Chapter Text
Grito de la Noche is the best anti-fine dining experience to have in Nueva York.
It’s got a lot of things going for it: the genuine Mexican cuisine in futuristic style, the secret unlabeled drive-thru, nocturnal open hours, and employees that never question the appearance of their costumed customers. Miles loves going there the most, enough to overlook how terrifying Downtown’s neighborhood is.
Dropping by in Miguel's car, it’s not so bad. What villain is gonna jump Miles while getting scolded by the city’s very own giant, neon-suited Spider-Man?
“—I don’t want to see another blank anomaly report from you. If you don’t send them, there’s a delay, and when there’s a delay, a dozen different Peter Parkers start repeating the same damn joke at me.”
“Yeah, reporting. Whatever, whatever,” Miles says, not listening at all.
Miguel stops eating his soft taco. If the fire-daggers shooting out of his eyes were real, they would be scratching the side of Miles' head.
“'Whatever'?”
“I just mean I get it already, man! Yeah, reporting's important...for...multiversal hole tracking, and...uh, other stuff. You’ve said it like a million times!”
“And yet I have to repeat myself, every time, because either you don’t do it, or,” Miguel flicks a loose piece of lettuce out through the open car window, “you do a half-assed job of it.”
Fair criticism. One problem: Miles hates filling those out. And he's not going to pretend otherwise. So what if the fate of the Spider-verse might hang on neatly-organized anomaly reports? Writing them is so, painfully, boring. Even if it adds data to Lyla's prediction and prep-work database, what more is there to say? Miles really doesn't want to do cross-universal homework on top of his normal homework.
So, like a true teenager with an honorary degree in loophole-argumentation, Miles asks, “Why can’t Lyla do it? She can pull my watch feed and transcribe an hour of footage in under a minute. I've seen her do it for you.”
“No."
"Why not? It'd be more efficient. Wouldn't you prefer efficiency?"
The fire-daggers come back. Miguel looks like he's about to accidentally smush the taco al pastor in his hand. "Miles, it’s a matter of personal responsibility and learning to take accountability.”
“Sounds like more work,” Miles whispers. He doesn’t miss the grumbled, “Dios, dame paciencia,” from the driver’s side.
“We’ll,” Miguel exhales next, “talk about this later. Again. Take a napkin, you’re going to get grease all over my car and it’s new and furbished.”
They eat in silence after calling it quits on the report stuff, staring out to the underbelly of the city. Miles goes at a slower pace. He’s watching the hovercars, locked onto ground level, move over halogen lit roads. There’s a false roof way above their heads, paved by topside roads and buildings that dome the sky. It makes Miles wonder if that wasn’t designed on purpose.
Downtown is scary and patently dangerous, but it’s also vibrant and full of life. Its roads tell of familiar names and unchanged street corners, and Miles is sure that he knows this parking lot they are eating in. He’s probably perched on it, or someplace similar, back in his Brooklyn.
Spider-People may live across vastly different universes, but some things stay the same.
Miles spies a hoverbike zooming through the streets. Red-and-blue lights flash from its back. Curiosity has him ask, “Do you have cops here?” He hasn't seen any vehicle boasting the NYPD logo yet, and he's used to cop cars like his dad's rolling by on patrol duty.
Miguel looks at him funny. "Cops?"
The bike with the red-and-blue lights whizzes by, so Miles points at it with a grease-shiny finger.
“Ah. Not exactly. Those are Public Eye flyboys. Same law-enforcement duties, worse vindication.”
"What you mean by vindication?"
"They serve megacorp interests, like a private army. You'd be surprised to know I've had to fight them more often than street ruffs."
That pulls a sympathetic, "Yeesh," from Miles. Having to fight paid cops on top of local trouble on top of supervillains sounds like a headache and a half.
"They're not nearly as bad now as they were before the Society's creation," Miguel adds with a simple shrug that refrains from explaining more. It begs the question, how bad was it before?
“You know, I hadn’t thought about it, because you hardly ever leave HQ, but do you have supervillains in Nueva York?”
Miguel doesn’t immediately answer, which gives Miles the impression that he’s asked the wrong question. So instead he tries, “Is there anyone we should be looking out for? You’re double-tasked with keeping the multiverse and the city safe and—”
“You don’t have to concern yourself with that. I’m Nueva York’s Spider-Man, you let me worry about my city’s problems.”
