Chapter Text
“It’ll be dangerous,” Peter said.
Gwen raised an eyebrow. “You know that makes at least half of us more likely to say yes, right?”
Miles shuffled his feet. It wasn’t like he went looking for danger. It tended to find him. And Spider-People in general, so it was unfair that Gwen was looking pointedly at him. She should have been looking at Hobie, really, who was leaning casually against his guitar and didn’t look at all deterred by the prospect of danger. For his part, Hobie said, “Don’t pretend like you’re not excited too, Gwennie.”
“It’s also a long mission,” Jessica added. “Two weeks away from home. Maybe more.”
“Well,” Miles said, “it’s summer for me. So maybe I can spin it to my parents as a summer camp?” He tried to think of a way that he could explain a two-week disappearance to his parents. Knowing them, they’d definitely want to know what kind of camp it was, how Miles had found it, who was running it, how much it cost, what kind of reviews it had, if there—
So maybe Miles couldn’t do this mission.
Before he could say anything, though, Peter waved a dismissive hand and said, “Oh, don’t worry, we can definitely get good cover stories for whoever’s family isn’t aware.” He paused. “Which of you is that? Miles for sure…”
“Me,” Pavitr said. “My aunt and uncle still don’t know about the whole—” he gestured fwip-fwip with his hands “—y’know.”
“No problems here,” Hobie said. He didn’t even bother looking at Peter or Jessica as he said it, instead staring off into the distance at the actually very close wall. But somehow he managed to look casual and also very cool while he did it, and no, Miles definitely wasn’t jealous. Or curious. Or interested in learning how to replicate it.
“You already know about everything with my dad,” Gwen said. Which had been an adventure. Showing up to Gwen’s home universe for a visit, getting attacked by an anomalous Vulture, and then seeing Gwen’s dad try and arrest her hadn’t been on Miles’s bucket list, but it’d happened anyway. It had all worked out in the end, though, and now Gwen could go on Spider Society missions without having to make excuses to her dad.
Unlike Miles.
“Uhhh…” he said. “Are you sure you can get a good cover story?”
“Oh, totally,” Peter said. He bounced Mayday in his arms. “We’ve got, like, half of Spider Society working on this. Spider-Byte’s got your back. I’m thinking about a science organization interested in offering you an all-expenses paid two-week internship through your high school?”
“Yeah, about that. Why is this so important, anyway? I mean, it’s just a Green Goblin, right?” Miles asked. There were some multiversal constants in the Spiderverse, and Green Goblins were one of those. In addition to Vultures, Doc Ocks, and a few other recurring characters. Like Prowler, which still hurt to think about. But less these days, and not every Prowler was Uncle Aaron.
There was a universe where Hobie of all people was the Prowler, which was weird as hell. That universe still boggled Miles’s brain.
Green Goblins came around a lot causing chaos and destruction, but they usually didn’t do anything too dangerous. And a team of Spider-People could take the average Goblin down easily.
Jessica and Peter shared a look. “Well,” Peter said. He coughed awkwardly. “I think Mayday needs to be burped. Jessica, you want to take this one?” Without waiting for a response, he started patting Mayday’s back. Mayday, who very clearly did not need to be burped, grumbled and tried to escape the swaddle she was trapped in.
With a sigh, Jessica turned back to Miles and his friends. “We can’t catch him,” she admitted. “He’s raided Alchemax in at least a dozen universes by this point, and every time, he’s managed to escape capture. So we’re tracking him down in his own universe.”
“Alchemax?” Gwen said. “Like, caused the multiversal boom that originally caused the Spiderverse to cross webs and all in Miles’s universe, Alchemax?”
Jessica nodded grimly. “This Goblin is from Earth-928, which is in the year 2099. He has access to much better baseline technology than most anomalies. And considering there’s an Alchemax in the Goblin’s home universe—which he hasn’t attacked yet—he can’t be planning anything good.”
“Whatever Alchemax is up to is no good, either,” Peter added. He’d given up on fake-burping Mayday and was now letting her use him as a makeshift climbing gym. Miles stifled a laugh. “928’s Spider-Man has been missing for several months now, and the last time anyone saw him was fighting some Alchemax goons.”
“So you want us to break into Alchemax?” Pavitr said.
“Or fight the Goblin?” Miles added. He balanced on the balls of his feet and swung his fists at the air, miming a fight.
Peter snorted. Jessica, not bothering to hide it, laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “We’ve got other Spider-People in the field for that. Like Peter and myself. The only reason you four are even being told about this—”
“Bloody autocrats covering up the truth,” Hobie muttered.
“—is because we need someone who could reasonably pretend to be a high schooler in order to infiltrate Alchemax.” Jessica placed her hands on her hips and surveyed them. “Which the four of you actually are, unlike most Spider-People.”
“There are other teenagers in Spider Society,” Pavitr said. “Why us?”
Miles shot Gwen a glance out of the corner of his eye. He could see her looking back with a small grin.
“Don’t let us rush you,” Hobie said. “Why is it, huh?”
“Yeah, Jess,” Gwen chimed in. “I thought you saw us as loose cannons?”
Miles knew where this was going. With his best expression of innocence and curiosity, he added, “We’re honored to be picked, really, but we just don’t get why…”
Peter rolled his eyes, but it was affectionate. “Sure, you don’t understand. You’re really gonna make me say it?”
Miles stared back pleadingly.
“Just cut to the chase, Peter,” Jessica said. “You’re the best team we have for this, alright? We can’t send anyone like Peni because she can’t reasonably smuggle the SP//dr mech into Alchemax. Some universes’ differences are too noticeable, like Noir’s.”
“And?” Pavitr said. He was the best at playing dumb out of all of them, but his eyes were sparkling with well-hidden mischief.
Jessica let out a long breath. “And you work well together, and you’re all smart, competent teenagers. Happy?”
There was a round of cheers and high-fives which Miles happily joined in on, patting Pavitr on the back and receiving a fist-bump of his own in return.
“Kids,” Peter muttered. “Can’t believe I ever thought having one of my own was a good idea.”
In a mock baby voice, Gwen said, “Awwww, but you wuv us.”
“Just… be on your best behavior, alright? Alchemax is dangerous. The last thing we want is any of you getting hurt,” said Peter. Mayday had progressed to crawling on the walls while Peter held a child leash tightly in his hand. “Again. This is completely optional. And dangerous. Did I mention dangerous yet?”
That wasn’t stopping Miles, and from a glance around, it wasn’t going to stop any of the others. “Sign me up,” he said. “But, uh, about that cover story…”
His mother had given him several compliments while he packed, gushing over how proud she was that he’d been selected by such a prestigious and exclusive research lab for an internship, which was a little awkward. Since there was the whole ‘Margo and Peni made some fake but impressive-looking web pages and news articles and then emailed Visions about inviting Miles’ issue, but it was sort of legit, right? Miles was going on a two-week trip to a research lab. And he was invited because of his personal skills. And he was going to learn awesome stuff, especially considering this was an Alchemax from 2099 and they had to have some really cool stuff.
Margo had assured them all that the cybersecurity for the raffle had been significantly less than the firewalls on Alchemax’s internal servers and that there was no way anyone had noticed her rigging the results. And yeah, Margo was also from a pretty technologically advanced universe, but what if Alchemax had noticed? What if they showed up and were immediately arrested? What if someone realized that Arthropoda High School was very fake and not actually an ultra-selective and secretive private school that had luckily won the raffle to tour Alchemax’s premises for half a month? What if—
“Welcome to Alchemax,” the blond business guy said. He smiled. It was very obviously fake.
Peter offered back a smile that looked equally insincere. “It’s such a pleasure to be here, Mr. Stone. Kids, say ‘thank you’ to Mr. Stone for taking time out of what I’m sure was his very busy schedule to welcome us to Alchemax.”
As one, they chorused, “Thank you,” even Hobie, though he stared at the ground and scuffed his shoe. Miles figured they were all a little nervous. He was just thankful Hobie hadn’t said something about fascist corpos and blown the whole mission from the start.
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Mr. Stone said. “I wasn’t busy at all.”
With a high-pitched laugh, Peter said, “Well then! It’s an honor to have the CEO of Alchemax personally greeting us.” The last few words were said through gritted teeth and with a very pointed stare at the four teenagers.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Stone,” Pavitr chirped. That was good. He was the friendliest of all of them.
Miles waved.
