, especially on the walls of old buildings that he thought needed a little more life. Hobie would probably approve. The thought made him smile.
Why the punk had not visited, Miles was not sure. Whenever he asked any of the others about it they acted clueless or changed the subject. He was pretty sure there was a reason though, Pavitr was a terrible liar. Not that the younger boy seemed to be making much of an effort to hide that he knew something, Miles was pretty sure he was bursting at the seams to spill the secret to anyone who would listen.
And it wasn't like everyone else was suffering the same radio silence either, just Miles. He absolutely wasn't upset by that. Just fine, actually.
It was this exact train of thought that he was going through with himself as he perched on the top of his parents’ building in the rain that was interrupted by a crash and the yowl of a cat in the alleyway to his side. He grumbled as he stretched out and hopped down from the roof, sticking to the shadows as he inspected the situation at hand.
So imagine his surprise to see a very familiar figure pacing around the alleyway and mumbling to a cat which looked more than a little pissed off.
“Uh, hey! Hey, Hobie, man, what? What are you doing here?” Miles called out, swinging down, acting as casual as he could despite the way his face was begging to etch the biggest smile permanently into his mouth and he felt somewhat like an eager puppy finally seeing his person come home.
“I was just uh, in the area. Thought I might stop by?” And just like that Miles felt like the older had never left. No matter what resentment he had harboured for Hobie in his absence, everything was forgiven the moment the older’s voice met his ears, the baritone notes feeling so familiar and every bit as cool as they had the first time they met.
“Somehow i don't believe that, but it's whatever man, keep your secrets,” Miles stepped forwards, one hand out for the older to take. “You look good, how’s things been?”
He was acting fine, but in all honesty his nerves were off the charts. He wanted to pull the older boy into a hug, to latch on to him and never let go, to talk with him for hours about everything and nothing. The man was still just as cool, if not more, than he had been three years ago, saving Miles from all kinds of problems with his own odd sense of humour and eagerness to annoy all figures of authority that even so much as looked at either of them wrong.
“I've just been dead busy an all that mate, I would have stopped by sooner if I had the chance,” Hobie replied, though he was avoiding eye contact as he gripped Miles’ hand.
“Yeah, no i get it. You wanna come inside?” He couldn't convince himself that the blatant lie didn't hurt, but he was simply too confused as to why it hurt him so much in the first place.
“Inside? What, you live right here?” God that voice went straight through him every time he heard it. Every day Miles thanked whoever was listening that his mask covered his whole face so that Hobie wouldn't see the heat that spread across it.
Objectively he knew that Hobie was an attractive guy. And maybe he also knew that not so objectively, as Ganke had so helpfully pointed out for him after he had not shut up about how cool the anarchist spider was for the first week after going back to school. But he had figured that all it was had been a little puppy crush on a very understandable choice. Apparently the feeling was just as present as ever.
“Yeah man, this is my parents place, they’re out right now. I'm moving out for college in a few weeks though. Lucky you managed to drop by right outside, huh?” He started leading the two of them off, hoping that Hobie would somehow save him from his own awkward rambling soon because he was about three seconds away from screaming and fleeing the scene.
“Yeah, yeah, lucky.” Unfortunately the man was absolutely no help.
Actually now that he was thinking about it, the Brit was being a lot more skittish than Miles remembered, constantly looking over his shoulder and hunching over into a defensive stance. He led them up through his bedroom window and sat down on his bed, pulling the mask off as he went. As he was starting to suspect, instead of following his lead and relaxing, Hobie just stood by the window and watched their surroundings closely.
“Alright man, I was gonna let you keep it to yourself and everything but you're freaking me out a little now. Why are you actually here?” He sighed, watching the older with an arched brow.
“I don't know what youre talkin about,” The tone was defensive at best, betraying the users clear suspicious activity, an action that they both knew was pointless. “Listen, I totally was going to come and see you anyways, right? I just also might have been… chased out of my own dimension for a little bit.”
“Chased? What the hell do you mean you got chased out of a whole dimension?” Miles frowned, standing back up.
“I pissed off the wrong people, okay? I didn't think they knew about… all of this,” He gestured around at their surroundings as he did so, taking a few steps towards Miles in the process.
“And why do they know about all of this?” Miles narrowed his eyes. If the others knew about this then Hobie would be in more than just a bit of trouble. And by association, so would Miles.
“How am I supposed to know? I don't chat them up very often.” He sighed. “Look I just need a place to crash for a few days or something alright? I'll lie low and then I'll go back and figure it out.”
They were pretty close to each other now, Miles noted with a dull intrigue. Hobie’s eyes were searching his own as he looked down at him, arms crossed across his chest, which absolutely did not show off how buff he had gotten in the last couple of years and was absolutely not insanely attractive to Miles Morales.
“Fine fine, yeah, you can stay with me. But you better fix it man.”
After that they fell into a much more companionable energy, closing the curtains to the bedroom and slowly catching up on what they had missed in eachothers lives. It was almost like they hadn't been apart at all.
“Gwen told me you guys played in a pretty big show a few months ago,” Miles grinned as he pulled on a sweater.
“Yeah, it was pretty cool. She was amazing, as usual,” Hobie grinned back. Gwen had long since become a conversation starter rather than a reason for tension between the two, a clear point of mutual interest and friendship for them. “Ay, could I get one of those? T-shirt or a jumper or something, I don't mind.”