“Sure,” Miles nods. He gets it. He really does. Plenty of older Spider-People have taken one look at him and expressed their concern over how young he is to be Spider-Man. The coddling can get on his nerves sometimes. “But, is there anyone we should be looking out for? When I visit Gwen or Hobie’s worlds, they let me know what bad guy is rolling through the city that week. And, I mean, you’re a tough Spider-Man. I bet your villains are tougher than some.”
Miguel laughs at that. A short, airy thing, like it snuck out against his will. “In a way. But I’ve been Spider-Man for more years than you, Gwen and Spider-Punk combined. My villains have had time to mature, to become more ruthless. You should steer clear of them.”
That’s no skin off Miles’ back. “Hey, I inherited my Peter Parker’s older rogues!”
“You did,” Miguel says, quieter.
His Peter Parker’s villains are no joke. Not just Fisk, who’s rotting in jail, but Doctor Octavius, Scorpion, Tombstone. Those that come and go like Rhino and Lizard aren’t as bad, but they’re big, and they pack a mean punch, and Miles has a handle on them already.
A few of them, too, have passed on before Miles became Spider-Man. There was Green Goblin, who fell alongside his world’s Peter.
And the Prowler.
Every Spider-Man has villains. Some more deadly than others. Some are beyond one Spider-Man, and those, they fight—have fought—together. Like Spot. Like the anomalies.
Miguel says his villains have matured to ruthlessness. It sounds honest, but it also doesn’t feel completely true. Is he trying to shield him from someone? Miles huffs to himself. He’s not a kid. He’s beaten terrible odds, always surprising everyone around him, in-world and out.
His breath trembles with the memory of a fist clenched on the collar of his first super-suit, and a clawed gauntlet pulling his mask back down, over his face. He remembers a gunshot that still rings in his nightmares. A big, callused hand clasped in his, before it slips away forever.
Just keep going.
“Miguel, do you have…a Prowler? Should I steer clear because of that? I’ve seen a couple of them, you know, I’m not gonna freeze up.”
Miles has met enough Prowlers stranded from their dimensions now to know that it’s possible. It always stings behind his eyes, always winds him. Seeing his colors and hearing that name. But he knows they’re not his Uncle Aaron.
When Miguel shakes his head, relief unfurls in Miles’ chest. But then he turns his red eyes to Miles and it’s like the walls of an anomaly cage closing around Miles’ head.
“In the multiversal path-tracking system, we have something classified under the name Precursor Villain.” Miguel fruitlessly holds an empty hand in the air between them. He shakes his head again. “Prowlers…Green Goblins… They’re Precursors. Everyone has one woven into their life.”
“So, you have one too.” Miles picks up his meaning. The warning in it.
“He’s not your Prowler, Miles. No one can be. No dejes que te afecte.”
"I won't let it get to me, I know.”
“Bien.” Miguel points down at the half-eaten food container on Miles’ lap. “Then finish your carne asada, it doesn’t taste the same cold.”
Downtown is breathtaking when it’s just humming with ordinary traffic problems. Miles is happy to open a portal from up here after munching. He watches the colors of the city get trippier around the edges of it.
Before he jumps back home, Miguel’s watch beeps. But it’s not an anomaly ping.
The local radio sparks to life.
“—Fight outbreak on—downtown residents advised to avoid—”
“Sounds like a job for Spider-Man?” Miles jokes, putting his mask on.
“Oh, no. You go home.” It is much quicker and easier for Miguel's holo-suit to wrap over and flatten his civvies under. There's no button that he clicks, it just, comes on, however it is that it works. “My city, my problem.”
Miles makes a show of rolling his eyes even from behind the mask.
Once he activates auto-drive on the car, Miguel is vaulting the roof and swinging out between buildings. He obviously expects Miles to do as he’s told. The portal shrinks steadily behind Miles.
His city, his problems, he says. Well, nothing about following in invisible silence in that.
He’s focused on the best way to stay hidden while checking out the radio in destination. His web-swinging has to be timed to when Miguel is past a corner. It slows him significantly. Still, pretty hard to miss the laser shots and screaming.