Mr. Stone stared back with poorly hidden distaste, which made Miles wonder why he’d even offered this raffle in the first place. He was the CEO, right? Assuming that meant the same thing in the future, surely he had the authority to retract the offer. Maybe it was a PR thing. But Mr. Stone could’ve just let some subordinate handle greeting them and never even seen them himself if he hated kids so much.
Or maybe he just hated Miles in particular. That would be his luck.
“Wonderful to meet you all,” Mr. Stone said. “Ah, yes, have I introduced you to Mike yet?”
Miles had been so caught up in his own thoughts and worrying about Mr. Stone that he’d completely failed to notice the presence of a second person standing slightly behind Mr. Stone. When the person—Mike?—moved, Miles didn’t quite jump, but it was a close thing. Judging by everyone else’s reactions, they hadn’t noticed Mike either.
Which was weird, considering all of them were superheroes who had been in combat, had enhanced senses, and generally didn’t just. Not notice an entire person. Some security guards were flanking Mr. Stone, and Miles had noticed them, but somehow, Mike had just slipped his mind.
“Mike will be your guide and chaperone for the next few weeks,” Mr. Stone continued. “He’s our top geneticist.” He smiled, seeming more genuine this time, yet scarily shark-like. “Not to mention my son.” With that, he clapped a hand on Mike’s shoulder, who just continued to stare blank-faced. Or, well, Miles thought he was staring.
It was hard to tell, considering Mike’s eyes were covered by sunglasses. And he was wearing an overly large turtleneck that practically reached his chin, which didn’t seem like professional attire, but Miles supposed CEOs’ sons got away with that sort of thing.
“Hi,” Mike said. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you, but it’s not.”
Mr. Stone just laughed. “Oh, Mike, such a joker. You’re the one who asked for this, don’t forget,” he said, wagging a finger in Mike’s face. “Remember, this is a reward. Try to enjoy it!”
Dragging around a group of teenagers instead of doing cool science for two weeks didn’t seem like much of a reward to Miles, but honestly, Mike had probably gotten his position through nepotism. Geneticists were supposed to wear lab coats and stuff, right? And it was weird that Mike was Mr. Stone’s son.
Though maybe Miles was being too fast to judge. A turtleneck was fair casual wear if someone knew they were being a tour guide and not a scientist for the day.
The sunglasses still made Mike seem like a jerk, though. Seriously, who wore sunglasses indoors?
“Winston, you watch Mike, okay?” Mr. Stone said. With a nod, one of the bodyguards broke away from him and stepped over to Mike. Winston was also wearing sunglasses, but they were connected to some metal on the side of his head, and there was some metal showing on the visible parts of his skin. Miles was pretty sure that Winston was a robot or a cyborg or something.
Okay, that was cool. And an acceptable excuse for sunglasses inside.
Mr. Stone wandered off, and Mike turned to their group with a sigh. “We’ll be spending a lot of time together over the next two weeks, so I’d like to at least know your names.”
“This is Pavitr,” Peter said, patting Pavitr on the back. Pointing to each of them in turn, he continued, “Gwen, Hobie, Miles. Our top students. They’re all very excited about this trip. And I’m Peter. Nice to meet you, Mr.—” he broke off, seemingly realizing that calling Mike ‘Mr. Stone’ as well would get confusing quickly. “Mike?”
Mike winced. “Not that,” he muttered. “I hate being called that. Miguel is fine.”
“Miguel, then,” Peter said easily. “This is my cue to head out, kids.”
Miles had known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. And in his opinion, it was actually pretty suspicious that Alchemax didn’t want any adult chaperones from the school coming along. Even if they were providing a chaperone and guide of their own in the form of Miguel.
Especially in the form of sunglasses-wearing-probably-jerk Miguel, actually.
“Bye, Mr. Parker,” Gwen said.
“Parker?” Miguel said with sudden interest. “Peter Parker? Like the Golden Age Spider-Man?”
Peter twitched. With a barely visible strain that went unnoticed by everyone besides Miles, he said, “Well, my last name happened to be Parker, and my parents were big hero fans. You know how it goes.”
Miguel winced. “I do,” he said. “Twencen fans, hero fans…” And it seemed like he was speaking from experience. Twencen? Twentieth century? Whatever his issue was, though, he shook it off after a moment and said, “But yes, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Don’t worry, your students are free to contact you at any time.” He gave a polite, closed-mouth smile. “Security thought adults were more of a corporate espionage concern than the students. Not that I’m allowed to show you any of the truly restricted science, but still.”
“Oh, no worries,” Peter said easily. “I get it. We have to protect our teaching curriculum too. So many competitors out there, y’know?” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “See you in two weeks, kids! Call me if you need anything. Or if you get bored and want to talk to Mr. Parker,” he said with a wink. “Don’t break anything, don’t do drugs, and don’t get in trouble.”
Don’t reveal your powers went unsaid.
It would be fine. All Miles and his friends had to do was find a good opportunity during their two-week stay in order to plug one of Peni’s mini spiderbots into Alchemax’s internal servers. He figured they could do that in a few days, tops. And then they could enjoy the rest of their trip.
It’d practically be a vacation.
The moment he was out of sight of the Alchemax building, Peter let his smile drop. He didn’t take off his teacher-y suit and become Spider-Man, though, because from the research they’d done on Earth-928, the Public Eye was always watching. And the Public Eye—practically the cops, but with even fewer limitations and morals than most—worked for Alchemax.
Instead, he called Margo.
As he sat on a bench, Margo’s hologram flickered to life in front of him. “Peter!” she said. “That took you a while.”
He laughed and leaned back against the bench. “Oh, teenagers, you know how it is.” Margo was a teenager too, but since she practically lived in Cyberverse, she could easily adjust her avatar to look like another teacher. Archetype? That was what they called avatars here, Peter thought. “So, what’ve you got for me?”
Margo yawned. “Not even a little detail on Alchemax? C’mon, Peter, you’re so boring.”
Managing a tight-lipped smile, he said, “I’m just worried about leaving the kids on their own. Those four can get into a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sure they’ll be on their best behavior,” Margo assured him. Which didn’t mean much, since half the time she was the one enabling them. Or working with them. Peter had been the unfortunate target of more than a few pranks. “But whatever. Remember that guest speaker you wanted me to track down?”
Peter nodded.
“Well, I think I’ve found a good option.” She stared him in the eye, communicating the silent truth. “Honestly, for a Cyberverse class, it doesn’t seem like there’s any better options. He went silent for a few years, but he recently popped back up on the radar. And from what I hear, he’s the best there is.”
“Who is it?” Peter asked.
“Firelight.”
Notes:
Miguel's universe is mostly the 1992 comics, but with a few key differences:
- Tyler is CEO without all the Doom/Avatarr stuff
- Tyler didn't know Miguel was Spider-Man for a while
- Tyler in canon seemed to like Miguel a lot more than Kron? Well, here, he's willing to treat them pretty much the same, which, uh, considering how much he cared about Kron (aka not at all)... yeah
- Conchata is Not Here because you know she would march up to Tyler with blackmail to get him to let Miguel go, and barring that, shoot him in the face, and unfortunately that would ruin my plot. She was too awesome to be in this fic
- I honestly don't know what's going on with Earth-928's Green Goblin identity, and I don't really want to bother figuring out the giant mess with Jennifer and alternate timelines and shapeshifters, so I've just gotten rid of the red herring stuff. And the divergence from 2099 canon (ignoring the other changes) here happens before the Goblin actually becomes a villain, so we ignore the grudge against Miguel as well
- I didn't really like the whole romance triangle-quadrangle-pentagon with Xina and Gabriel and Dana and Miguel and Kasey, so we're kinda just tossing aside all the romance plotlines because I don't usually enjoy writing romance anyway
- TLDR the only relevant 2099 characters here are Miguel, Tyler, Lyra, and Gabriel. And maybe Conchata if I can figure out a way to work her in that doesn't create plot holes.Thanks for reading! Please drop a kudos or comment if you enjoyed it.
Chapter Text
The good news: Miguel had turned out to be pretty nice, despite wearing sunglasses indoors. Maybe it was for a medical condition? Miles felt bad for judging him at a glance now. Miguel had been polite during the whole tour, didn’t mind answering questions, actually knew a lot of science stuff, and had helped Miles find the bathroom. Miles was starting to like Miguel. Even if Miguel was probably, as Hobie would say, ‘an amoral corporate shill who sold his soul for tuppence and the promise of power’.
The bad news—
Well, there actually wasn’t any. Because Alchemax was an evil corporate organization that did shady stuff and was run by a CEO who was kind of a jerk, but it was also really, really cool.