Miles tossed him a sweater out of his closet and then pulled out some pyjama pants for himself to cover the suit. When he turned around the older boy had pulled off his Spider-Man shirt and was tugging the sweater over his not-at-all-attractive abs. And wow. The sweater barely fit the man, hugging his shoulders just right as he looked down at himself shrugging before lifting his gaze back to Miles, who was attempting terribly to look normal about the whole thing.
At this point Miles was willing to admit to himself that the “puppy crush” was just a full blown crush at this point and that he was decidedly way in over his head with this whole thing.
“You uh. Do you want anything? Food, drinks?”
“Well if you're offering, I'll have whatever you give me, love.” He smirked, just barely as he shouldered through the bedroom door and out into the kitchen across the hallway, clearly meaning for Miles to follow him. Not sure when exactly the tables swerved in this direction, the boy scrambled after him.
Figuring he should just make something like a hot chocolate for the both of them, he set to work, attempting to ignore the stare of the man who was sitting on the countertops as if he owned the place.
“You've grown,” Hobie rumbled from beside him as he stirred the milk into the mugs.
“I mean, I guess? I grew a couple inches in the summer after everything,” He put one mug into the microwave and turned around to face the older.
“Miles look,” He sighed. “I was going to come. I just…”
“Don't man. I get it, it's fine. You've been busy and it's probably not that big a deal now. Three years is a lot of time. Everybody has their own stuff to do…” He trailed off, fiddling with the other mug as he tried to avoid Hobie’s eyes.
A hand caught his wrist and his head snapped up to look at the perpetrator guardedly.
“That's not it, okay? I was gonna come but… I didn't know how to deal with it.”
And now Miles was completely confused.
“Deal with what?” He asked, a little dumbfounded.
“You. You're so annoyingly likeable, do you know that? And you had the world's most obvious eyes for Gwen, so i didn't really know how to fit myself in there without making things weird right? Because I'm pretty sure you thought I had a thing for her and she had a bit of a thing for you.” Hobie’s hand was still gripping his arm but he wasn't looking at him anymore.
“Okay…? I don't get what you're saying right now dude.”
“You liked each other. So I thought it would happen. Thought you were both gonna get together and everything and I would have to watch it all go down, all awkward as it was definitely gonna be for the two of you.” He looked back up finally. “And for me. You thought I fancied Gwen but I was pretty gone for you from the start Miles. I didn't really want to stick around for that.”
Miles was a little stunned. Speechless in fact.
Not five minutes ago he had figured out that he was still crushing hard for this man and here he was, confessing his own younger self’s feelings for him? He couldn't decide whether this was some cruel joke from the universe or some sort of wonderful blessing in disguise. He was distantly aware of the microwave beeping in the background.
“So you… you stayed away from me to get over your crush on me?” He pointed to himself, as if to confirm that he was actually the topic of conversation at present.
That earned him a little chuckle. “Yeah.”
And then the punk leaned closer, pulling Miles to himself, and whispered, “I don't think it worked though.”
“Oh!” Miles definitely did not just squeak.
Hobie just smirked. “You're still bad at hiding your crushes.”
He leaned back, letting Miles breathe for a moment. “So you're going to university. Not my thing, bit of a scam I think. The whole thing is so expensive and for what? Especially for you Americans. If you gotta go, it should be for something proper smart or cool, yknow?”
“Hobie. Hobie, did you just confess your undying love for me?” He felt like he was buffering a little.
“If that's what you want to call it, then yeah alright. Undying love for you,” He smirked.
“Oh. Okay. Yeah, just checking.” He leaned forwards, planting his forehead on the man’s shoulder. A hand came up to rub his back as he kept rambling about his feelings for the further education system and its direct links to capitalism, something which quickly became background noise as Miles’ brain caught up.
After a few minutes he finally pulled back. He reached for the microwave, so as to give himself something to do with his hands.
“So you like me. Still. And I like you… still.”
“Still?”
“I didn't know! At the time. My roommate figured it out for me when I couldn't stop talking about you.”
Hobie laughed, “That is too cute.”
“So are we uh…” Miles avoided eye contact.
“Are we an item now? If you want us to be then i want us to be, im easy babe.” The man was entirely too laid back about the whole thing.
"I want. Definitely, I want us to be." The words fell out of his mouth so fast that he stumbled over them. Maybe he was a little eager.
Hobie leaned forwards to kiss him on the cheek, so fleeting that he barely felt it, only the heat that spread across his face afterwards. And then he hopped off the countertop and swerved so that he was standing directly behind Miles, leaning over him to put the other mug into the microwave and stir the first.
"So, first date: hot chocolate. Cute. Not what you'd think but still cute."
Miles had to fight every bone in his body to refrain from reacting to that voice so close to his ear.
He turned around in the older boys arms and looked up at him, mumbling out, "We could make it more fun, I guess."
He then promptly froze and groaned at how that sounded as Hobie smirked down at him. "Oh yeah? And how are we gonna do that?"
"Shut up. Not like that. I meant like, watching a show or going for a swing around the city or something." He lightly slapped the older's arm for good measure, earning himself a few snickers.
"Well you lead the way, Spider Man," Came the grinned response.