It’s not Miles’ style to stay on the sidelines, but he so rarely gets to watch another Spider fight solo. Things flow at a different pace against a crowd of cyber-enhanced people. Someone steals the show by swooping in on metal wings with a cackle. Nueva York’s Vulture, self-announced.
There’s about a half a dozen moments where Miles second-guesses standing by. For one, it’s an unfair fight, ten thugs to one. Seeing Miguel body them in less than a minute kindly wipes away the idea. The Vulture is worse, flying around Downtown streets, causing a terrible wreck. The flyboys try to shoot them down, too, but their shots just put dents on Vulture's freaky skin-grafted armor. The flyboys also try to shoot nosy civilians, more frequently than not. Their stormtrooper aim is an atrocious blessing.
“How many times are we going to have this talk, PE?” Miguel webs two hoverbike-riding cops together against a wall. “Not everybody's a part of the freakers! Stop shooting!”
A megaphone speaker cracks out, “You’re lucky we’re not shooting you too, Spider-Man.”
“Oh, I’m lucky,” he says, webbing another two. “Upstanding law service means I’m just lucky.”
The Vulture crashes back to the scene in true spiteful fashion. It becomes a free for all. That’s another moment when Miles considers just uncloaking and helping Miguel out, despite the promise of even more scolding, possibly a mission demotion.
But then he hears it. A metal, rhythmic twang, getting closer.
His Spider-sense shouts for him to move, so he moves away from the lip of the rooftop. Someone jumps over the fire escape he’d just been at and throws tiny, flickering discs that stick like magnets to the flyboy hoverbikes. They flash brightly once, and the hoverbikes shudder, engines failing.
The shadow of a big dude lands on the Vulture’s back, after Miguel finishes webbing the villain’s metal wings to the sides of the buildings. The new guy straightens up—
Purple mask, high-tech boots, deadly clawed gauntlets—
Not his Prowler, Miles reminds himself, when his heart pounds in his ears. No one can be.
The color scheme is wrong, anyway. He’s wearing a teal-green jacket with shoulder pads, and a darker shade of padded athletic pants. The mask is too rounded, more like a biker’s visor with a centered, digitized faceplate.
And the claws. They retract over knuckles when he pokes the back of Vulture’s head.
Vulture spits out an angry, filthy curse, so ugly that Miles gags after processing it. Is this guy joking, or is cannibalism a normal threat around these parts?
“Get off me, Goblin!”
The new guy—Goblin?—stays perfectly balanced where he is. At a violent jostle of the Vulture's shoulders, his high-tech boots give off a faint hum, keeping him stable. They must use electrostatic adhesion, similar to how most Spider-people crawl up walls, only mechanically replicated. Just looking at the boots in action, Miles bets he could stay glued onto Vulture's metal back while flying. An outdated cityscape like Downtown's needs quick, strong climbing gear.
The Vulture tries breaking free again. The webs remains strong, to the Goblin's tested approval. He then jumps to one of the webbed up building facades, opposite from where Miles is hiding. The gauntlet claws extend back out to leave a gouge on the wall.
“Hogging all the fun, Spider-Man?”
Miguel crouches on his own perch, tense. “Goblin.”
“You’re under arrest!”
More flyboys ride into the scene. They get immediately counter-shot by an armed gang of groundlocked people. At least, Miles thinks they’re a gang. They’re all wearing the same hand-styled jacket that spells ‘Throwbacks’ over the shoulder blades. And then the cyber-enhanced disputers holler back into the street.
Now it’s a free for all.
Miguel offers an annoyed, “Don’t need you here,” to the Goblin guy.
“Ajá.”
“I’ve got this handled,” as a laser whizzes by his head and melts a lamppost.
“Pues claro que sí.”
“Shut up.”
“Downtown is my grounds.” The Goblin flips the air and activates something on his left gauntlet. In the next instant, the backpack-like thing on his back opens up to its own holo-purple metal wings. They look more intricate than the Vulture’s, more expensive. He soars low on the ground with them, throwing containment nets that Miguel avoids with his own web-flips.
Stray bullet fire peppers the street. Miles is about to give himself away and shout, there’s innocent people still on the sidewalks—
The Goblin snatches them from the ground and flies them to safety further down the road.
Miles’ eyes widen in disbelief. No bombs. No brutality. Just a rescue sweep.
On the Goblin’s next approaching flight, Miguel hops on his back.