Even Hobie couldn’t take his eyes off the hoverboard Miguel was currently demonstrating. “It’ll be on the market for consumers in a month,” Miguel said. “It comes equipped with the latest safety features, is maglev-compatible, maps to your body dimensions, reaches top speeds of forty miles per hour, protects the user from high velocities, and lasts for three days of continuous use on a full charge.”
“How much is forty miles per hour?” Pavitr asked, leaning over to Gwen.
“About sixty kilometers,” Gwen whispered back.
“I want one,” Miles breathed softly, then covered his mouth. Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that.
But he could already imagine racing down the streets of New York on it. It’d be a pain to explain to his parents, but maybe if he painted it up to look like a regular skateboard? No one would notice that it didn’t have wheels if Miles was zooming through the air at forty miles an hour.
Well, maybe they’d notice if he was in the air. But he could get into traffic and pretend it was a normal electric skateboard, just… better. And cooler.
So much cooler.
Miguel’s lips twitched. It wasn’t a full smile, but it was the start of one. Progress! Miles hadn’t seen Miguel smile at any point during the last two hours of their tour, and Miles had made it his personal mission to see Miguel smile at least once. “Want to try?” he offered.
Miles’s eyes widened. “Can I?”
In lieu of words, Miguel hopped off the hoverboard and held out a hand to Miles. Miles took it eagerly, using it to steady himself as he hopped up onto the hoverboard. “Woah,” Miles said as he leaned back on forth on the board. No matter how far he tipped to one side or the other, the board stayed stable. “How does it work?”
Winston didn’t seem too happy about Miles touching Miguel, but the bodyguard didn’t intervene, which was good enough for Miles. Besides, it wasn’t like he was planning to stab Miguel or anything, so there was really nothing to worry about.
“It’s a different principle than hovercars,” Miguel said. “The hoverboard is maglev-compatible, but it’s not the primary source of levitation like with a hovercar. Instead, it has a personal levitation system. We haven’t quite gotten the technology scaled for cars yet, but it works fine for something like a hoverboard.”
Miles’s spider-sense tingled. Not quite danger, but something close to it. Judging by the furtive glances his friends were casting around, they’d all felt it too.
A woman dressed in a long lab coat stepped into the room, smiling. “O’Hara!” she called. “I hope I didn’t just hear you trying to dip your little geneticist fingers into my physics lab. I’d hate to have to lasso you out of the air in the anti-grav room again.”
For the first time during the entire tour, Miguel seemed somewhat excited to see another person. “That was your fault for pushing me in,” he said, but it was playful.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, eh? Too good for us all now that you’re tied up with that fancy genetics research of yours?” the woman said. She reached out and tried to poke Miguel in the shoulder, but Miguel leaned away. “It’s been months! I know you have a fancy apartment in the building and all, but try to get out sometimes!”
Miguel’s face went flat. “Tyler wants my help with a lot of things. Letting me show these students around is a… ‘reward’,” he said, but he didn’t sound quite like he meant it. That was the same word Mr. Stone had used. So maybe that was true? Miles still thought it was a weird reward.
“Still,” the woman said.
Sighing, Miguel said, “Fine. I’ll make some time to visit later this week. Miles liked your hoverboard anyway, Octavius.”
“Wait,” Gwen said. “Octavius?”
And on second glance, that did look a lot like some of the Doc Ocks that Miles had seen. Specifically, she looked a lot like his own Doc Ock. Olivia Octavius.
Who had also worked at Alchemax.
Octavius had picked up on it. “Something wrong?” she said.
Pavitr shook off the surprise first. “No, we just had a student at our school named Octavius,” he said. “But he was expelled a while ago.”
“A relation, then?” Miguel said. “It would hardly surprise me.”
Rolling her eyes, Octavius flipped him off. Good to know some things were multiversal.
“Nah, bruv, Octavius was his first name,” Hobie said. “Though while we’re on the subject, she called you O’Hara? Not Stone?”
Miguel’s mouth twisted. “It’s complicated,” he said.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” asked Octavius. “It was all over the news for a week. Big deal and all. Well, I don’t mind telling the story. It’s a good one.”
“Shock off,” Miguel snapped, surprising Miles. That was basically like saying ‘fuck off’ but in future slang, right? And Miguel seemed genuinely unhappy. “If they don’t already know, they don’t need to.”
Miles exchanged a glance with Gwen. With an eyebrow raise, Miles tried to communicate, Am I going crazy, or is this really weird?
Gwen made a complicated eye gesture back that involved a wink and some nose twitches. Miles was pretty sure she’d either said, It’s weird, You’re going crazy, or she had to sneeze. Probably not the last one. They’d all had to go through a decontamination room before entering the lab.
“Spoilsport,” Octavius said with a sigh. “Whatever. Short version—don’t get your pants in a twist, O’Hara, they’re teenagers. They’ll just be more curious if you don’t tell them. Long story short, O’Hara almost died after turning out to have a rare genetic condition, they ran some tests, and then he found out he was the CEO’s son. Like something out of a bad work of fiction, I swear.”
“Uh-huh,” Miguel said. “But it’s my life. I think that’s enough physics for now. Hopefully, I won’t see you later, Octavius.”
Miles knew annoyance when he heard it, and he hopped off the hoverboard. He’d have liked to play with it a bit more, but the last thing any of them needed was to anger their tour guide who was also their chaperone for two weeks and the CEO’s son. Maybe he could come back another time?
Octavius rolled her eyes but waved them out of her lab, shutting the door behind them.
“So, uh, do you think she’s anything like our Octavius?” Miles asked. “I know they’re not related, but still.”
Hobie shrugged. “Scientists. All the same.”
“Oh, yeah, Octavius was always really into chemistry,” Gwen interjected, probably to try and add to their cover story. “Didn’t he get expelled for blowing up the lab?”
Miguel clicked his tongue. “Dr. Octavius’s experiments tend to be a bit safer than that. Usually.”
Honestly, Miles hadn’t thought Miguel was planning to talk until they reached… wherever it was that Miguel was taking them, but maybe that meant Miguel wasn’t too grumpy after that encounter. “Do you speak Spanish, tío?” he asked. “Y’know. Miguel and all.”
“Un poco,” Miguel said. “But not much. My mother didn’t really speak it at home.”
Miles brightened. “My mom’s also Latina!” he chirped. “She’s from—” Oh, shoot, did Puerto Rico exist in 2099? Or in Earth-928 at all? “—Well, Spanish is her native language.”
“Hm,” Miguel grunted. Still. More progress towards making friends with him.
By the end of this trip, Miles was determined to have at least figured out Miguel’s favorite color. And favorite food. And whatever other information he could get. Octavius had been right when she said Miguel’s life sounded like a bad movie, and it was only making Miles more curious.
“Where are we headed?” Miles said.
“Lunch,” Miguel said.
It was only then that Miles realized he was actually pretty hungry. All the cool science had made him forget about it, but he’d barely had time to eat breakfast before rushing through the portal, and it’d been hours since then. Even Winston, who’d been a silent, menacing shadow for the whole tour, seemed excited about the prospect of eating.
“Do you have cool science food?” Miles asked.
That got a snort out of Miguel. “No. Synthia usually handles agriculture. Alchemax specializes in other areas. But the cafeteria food is decent.”
“Do you usually eat here?” Gwen chimed in. “Octavius said you basically live in the building?”
Miguel grimaced. Touchy subject, apparently. He hadn’t been happy when Octavius brought it up either. Miles would have to remember to stay away from that one. “No. Remember that… genetic condition?” The words were said with distaste. “I can only eat certain foods. But the rest of you can eat at the cafeteria.”
“Any foods you recommend?” said Pavitr.
For the first time, Winston spoke up. “Stay away from the beans,” he said. “Bad gas.”
A collective wince of sympathy went around the group. If even a cybernetically enhanced digestive system couldn’t handle it, Miles wasn’t going to risk it. His constitution was much better after turning into Spider-Man, but the thought…
Ick. No.
“Well, we’re here,” Miguel said. He didn’t seem very enthused, but that made sense if he couldn’t actually eat the food. Miles felt kind of bad for him.
And then Miles smelled the scents wafting out of the cafeteria, his stomach rumbled appreciatively, and all other thoughts flew out the window.
Peter had been to a lot of seedy places in his life. Even in the year 2099, it seemed like dive bars were still the same.
Though dive bar appeared to be a lot more… literal.
There wasn’t any alcohol. Instead, there were rows of people sitting in grimy cubicles, each slumped forward in their seats. And each of them had a small electrode attached to their head.
Diving into the Cyberverse. Now there was a play on words.
Margo said she’d done some odd jobs in Earth-928’s Cyberverse to earn Spider Society a bit of the local currency. Peter pulled out the card from his pocket and picked out the cubicle that looked the cleanest. Which wasn’t a very high bar. There was a suspicious stain on the back of the chair that Peter chose to ignore.
He tapped the card against a reader on the side of the cubicle. It chirped, then unspooled a length of wire with an electrode on the end. “Two hours,” announced a monotonous voice.
Peter carefully pinched the wire between two fingers and picked it up, letting the electrode dangle. He didn’t love the idea of trusting unknown technology with his brain, but they couldn’t afford to buy equipment of their own, and Spider-Byte was the only one who could jump between Cyberverse in different dimensions.
Margo had made him an avatar. He fished the chip out of his pocket and inserted it into the same reader the wire was attached to. Supposedly, it would cover his real face and give him a new appearance.
“Nothing to it, right?” Peter muttered. He cautiously poked the electrode with a finger. When nothing happened, he took a deep breath. Raised it. Positioned it according to what Margo had shown him.
And let it attach to the side of his head.
The Cyberverse was certainly… interesting.
That was one word to describe it at least. Peter stood on a bridge of swirling light next to Margo, watching a hundred people of all shapes and sizes soar through the air below. He looked down at his hands. They didn’t look quite the same as he was used to. “What kind of avatar did you make me?”
Margo stifled a laugh. That couldn’t be anything good.
Peter sighed. “C’mon, kid. I promise I won’t be mad.”
“Not a kid,” Margo said. Before Peter could point out that even if Margo’s avatar looked like a thirty-year-old woman, she was still a teenager, Margo continued, “It’s fine because no one’s around right now, and the Public Eye doesn’t have much control in the Cyberverse, but we need Firelight to take us seriously. And since you know nothing about Cyberverse or hacking, I’m taking point. Which means he has to take me seriously, which means he has to think I’m an adult. So don’t call me a kid.”
Peter inclined his head. “Fair point.” He should have thought of it himself, but he’d been distracted lately. Between Mayday, trying to track down the Green Goblin, sending off the other kids to Alchemax on their own, and trying to delegate his other Spider Society duties, he was juggling a lot of responsibilities. “Alright. I assume we’re using fake names?”
Nodding, Margo said, “You can call me Spyte.”
“Spite?”
“No, Spyte.” Peter wasn’t sure what the difference was, but Margo added, “You know, like a computer byte. Mixed with spy. But also spiteful.”
“Ohhh,” Peter said, the realization sparking. Spider-Byte. Spyte. “Am I… San? Span?”
Margo couldn’t restrain the laugh this time. With a chortle, she said, “If you want to be.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care that much. Span is fine. Even if it sounds a little like spam.”
“Spam is a fitting descriptor with how much you talk,” Margo said.
Valiantly, Peter chose to ignore that. “Where’s this Firelight? And why do we need him?”
“Start walking,” Margo said. “I’ll explain as we go.”
Warily, Peter started down the bridge of light, hoping it wouldn’t collapse and send him plummeting to his doom. He didn’t usually mind heights—he was Spider-Man, for God’s sake—but he doubted his current form could shoot webs. And he still didn’t even know what his avatar looked like.
“So we’ve got the others planting one of Peni’s bots in Alchemax, right?” Margo said. “That’ll get us into Alchemax’s internal servers, which aren’t accessible from the standard network. But access won’t be enough. Their firewalls are good. Really good. And I’m not used to working with this style of coding.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “That’s… not great. Is that where Firelight comes in?”
She nodded. “Firelight’s most recent appearance was when he defeated a hacker named Discord. And Discord managed to hack into Alchemax.”
Peter understood. “You’re saying Firelight was better than Discord, and Discord was better than Alchemax, so Firelight should also be better than Alchemax?”
“Got it in one. Plus, Firelight’s been putting out some not-so-subtle probes about people willing to help hack into Alchemax recently. He’ll probably be willing to help.” Margo paused. “But, shhh, we’re approaching the rendezvous point, and we don’t want to play our cards too early.”
“You’re not worried Firelight’s listening in right now?” Peter asked. “He could look like anyone or anything.”
Margo shook her head. “Cyberverse doesn’t really work like that. The rendezvous point will take us to a secondary location. And trust me, no one else is on this bridge.”
Peter fell silent as they approached the end of the bridge. Instead of a sheer drop-off, it ended in—
“Is that a bathtub?”
Waving a dismissive hand, Margo said, “Firelight’s got something about drains. We hop in the tub, pull the plug, and our avatars get sucked to a private meeting location.”
Peter eyed it warily. It was a standard-sized tub with a standard-sized drain. In other words, about the size of Peter’s fist. He really didn’t like the idea of being sucked down it. But Margo had already stepped into the tub, water sloshing around her ankles, and Peter couldn’t in good conscience let her go alone. Inhaling deeply, he stepped in.
And then Margo pulled the plug.
He would have yelped in surprise, but he didn’t have a mouth anymore. He’d seen a pasta extruder in action before. Aunt May kept one in the kitchen. Peter had even helped make the spaghetti as a kid. He’d never thought about how the dough might feel before, but the current sensation of being squeezed into a thin strand that wriggled through the drain was probably similar.
It couldn’t have taken that long. It still felt like an hour before Peter toppled out of a hole in the wall. Margo was already standing and stretching out her arms. Peter just lay on the floor, dazed, and groaned. From what he could see, they were in a windowless, doorless room. Plain wooden paneling covered the walls.
There was a whisper of wind, and the scent of smoke tickled Peter’s nostrils. A bright light moved into his field of vision, and Peter held up a hand to block it out. “Your friend doesn’t seem too good,” someone said.
“Span’s new to this sort of thing,” Margo said.
“But not you,” the bright light observed. “Spyte, is it? That’s not a name I’ve heard before.”
“We prefer staying under the radar. Unlike you, Firelight.”
Peter managed to roll over onto his stomach and dig the heels of his hands into his eyes. He wanted to remain flopped on the floor for the next hour, but he needed to help Margo. And not completely ruin their first impression with Firelight. He’d gotten up after worse injuries before. This wasn’t even real, although it certainly felt like it. He struggled to his feet.
Firelight certainly lived up to the name. The avatar vaguely resembled a person. If people were blobs of flame, that was. There was a pair of goggles on his head, but no defining features besides that. Peter supposed it made sense for a hacker who had a real-life body running around Earth-928. No point in being careless with identities.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Span. That’s me. Nice to meet you.”
“Wish I could say likewise,” Firelight remarked dryly. And that was… familiar, somehow. Maybe Peter had run into an alternate version of Firelight in a different dimension before? “This your first time in Cyberspace?”
“Cyberspace?” Peter said, then immediately regretted it. Margo had called it Cyberverse, but that had to be another universal difference. Cyberverse, Cyberspace. Avatars, archetypes. Same thing, different name. “Uh, I mean, yeah.”
Firelight remarked, “Nice dad bod, by the way.”
Peter looked down. And yup, that was definitely a dad bod. And a sweaty shirt. Lovely. “Goddamn it, Ma—Spyte,” he corrected.
“Hm,” Firelight said, then turned to Margo. “Well, out with it. What do you want with me? You mentioned Alchemax in your message.”
Margo tapped her fingers together. “We have… someone in Alchemax. Someone who can get us into the servers.”
Firelight’s face was an unreadable mass of shifting flames, but Peter would’ve sworn he raised an eyebrow. “Then what do you need me for? Sounds like you’ve got this figured out well enough on our own.”
“We want you to get us past the firewalls,” Margo said. “Word on the street is that you’ve been putting out feelers for someone who can get you access to Alchemax’s servers. Well, we can do that. And you get us past their security, and then both of us can steal whatever information we need. Done. Quid pro quo.”
“And how can I trust that you’re telling the truth?” Firelight crossed his arms. “Or even that your person on the inside is actually going to make you a backdoor?”
Peter had been starting to feel pretty useless, but here he interjected, “You don’t have to. Our person inside betrays us, that’s no skin off your back. All you have to do is wait until we have the backdoor, verify that it’s actually for Alchemax’s servers, and then we’re in. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You’re anonymous.”
Firelight glanced away. “I wasn’t always,” he said. “But yes, my current archetype is anonymous. Fine. What’s the timeframe look like?”