“Hey! No piggybacking!”
He changes course to ride parallel up a skyscraper, and Miles scrambles out of his stupor and maintains the chase. His concentration slips. The black lines of his suit flicker into sight. He manages to regain invisibility before anyone—good, bad, or sketchy-undefined—notices.
He stops unseen at a new tall perch, when Goblin successfully nets Miguel—in the same breath, Miguel webs his wings up.
They’re both plummeting out of the sky.
Goblin shouts, “Let me go, you idiot!”
“You first!”
“I’d rather die!”
“Fine! Then we’re both dying!”
“Fine!”
Miles can’t believe he’s hearing Miguel soundly argue like a toddler. He’s about to freak out about them spitefully going to splat on the street, when Goblin releases his net and Miguel can fling himself off to a roof.
“Go back Uptown,” the Goblin snaps, static cutting into the mask’s voice filter, and Miles makes himself even smaller over the lip of a streetlight. Holo-purple wings spread over the street to catch his falling. The metal clicking against itself sounds like steel-toed boots chasing after Miles. Like running through Brooklyn, running from the first Collider malfunction that killed his world’s Peter, with a killer on his heels.
Miles barely catches Miguel’s barbed, “Downtown’s mine to protect, too.”
The digital expression reflected on the Goblin’s mask pixelates to show anger.
They’re both knocking down the various armed thugs in turns, their fists much more indifferent to drawing blood or breaking a bone. The original radio distress is dealt with before another row of flyboys arrives, as the people of the Throwbacks gang strip back into the shadows of the alleys.
The first of the flyboys comes in hot, guns firing. He’s going straight for the Goblin.
Red webs catch on the hoverbike and stick it against the Vulture’s airborne web trap.
Someone from below throws a laser gun up to the Goblin, a second's adjustment. He has it aimed at the futuristic-cop, now dangling upside down from a balcony. Spider webs keep him immobilized.
“I had that handled,” Goblin tells the Spider-Man scaling a tall pillar.
“That was your one Ass-Saving Pass. Next time, you get yourself out of trouble.”
Miles watches the Goblin’s mask flicker into another upset expression, but he doesn’t answer Miguel’s taunt. They don’t have time to anymore, with the rain of flashing reds-and-blues coming into the scene.
Miguel climbs higher out of Downtown, with the Vulture and the trigger-happy gang taken care of. At the same time, the Goblin prowls to lower ground, intending to run through streets too thin and narrow for the flyboys to follow after.
This is the part when Miles calls it a day of sneaking around and playing danger-curiosity. He should. He has a split-second to decide whether to follow in Miguel’s example and find higher ground, or do something super, totally inadvisable.
It’s just that Miles has never seen a Green Goblin—a Precursor, as Miguel called it—save people before.
Something in Miles’ Spider-sense itches for him to keep an eye on the Goblin, so he does. He dives soundlessly around an alley, wall-sprinting after the Goblin’s own speedy disengagement, and feels like a real spider hunting a fly. Only, this fly is six-feet-four and could seriously do him some damage.
His heart beats loud in his ears when they finally reach a stop: more cramped apartment buildings that remind Miles of back home. These are taller, but still brick and mortar. He watches the Goblin shoot a grapple line from an odd-shaped gun and climb up to the roof.
Miles is way too concentrated on his cloak to notice the Goblin come to a dead stop and turn around with his gauntlets primed with claws.
He’s looking right at him.
Miles doesn’t breathe. The mask has changed into a lighter, pinker shade, angled down to his height. It’s a high-tech visor. He hadn’t considered that it could adjust light frequencies to see in these darker corners of Nueva York. Few villains and heroes were equipped with something that could see him cloaked.
Prowler’s mask once could.
Goblin’s digital expression narrows its eyes, a raised emoticon brow appearing out of nowhere. “Is the invisible child going to explain himself?”
“I’m not a kid,” Miles says, and sheds his cloaking aura.
Revealing himself has an immediate effect on the Goblin’s menacing stride. It stutters to a halt, the man behind the mask stunned to silence. Miles looks down at himself to see if there’s an embarrassing new tear in his suit. There isn’t.
“Uh...Green Goblin?”
“Just Goblin, Spidey,” the Goblin blurts as if by reflex. “Well, you’re not my Spidey.”