“Some point within the next two weeks for our agent to get us into the servers,” Peter said. “But it’s actually better if we wait a little bit so they don’t get suspected. So let’s say two weeks.”
Some smoke wisped off Firelight’s form. “Can it go any faster?”
Peter shook his head. “Two weeks, minimum. Non-negotiable.”
The flames flared up, but Firelight uncrossed his arms. “Fine,” he said. “I’ve waited this long. Two weeks.”
“It took a while for you to receive our request for a meeting,” pointed out Margo. “How should we—”
“Contact me? Way ahead of you.” Firelight reached into what would have been a pant pocket on anyone else but just looked like an indistinguishable part of his body for him and pulled out a flame. He rolled it between his fingers, shaping it into a ball, then flattened it into a charcoal-looking disc. “Break this when you’re ready. Even if I’m not in Cyberspace when you do, I’ll still get alerted.”
Margo reached out and took it from Firelight’s hand. Peter let her. He wouldn’t have any idea where or how to store the disc. The moment it left Firelight’s fingertips, Firelight raised a hand in farewell and vanished in a shower of smoke and sparks.
Peter spun around. “Where’d he go?”
“He disconnected from the room,” Margo said. “Once we leave too, the private room will collapse, leaving no evidence of our conversation. We can talk freely for now.”
“Did he seem desperate to you?” Peter asked. “Or is that how people usually agree to stuff in Cyberverse? I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he agreed really fast.”
Margo shook her head. “I thought he’d be more cautious,” she admitted. “But he wasn’t.”
“So whatever he needs from Alchemax is important to him,” Peter concluded. “And maybe time-sensitive? Or at least he’d like to get it as fast as possible. But what kind of information could be stored in Alchemax’s servers that he’d need so badly?”
Biting her lip, Margo said, “I’m not sure. Information on Firelight was… spotty. He’s been missing for the last four years, but then he popped up again to fight Discord. Duke Stratosphere—that’s another famous hacker—put me in contact with Firelight, but even he didn’t know why Firelight was looking for information on Alchemax. And Duke Stratosphere is supposedly one of Firelight’s closest colleagues.”
Peter sighed. “Great. So we could be setting ourselves up to hand the keys to the kingdom to another budding supervillain, for all we know.”
“Maybe he’s after the same thing as the Goblin,” Margo pointed out. “We know Alchemax has something important.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Peter said.
For now, it seemed like they’d have to trust Firelight.
Notes:
I'm pretty sure there's actually a 2099 Doc Ock? Or there is in the alternate timeline, or something? But unfortunately, 2099 Alchemax has like zero named scientists who aren't dead, so we're rolling with a 2099 Octavius for now.
Miles went from "this guy is kind of a jerk" to "I'm going to make this man my best friend" in the span of like two hours. In his defense, people who wear sunglasses indoors are usually assholes though. And sometimes for a medical condition, which I guess in this case it actually is, but Miles doesn't know that.
Miguel is having... a time. It's not his idea of a great time, but y'know, it beats being locked up and experimented on so :) comparatively, this is a really nice two weeks off. Assuming the Spider-Kids don't do anything disruptive during those two weeks. Which I'm sure they won't.
Gabriel modified his archetype because he went "oh man maybe cybersafety is a thing? maybe I shouldn't be using my real face when I'm a famous hacker who's now trying to break into Alchemax? I'm a shocking idiot"
Thanks for reading, and thanks for everyone's support on the last chapter!
Chapter Text
Gwen planted her hands on the floor and said, “Okay, so we can all agree that Miguel is, like, super suspicious, right?"
“I like him,” Miles protested.
Hobie snorted. “Miles, you like everyone,” he said.
“Actually, I didn’t like Miguel at first,” Miles said. “I thought he was a jerk. With the sunglasses and all.”
“And how long did it take you to change your mind?” Hobie drawled.
“Yeah, Miles, how long?” chimed in Pavitr.
Miles coughed and looked away. “Ten minutes,” he muttered. “And I feel bad because he’s chronically ill or whatever, right? So maybe he’s light-sensitive.”
Gwen snickered.
He knew when the battle was lost, so Miles settled for flopping down onto the floor with a huff. They were all seated in a circle on the floor in Hobie’s room, which Miguel had taken them to after lunch, citing that he was sure they were all tired and needed to unpack.
It was a bit of an anticlimactic end to the tour for the day. Miles wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be doing while they waited for Miguel to show up again and take them to dinner.
But they definitely weren’t doing whatever it was that they were supposed to. Gwen had pulled out the jammer Peni had given them and used it to interfere with the video camera that there definitely was in the room. Which was creepy, especially considering they couldn’t find the camera even after half an hour of turning the furniture upside down. Still, Peter had told them that Alchemax was obsessed with surveillance and that they’d need to be careful about speaking freely, even when they were alone. Peni’s jammer could put fake audio and visuals through for one room, which was why they were all gathered in Hobie’s room.
Also because they needed to figure out a plan of attack.
“Okay, so Miles, you should plant the spiderbot,” Pavitr said. “Since you can turn invisible and all.”
There was a round of nodding. “But how am I supposed to get to a server room?” Miles pointed out. “Or to somewhere with access to the Alchemax network?”
“Follow someone in when they open the door?” Gwen said.
Miles groaned. “I could be waiting for hours! And how do I know which rooms are the right ones?”
“We could do it while Miguel is showing us around tomorrow,” Pavitr said. “We ask to see a lab or something. Octavius had a computer in hers. Miles goes to the bathroom, comes back invisibly, plants the spiderbot, goes back to the bathroom, and then walks back normally. They can’t have cameras in there, right? So all they’ll see is when you enter and exit the bathroom.”
“You could eat some beans beforehand,” said Hobie. “Explain the dozen minutes or so you’ll be in the loo.”
Pavitr wrinkled his nose. “Ew.”
“But effective,” Hobie said.
“We could just do it now,” Miles said. “You guys head back to your rooms and open the door for me, and hopefully, Alchemax’s security team will just assume I’m hanging out with Hobie.”
“What about the elevator, though?” Gwen said. “This floor is basically all bedrooms. You’d have to take the elevator to get anywhere good, and I think people will notice a ghost elevator.”
Miles wondered where Miguel’s room was. He lived at Alchemax, right? But his rooms probably weren’t on the same floor, considering they all seemed like guest rooms. Miles wasn’t really sure why Alchemax had so many rooms. It was a science corporation, not a hotel. Maybe they hosted a lot of traveling business partners or something.
Pavitr sighed and joined Miles in flopping across the floor. “Just do it tomorrow. We have two weeks. How much can waiting one night hurt?”
Miles raised his hand, fidgeting a bit. “Um,” he said. “I… kinda have to use the bathroom.”
Miguel looked up from the holo-projector he was demonstrating. “Sure, give me a second.”
“Oh, it’s fine, I remember the way from yesterday,” Miles hurried to say. “We’re on the same floor, right?”
They were definitely on the same floor. Gwen had remembered seeing a holo-projector through an open door on the same floor the day before. After lunch, she’d pretended to be curious about hologram technology and let Miguel take them there.
“Yeah, go knock yourself out,” Miguel said, waving a hand in dismissal. He turned back to the holo-projector. “Take a look at these crystals…”
Miles shuffled over to the door, trying not to look too suspicious while also projecting an air of frantic need to reach the bathroom. At least it was a good excuse for why he was so eager to get out of the room. He’d already spotted a fancy-looking computer in the corner of the room, and Peni had said any device connected to Alchemax’s internal networks would do, as long as he could plug the spiderbot in surreptitiously.
Someone was following him.
Casting a glance over his shoulder, Miles almost swore. He didn’t, since it would be suspicious, but he had to bite his lip to prevent several words that his mamá would scold him for from escaping.
He still wanted to wail. Seriously, why was Winston trailing behind him?
Miles made it to the bathroom without any problems. Unfortunately, Winston followed him in.
Not into the stall. That would have been weird. But into the main bathroom area, yes, and apparently, even in the future, no one had fixed the crappy bathroom stalls that had giant openings under the door and let everyone see naked legs and shoes and pants pushed down to the ankles.
Honestly, Miles was starting to think that was more of a purposeful choice and less of a design flaw. There was no way he could go invisible with Winston standing right outside the stall. Even if Winston didn’t hear him leaving the bathroom, the bodyguard would definitely notice that Miles’s shoes and legs had disappeared.
Well. Shoot.
It was the most awkward ten minutes of Miles’s life. He’d been planning to make it a quick in-and-out, flush the toilet, wash his hands, and head back to rejoin his friends, but then he’d remembered he’d eaten those beans. He was feeling fine—thank God for his superpowered constitution—but Winston had seen him eat the beans. And also tried to warn Miles off them a second time, which Miles had brushed aside. And now Miles was in the bathroom while Winston kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t planning to use the opportunity of being alone to steal important Alchemax info.
Which. Miles had been planning to do that.
But it meant that Miles spent ten minutes in the bathroom stall, bored out of his mind and desperately praying that Winston wouldn’t care about the lack of, uh. Grunting noises. Because Miles was willing to do a lot to maintain his cover, but he wasn’t going to stoop that low.
Miles flashed Winston a shaky thumbs-up as he exited the stall.
Winston gave him a thumbs-up back. Miles wanted to die on the spot.
At least Alchemax had fancy sinks. And fancy soap. Small consolation that it was.
When he came back into the holo-projector room, Gwen said, “Oh, hey, Miles! How’d it go?”
He knew she was trying to surreptitiously ask about the spider-bot, but his face still flushed red. Was it too late to turn invisible and pretend not to exist? “Um,” Miles squeaked. “Maybe, uh, I might have to go back again later.”
Hobie patted him on the shoulder. “Beans, man. Beans.”
Miles groaned in despair.
“Well, that was a total bust,” Miles said.
Gwen nudged him with her shoulder. “Hey, you have to admit it was pretty funny when Winston steered you away from the beans at dinner.”
“I can never look Winston in the eye again,” Miles whimpered. “It was terrible.”
“He was clearly keeping an eye on you,” Pavitr said. “I think we need to rework the plan.”
“You think?” grumbled Miles. He hesitated, then said, “Maybe Peter has some ideas.”
All of them glanced down at their watches. No one at Alchemax had asked about them yet, but if someone did, Miles was going to claim it was a high-tech version of a friendship bracelet. He wasn’t sure what the others’ plan was. Maybe they should coordinate a good excuse, actually. It was a good thing Earth-928 was so high-tech. Fancy watches were probably the norm.
“He’s busy,” Gwen pointed out. “I mean, you saw how stressed he was. Running Spider Society is a lot of work, and he’s got Mayday too.”
“Yeah, let’s avoid bringing him into this for now,” Hobie agreed. “It’s only been two days. Practically nothing.”
Back to the drawing board it was. All of them fell silent, wracking their brains for a plan. Miles went back to his elevator idea. Maybe if he waited for someone else to go into the elevator? But there wasn’t anyone else staying on their current floor, and none of their group had a good excuse to leave their floor without Miguel.
But Winston followed Miguel around, and they only got to leave their floor when Miguel was taking them places. And as proven, Winston would follow anyone who left the main group.
Maybe if two people went to the bathroom at the same time? But only Gwen could get into a different bathroom from Winston, and Miles was the only one who could turn invisible.
“Ughhh,” Miles said. “I’ve got nothing.”
No one else had any good ideas either. Gwen wanted to try and plant the spiderbot right under Miguel and Winston’s noses through sleight of hand. Pavitr suggested Miles getting ‘lost’. Hobie’s idea might have actually worked, but it was a bad idea. Or so everyone besides Hobie thought.
Considering that Hobie wanted to just break into an appropriate room, plant the spiderbot, and then use their watches to teleport out.
“Let’s leave that one as a last resort,” Gwen said. “There’s a lot of ways for it to go wrong. Sleep on it for now?”
“Sleep on it,” Miles agreed.
A night’s rest hadn’t helped Miles come up with any new ideas for planting the spiderbot, but it had filled him with a renewed determination to befriend Miguel. So while Gwen, Pavitr, and Hobie crowded around a tank with a weird fish-tiger hybrid in it, Miles stepped away and toward Miguel, who was standing off to the side.
Miguel glanced at him. “Do you not like fish?”
Miles shook his head. “No, I like fish. They’re neat. But I wanted to get to know you better.”
Miguel raised a clearly doubtful eyebrow. “More than you want to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see genetically engineered hybrids on the cutting edge of science?”
If the past two days had taught Miles anything about Miguel, it was that their tour guide was very prickly. Scrambling for a better excuse than ‘I just want to be friends’, Miles blurted out the first thing that came to mind and said, “Uh, it’s cool, but… it kinda makes me sad?” At Miguel’s disbelieving look, Miles continued, “I mean, you know how many failures there probably were to make one living hybrid? Actually, wait, you’re a geneticist. You probably do. Duh.” Then, realizing that Miguel might take that as an insult given his profession, Miles hurried to add, “Just that tigers breathe air and fish breathe water and it makes me sad to think about all the dead experiments that didn’t survive. Because they didn’t get the right mix of genes.” He paused. “Unless this is a first attempt?”
It would be really awkward if the tiger-fish actually was a first attempt because then Miles wouldn’t have any good excuse to talk to Miguel instead of looking at the tank. Which was, admittedly, very cool, so it wouldn’t be the greatest loss.
Miguel just looked pensive. “You feel bad for them? Even though they’re just… fish?”
It almost seemed like Miguel had wanted to say something else instead of ‘fish’, but maybe even the scientists weren’t sure what to call their fish-tiger hybrid. Was it a fish? A tiger? A tish or a figer? No, those both sounded stupid.
“Well, yeah,” Miles said, fidgeting a bit. He stared at his shoes. “It’s stupid, I know. Um. Never mind.” It had been an excuse at first, but the more he thought about it, the worse he felt. He knew even back home, they did animal testing all the time on rats and apes and things, but he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them. It had to hurt, right? Animals still felt pain.
“It’s not stupid,” Miguel said quietly, and Miles’s head snapped up to face him.
“You really think so?” asked Miles.
Miguel looked away. “You’re a good kid, Miles,” he said, which didn’t really seem related to the matter at hand, but alright. His fingers brushed up against the back of his turtleneck’s collar. “Try not to lose that.”
All Peter wanted to do was drive home, collapse onto his bed, and sleep for the next twenty hours. Preferably after giving MJ and Mayday a hug. He was so, so grateful to MJ for being willing to take on more of Mayday’s care the last few weeks. This mess with Goblin-928 and meeting Firelight and worrying about the kids was eating up all of his time lately. After talking with Firelight, he’d spent the next day combing the streets as a civilian, looking for the local Spider-Man and hoping his spider-sense would be able to resonate. It hadn’t worked, and he’d returned home. Now, he just wanted to sleep.
Unfortunately, bad news waited for no one, not even the overworked leader of Spider Society.
Jessica held out a coffee to him as she plopped down on the couch next to him. “Here,” she said.
Peter took it gratefully. “Thanks,” he said. “I look that bad, huh?”
She snorted. “You look like you died and just crawled out of your grave.” It’d happened before. At least a dozen of the Spider Society members had been resurrected, and Peter was pretty sure some Spider-Person or another had literally crawled out of their grave. During the funeral, no less. In his sleep-deprived fugue, though, he couldn’t quite place the name.
Peter sipped his coffee. Just the way he liked it. “You’re an angel, Jess.”
“Don’t go saying that before you hear what I’ve got to say,” she warned.
He groaned. “Can this wait until tomorrow?”
Jessica shook her head. “Nope, sorry.” She’d been in charge of coordinating the team that was tracking down Goblin-928, so whatever she had to say couldn’t be good.
Peter sighed. “Alright. What do you have for me?”
“The Goblin broke into another Alchemax today,” Jessica said. “But this time, he somehow managed to take down all of their systems first.” She hesitated, then added, “Peter. When I say all, I mean all. Best as we can tell, the Goblin managed to plant a virus in their system, and everything went down, from the air conditioning to the containment fields. He swept in, took what he needed, and swept out while Alchemax was in chaos. If he can do that to the Alchemax of his home universe, or even just duplicate it in another world—”
“We’re fucked,” Peter concluded.
Jessica swatted his shoulder lightly. “Language,” she said. “There’s an impressionable passenger with me.”
“This is, what, the eighth month?” asked Peter. “God, I’m not looking forward to trying to manage this hellhole without your help.”
She leaned against him. “You can do it,” she said. “You wrangled Spider Society for months before I met you.”
“And it sucked ba—” Peter broke off, coughing. “Sorry. No swearing. It sucked. And we were a smaller operation back then.” He gestured around the warehouse they were sitting in. “I can’t say it’s not nice to have a whole group of people who understand and a base we can all come back to and relax in, but logistics is a massive pain in the butt.”
Jessica fixed him with a stare.