Oh, his suit. The Spider logo must have caught him by surprise.
“Yeah I get that a lot.” All the Spiders have gotten used to the whole dimension-chronisms, but villains keep bringing it up. In the next second, Miles squares his shoulders. “Are you going to chase me down and try to kill me now? It’s the status quo with Goblins.”
The raised gauntleted hands click to retract their claws. “I’m not gonna hurt you, little man. Just wondering who you’re supposed to be. Spider-Man’s new protege?” At a much lower tone, the Goblin says more to himself, “I didn’t realize he had the patience for one.”
“I’m not, and he doesn’t.”
The digital mask peering down at him changes to amused, triangle eyes. In a weird way, it reminds Miles of Lyla's own self-made mecha-avatar, and how it emotes.
The familiarity helps make Miles more daring, more funny.
“Sorry if it looked like I was stalking you.”
“You tripped my proximity sensor,” is all Goblin explains. “No one with good intentions steps foot on this roof.”
“Sorry,” Miles says again. Then, shrugs with nothing else to add.
“Are you...lost? If you’re looking for your not-mentor, Uptown’s the way to go.” There lifts a finger at the city-covered sky. “Just keep going up until you find pristine buildings.”
“Yeah, I know where to go.”
The Goblin slowly, tentatively lowers his hand until it's limp against his side. He stares.
Miles, true teenager that he is, stares back. It’s an impromptu staring contest and the first to blink loses.
The Goblin breaks first.
“‘Kay. What do I call you?”
“Spider-Man.”
“Can’t be two Spider-Men.”
“Can, too.”
“I’m not going to deign that with a childish reply,” Goblin says. Quite hypocritically, he’d just done a round of Sky-chicken with Miguel.
“‘Kay, and what do I call you,” Miles echoes.
“If you’re looking for a name, you’re not getting one.”
The Goblin then drops from the edge roof he’d been carefully creeping up on during their circular conversation. Miles takes two big steps after him in a hurry, but he sees Goblin’s high-tech boots keeping him sturdy against the wall, and one clawed gauntlet hand piercing the wall. He’s obviously all tech, no powers. The suit mimics some impressive Spider wall-crawling.
“Show off,” Miles says. Then, shows off himself, by walking upright vertically on the wall, right after him.
Miles doesn’t know why he follows, but he does, and carefully. This side of Downtown is unknown to him, and a thirst for curiosity makes him linger around all the rooftop edges. The Goblin isn’t purposely trying to lose him, either. He’s not running at breakneck speeds or activating his wings to get away. Just, turning around every now and then, as if expecting Miles to get himself into a life-threatening gunfight.
“I don’t need looking after. I can handle myself.”
“Sure,” the Goblin says. The thing is, he sounds like he believes him, even through the voice filter.
They pass by an old, huge church. One of its sidewalls is graffitied up to the roof. Miles stares up at it in awe. He recognizes the stylized lettering that means to spell 'Throwbacks' for what it is: a territorial mark.
He gestures at the wall. “This yours?”
The Goblin pivots his head between him and the new object of Miles’ attention. “Not exactly. I’ve dropped a few paint splatters here and there, but the locals have more time to cover wall space themselves.”
Miles grins. He touches the wall and feels the stone of it with care. It’s cold against his suited fingers, but the passion in these paints warms him fast.
“Cool.”
His smile falters when he spots the Goblin watching him with crossed arms.
He takes his fingers away quick, rubs them clean on his legs. He’s about to apologize, maybe overstepping some unspoken street rule, but the Goblin just says, “You sure you’re Spider-Man? You don’t act like one.”
“No, I’m just not like M—like the one you know.” Miles mentally kicks himself for almost spilling Miguel’s secret identity. That would really be overstepping. He doesn’t know everything about how Spider-Man works in Nueva York. If people know who he is. If it’s a big deal to say it, and he’s not going to risk it.
The Goblin stepping closer on a stomp startles Miles into disappearing on the spot.
“Alright, that’s a pretty neat party trick,” Goblin calls to the false-empty space, “even if I can still see you.”
Miles shouldn’t be here.