“That wasn’t a swear!” he protested.
“I’ll let it go,” she allowed.
“Plus, you’re one of our most competent people,” Peter said. “If Goblin-928 isn’t stopped by the time you go on maternity leave, you know who’s gonna have to fill in? Me! MJ’s going to murder me.”
“Then we just have to catch him before then,” Jessica said.
“Right,” said Peter with a sigh. “Because that’s so simple.”
“Actually, we might have a lead.”
Peter shot straight up in his seat. A little coffee splashed over the side of the mug, and he licked it off before it could drip. “You do?”
Jessica nodded. “Joe was with us while we were investigating the attack on Alchemax. You know, Scarlet Spider?”
Peter tapped his chin. “The hologram one? And an alternate version of him was one of Ben’s villains?”
“That one. Well, he’s not as good as Margo or Peni when it comes to tech, but he said something about the virus was odd. He managed to get a sample of the code, brought it back to HQ, and had Margo check it out.”
“And?” Peter said, on the edge of his seat. Both literally and metaphorically.
Jessica grimaced. “Well. She said she couldn’t be sure, but that the style of code was very, very similar to another sample she had. Namely, that disc you two got from Firelight.”
“Are you saying Firelight is working with the Goblin?” Peter demanded.
With a shrug, Jessica said, “Maybe? Margo wasn’t sure. She said it could be a coincidence. Or maybe they were trained by the same person. Or the Goblin stole some of Firelight’s code. Lots of possibilities, but…”
“Worth checking out,” Peter said with a sigh. “Let me guess. No one else is free?”
“Firelight also knows you,” pointed out Jessica. “And Margo’s in school.”
“I have a baby!” Peter protested, but they both knew it was futile. Between letting Margo overwork herself or taking on the extra load, Peter would pick himself every time. He drained the last of his coffee and peeled himself off the couch. “Alright, how do I get in contact with him?”
Jessica stood as well. But she started dragging him toward the exit, which was definitely the wrong way.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“I’m going to drive you home,” she said firmly. “I’m doing it because you’re probably going to fall asleep in traffic and crash. And you are going to sleep and not work because Margo needs a day or two to set up another meeting with Firelight anyway.”
Peter’s grumbles subsided. Jessica was right.
And Peter really wanted a nap.
“Mike.”
“Tyler.”
“Winston overheard you talking with that kid. What was his name again? Milo? Emilio? Ah, Miles, that was it.”
“…”
“Well, all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t go and get any ideas, hm? He’s just one dumb kid. Don’t forget who’s in charge here. Remember, this is contingent on your good behavior. Unless you want to go back to the labs and let someone else take over this tour guide thing? I mean, it’s not like you’re very good at it. And you’d be much more useful advancing the field of genetics research.”
“Fine. I get it.”
“See, here’s the thing, Mike, I really don’t think you do. Let’s say… a day off. I’m sure you could use a break from herding snotty-nosed teenagers, right?”
“A day?”
“Just a day. But don’t forget: it could always be more.”
Notes:
Miles: we’re talking about fish, right?
Miguel: uhhhh yes of course wdymThanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Miguel wasn’t there the next day.
Octavius was.
When he saw her standing outside his door, Hobie stiffened. “Where’s Miguel?” he demanded.
She glanced at him. “Wow, you guys really like O’Hara, huh?”
Hobie didn’t like Miguel. That was Miles’s job. Miles assumed the best of everyone. Miles tried to make friends at the drop of a hat. Miles was the kind of person who would follow a stranger into a dark alley to try and help them. Which was why someone had to be suspicious. There were too many assholes running around to hand out unconditional trust.
That was what Hobie was for.
He didn’t trust Miguel. Miguel was the son of Alchemax’s CEO. There was no way he was uninvolved in whatever Alchemax’s top-secret, highly coveted, and more than likely unethical research was. Being their head geneticist on top of that? Hobie knew how this worked. No one worked their way up their rungs of the corporate ladder without stepping on a few heads along the way.
And he definitely didn’t trust Octavius. Sometimes, people’s counterparts in other dimensions turned out better or worse, but Hobie had fought a dozen too many Doc Ocks to give Octavius much goodwill.
“I’m hurt, really,” Octavius continued. “O’Hara’s so… boring! Doesn’t all that grump and snark get old? It’s like he’s never had a day of fun in his life.”
Miles poked his head out of his door, yawning. “G’morning, Hobie. Oh—hi, Dr. Octavius?”
Octavius laughed. “You’re so formal! It’s been ages since anyone called me Dr. Octavius. Most people just call me Liv,” she said.
“Is Miguel alright?” Miles asked.
“I don’t know if I’d call O’Hara alright in any sense of the word, but he’s not dead or anything,” Octavius said. “I guess his illness is acting up because they asked me to fill in for him today. Said I knew you already and some nonsense like that, but I don’t mind.” She grinned. “Nothing like educating the bright young minds of tomorrow to get the blood pumping!”
Miles looked far more concerned than someone like Miguel deserved. “Does he need anything? We could bring him soup or something…”
“Nah, Alchemax has a team of a dozen scientists or so who devote all their time to trying to find a cure. I’m sure he’s got round-the-clock care.” Octavius scratched her head. “Is it too late for me to discover an estranged, uber-rich father? I’m a little jealous, honestly.”
She was charismatic. That didn’t mean anything. Hobie had watched polemics and revolutionaries and populists promise the sun and the moon to their adoring followers, only to turn around and take advantage of them. Anyone could speak convincingly. It didn’t say anything about their character. Octavius seemed like a slightly absent-minded scientist who meant well, but that could easily be a cover for a brilliantly nefarious mind.
Hobie hadn’t seen any reports of a Doc Ock in Earth-928, but that didn’t mean Octavius wasn’t building a suit on the sly. Or that she hadn’t been caught yet. Or that she hadn’t yet reached some event that would cause her to snap.
Gwen and Pavitr filed out of their rooms too, and Octavius clapped her hands. “Well, let’s get started, then! I was thinking we could do something a little more, hm, hands-on today? I figure O’Hara’s been dragging you around to look at stuff and listen to his long, nerdy explanations and not letting you do much. So I’m planning to take you all down to my lab and let you build some stuff.” She paused. “Kids today still like doing stuff like that, right?”
“We’re not fuckin’ children,” Hobie muttered.
She laughed at him. Bloody laughed. “Are you a twencen fan or something? You sound straight out of a historical holovid like that.”
Shit. He’d forgotten that Peter had mentioned ‘fuck’ was obsolete in the future. Hobie crossed his arms and looked away. It was a technique he’d mastered a long time ago. People looked at him and saw a rebellious teenager. One who didn’t like being called out or ordered around. He waited.
Octavius whistled, long and drawn-out. “Is this what the latest slang is? Jumping back to outdated swears? Sorry to break it to you, but it’s not nearly as cool or edgy as you seem to think it is.”
“Hey, Hobie’s not edgy,” Miles protested.
“I mean,” Gwen said.
Traitor. Hobie wasn’t edgy. He just had aesthetic, which most of these dorks probably wouldn’t know if it hit them in the face.
“Can we stop talking about Hobie?” Pavitr interrupted. “I’m hungry.”
“Ah! Breakfast!” Octavius said. She snapped her fingers. “I knew I was forgetting something.”
Or maybe Octavius really was as scatterbrained as she seemed. Hard to tell. He’d have to keep an eye on her. But Hobie was certain of one thing, even if he’d misjudged Octavius.
Miguel O’Hara was hiding something.
Spending the day with Octavius had been surprisingly fun, but Miles had missed Miguel. So when Miguel popped up outside their rooms the next day, Miles almost bodily launched himself at Miguel, then remembered it was rude to hug people without their permission. Especially a person who he’d known for all of four days. Even if said person had giant bags under their eyes—visible beneath the sunglasses, por el amor de Dios—and was slouched over and swallowed up by his baggy clothing and generally just really looked like he could use a hug.
“Miguel!” Miles cried. “Are you alright? We were so worried about you!”
Hobie cleared his throat. “Don’t go including me in that, now.”
“Okay, fine, I was worried,” Miles corrected. He looked Miguel up and down. “¿Está bien usted?”
Miguel heaved a sigh. “I’m fine. You don’t need to be so formal,” he said. “You’re making me feel old.”
“You don’t… look great.” Miles tapped his fingertips together. “Um, are you sure you don’t need another day off?”
Miguel flinched. Like, full-body, jerked away from Miles, flinched.