The thought comes to him like a barreling train. He shouldn’t be here, messing things up in Nueva York. There’s people starting to fill the streets, in lazy, cautious strides, and the first thing they’ll notice is the Goblin and a strange Spider-Man chatting it up in front of a gang mural. He should be heading out to his own world already, climbing to the topside, opening a portal and forgetting he ever came down here without Miguel to point out what’s okay to do. He should also finish his anomaly mission report, just to prove to Miguel that he’s capable of personal responsibility and accountability.
But then the Goblin—the Precursor, not Prowler, no one could ever be his Prowler—grapples to a broken attic window of the church, and waits at the windowsill, waiting on Miles, and suddenly, it's like Miles can’t bear to leave this strange-yet-familiar Goblin alone.
So, Miles webs up to the attic hole and is greeted by a wall of lights.
It’s a lair of gadgets and monitors. Low budget, cables and radios glued together with duct tape. Electricity and holo-tech hums from their charging ports. Miles can feel it charge in the air.
“Woah,” he gasps, immediately going to the box of spray cans and half-painted helmets. Work he can appreciate. “Dude! You gotta show me your signature.”
“I actually don’t practice sprays that much but, if you’re Spider-Man, and Bigger Spider-Man isn’t your mentor, you’re allowed to sneak some cans out and paint your own.”
Miles looks up at him with his biggest, puppiest of eyes. It has absolutely zero effect with his mask on, so he does the only viable thing in a world that can’t ever take advantage of his identity, and pulls up his mask up to his hair.
The Goblin’s digi-expression falls neutral. "Little man, you shouldn't—"
“Hey, it’s chill, dude. I swear. Besides,” Miles juggles three primary color spray cans in his hands, his exposed face all pleasant smiles, “what’s a face without a name?”
Goblin hums something unreadable. He’s doing that arm-crossing thing again. It’s very Miguel-like, feels like Miles is going to be in a world of trouble. Come to think of it, the whole holo-mask, holo-wing-suit thing is very Miguel-like, too, but it’s Nueva York. Could be like a world-gimmick. Though, the retractable claw-gauntlets feel purposely inspired.
“I could give you my name, too, actually,” Miles teases next. In an attempt to de-stress the room, he starts testing the spray on the available, dirty cardboard already half-paint stained. It’s very metallic-shiny. “But, I can’t show you mine if you don’t show me yours first!”
“That’s not—that isn’t how that expression works, shock…”
Miles knows it isn’t, he’s just living in the moment now. His Spider-sense hasn’t alerted him once to danger. Just, a sense of familiarity. Precursors, Goblins, Prowlers. There’s something to it. In a way, since knowing what Earth-42 is like, who Miles is there, it feels like he slots right home here, even if he’s no longer shaped for it. Like a jigsaw piece that’s migrated from another half-finished puzzle.
If that makes sense.
The Goblin’s mask makes a show of rolling its digital eyes at him, and Miles doesn’t hide his widening grin.
"What you're doing is risky," the Goblin tries scolding.
"It really isn't. I'm no one. Think it'd be easier to go out and spray as a civvy anyway," Miles says, gesturing at the clothes he's wearing over his suit. There's a drying meat stain on the end of one sleeve. "Spider-Man would attract attention."
"That's because Spider-Man doesn't belong in Downtown. Goblin does."
"Wouldn't Goblin also attract unwanted attention to himself?" Miles asks, ever the loophole-argument doer. "Everyone's got enemies. Ah, promise I won't add myself to the list."
The sprays are Miles' to claim, and claim he does. He itches to try them out outside. The Goblin seems to realize the predicament he's fallen into, with a Spider-Man that isn't his own. Either he lets the Spider loose in town to paint over everything, or he joins him on the best wall tours.
When Miles hops to his feet again, he's met with a solemn, nodding Goblin.
“That’s how we’re playing it, alright. Alright, fine it is.”
The click of the gauntlets being taken off sounds loud in Miles' ears. It shouldn't be scary. It's the opposite of them getting ready for a fight. Miles stills his breathing anyway, and waits for them to be put aside.
Monitor light shines off a pair of ordinary hands. They pat down Goblin's waist, before coming up. He's taking off his mask, for real, and Miles exhales in a rush as a very familiar face comes into view. The softer cheekbones and redder hair trick him with deja vu. There's no other way to explain the impossible, uncanny likeness staring at him. No way.
Except there is.
“I’m Gabriel O’Hara," the Goblin greets. "There. Your turn.”