“Sorry!” Miles yelped. “Sorry, sorry! Are you okay?”
Even Hobie looked a little concerned. “You good, mate?” he said. Gwen and Pavitr added in their own words of concern.
Inhaling deeply, Miguel said, “Forget it. I’m fine. Just… still a little under the weather.”
“You’re getting treatment for it, though, right?” Miles said, concerned. “Is it working? Dr. Octavius said it was some super rare incurable condition.”
“Treatment,” Miguel said. His mouth twisted sardonically. “Sure, I guess you could say it’s shocking working.”
Miles stared. Miguel was prickly at the best of times, but this was on a whole new level. He wasn’t mean. At least, not to Miles or his friends. He’d seen Miguel spend half an hour chewing out a scientist for improper safety precautions, but Miguel didn’t usually just. Snap at people out of the blue.
“Hey, don’t talk to Miles like that,” Gwen interjected.
“He’s just worried,” Pavitr said.
Hobie crossed his arms. “Yeah, there’s no reason to be an ass.”
Miguel grimaced. “You’re right. That was uncalled for.”
After that, Miguel didn’t respond to any of Miles’s attempts at conversation as they filed into the elevator and headed to the cafeteria. The best Miles got out of him was curt, one-or-two-word answers. Judging by the looks his friends gave him, they all thought he was insane for still trying to befriend Miguel, but Miles was determined.
This wasn’t normal. Something was wrong.
Was that weird to say if he’d only known Miguel for four days? Probably. But Miles considered himself a pretty good judge of character, and this didn’t feel right. Miguel was sick. Maybe that was just making him grumpy.
But throughout the entire day, Miguel kept acting strangely. Miles was practically keeping a mental notebook by this point. Whenever they were in a room, Miguel ended up in a corner with his back pressed to the wall. He hadn’t seemed to like Winston the past few days either, but today, Miguel was constantly watching Winston with a wary eye. He kept at least a foot of distance between himself and everyone else, including one memorable instance where another scientist had brushed up against him, and Miguel had practically sprinted across the room to get away.
“That’s like, weird, right?” Miles asked after reeling off his list of observations to his friends once they were alone.
Hobie rolled his eyes from his perch on the bed. It wasn’t even his room. They were in Gwen’s bedroom this time. “Miguel’s a weird guy. And an asshole. He doesn’t want to be your friend, Miles.”
Pavitr tapped his chin thoughtfully. “To be fair, the sprinting away was a little odd.”
Gwen, who had taken over the armchair after being kicked out of her own bed by Hobie, groaned. “Forget Miguel, guys, we need to work on this spiderbot thing. We haven’t made any progress. It’s been two days since we even made an attempt!”
“Well, I would’ve tried the bathroom plan again while Dr. Octavius was around, but that scary lady was there,” Miles protested.
They all shivered. Winston hadn’t been around, not with Miguel gone, but at breakfast, they’d been joined by a scientist named Serena Patel. She’d set off all of their spider-senses, and Miles really hadn’t wanted to risk the invisibility trick when he was pretty sure Patel would be the one to escort him to the bathroom. Octavius had even joked about how Alchemax was worried about teenagers smuggling out proprietary tech in their pockets and Patel being there to keep an eye on them.
Well. Octavius had been joking. Judging by Patel’s smirk, she’d been serious.
“Okay, shelve the bathroom plan for now,” Gwen said. “Clearly, they’re not going to let us go anywhere unchaperoned. We have to work that into any future ideas as well.”
Hobie rolled a guitar tab between his fingers lazily. Miles wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from. Had Hobie just packed the guitar tab without his guitar? He said, “I still say we break into a room, plant the spiderbot, and then teleport out. Peni said the bot will upload a virus to Alchemax immediately after being connected, so even if they find the bot and unplug it, s’all good.”
“That is definitely a last resort,” Pavitr insisted.
“Boring,” Hobie said. “Why let yourself be restrained?”
Miles frowned. “I think anything with my invisibility is out,” he admitted. “If we’re always being watched, someone will notice me disappearing. And there’s no good way to get off this floor, which is the only place we get to go without a chaperone.”
“It’s a spiderbot,” Gwen pointed out. “Can we just… drop it in a room and have it walk itself over to a computer?”
“I think she just called it that because it looks like a spider,” said Pavitr. “It had to be small so we could smuggle it in, and it’s pretty much entirely taken up by computing hardware. Something about a limited AI to plant the backdoor?”
“So, a bot because it’s got some smarts, but not able to get anywhere on its own,” Hobie concluded. “So we’re back to where we started.”
That about summed it up.
“What if we just try to… plant it in plain sight?” Miles said. “We pretend to be interested in coding or something, get access to a computer, and then just—” He gestured sliding the spiderbot into a data port. “Yeah.”
“Can any of us even fake that?” Gwen said. “I know a little, but the future must be really different.”
“We could pretend to be interested but not have any knowledge yet,” Pavitr said.
Hobie snorted. “I don’t think they’ll buy it if I try to do that, mate. One of you has gotta do it.”
Miles winced. “I may have admitted to Miguel that I liked physics but not so much the computer side of stuff earlier today while I was trying to talk to him.”
“I’ll do it,” Gwen and Pavitr said simultaneously. They both turned to stare at each other.
“I have better sleight of hand,” Gwen said.
“I have a much better innocent face,” Pavitr retorted.
It wasn’t that either of them liked the idea of playing a thief. They all knew that. Miles was pretty sure they were arguing because in the event that whoever had the spiderbot got caught, both Gwen and Pavitr wanted to take the heat for it.
“Rock-paper-scissors for it?” Gwen said.
Pavitr narrowed his eyes but agreed.
Gwen won.
Miles handed over the spiderbot. He’d been keeping it in his pocket. It wasn’t very large. Just the size of a USB stick, but it had a strange multi-pronged adaptor that made it resemble a spider.
“Tomorrow,” Gwen said. “And if I get caught, just pretend you don’t know me. Or something.”
“Nah, Gwennie.” Hobie reclined on the bed, crossing his arms under his head. “If you go down, we all go down with you.”
On the bright side, Gwen didn’t get caught and accused of being a spy and then have to fight her way out.
On the not-so-bright side, she didn’t manage to plant the spiderbot.
“This is hopeless,” Miles moaned.
“We’re just not thinking about this hard enough,” said Gwen. “There must be something.”
Miles wasn’t so sure. Gwen hadn’t even managed to try and plug in the spiderbot because the computers didn’t have any external ports.
Seriously, what kind of computer didn’t have external access? He’d seen the computers in the labs. Those definitely had plenty of wires trailing in and out. But Miguel had brought them some laptops that were very clearly designed to prevent—well, the sort of thing that Gwen had been trying to do, because they didn’t even have a port for charging. The laptops ran on batteries.
It wasn’t like the laptops were bad laptops. Miles had even gotten to poke at some online games, and they ran like a dream. The computers had great specs.
Just not any data ports.
“Too bad Peni couldn’t get it to connect wirelessly,” Hobie said.
“I wish,” Pavitr sighed. Even he was starting to lose hope.
“Miguel was less grumpy today,” Miles said. “Maybe if I ask nicely, he’ll help me sneak into a laboratory and upload the spiderbot.”
Gwen laughed. “Sure, Miles,” she said, clearly humoring him.
“He’s literally the son of the CEO, bruv,” Hobie said.
“I’m serious,” Miles insisted. He’d said it as a joke, but he was starting to give it serious consideration. “Miguel really doesn’t like his dad. Or Alchemax.” Miles was starting to get a good feel for Miguel’s touchy subjects. Some topics would put Miguel in a bad mood for the next hour, and then he’d be extra sarcastic and rude to everyone around him. So far, Miles had noted: Miguel’s illness, Tyler Stone, and anything related to Miguel’s research.
Okay, so maybe that last one was a little suspicious.
“Whatever,” Miles said. “Miguel’s a good guy, and I’m going to prove it to you.”
Miles didn’t just walk up to Miguel and ask, ‘Hey, can you help me plant a virus in Alchemax’s systems?’ Because no matter what his friends thought, he wasn’t quite that foolish.
Instead, Miles did some subtle probing.
“So, do you have like, other family besides Tyler?” asked Miles. “I mean, you only found out he was your father recently.”
Miguel crossed his arms at the mention of Tyler, which was more evidence for Miles’s ‘Miguel secretly hates his dad and might be willing to help us’ theory. “…My mother,” he said after a moment. “Conchata. And my brother, Gabriel.”
“Your mom’s the one who speaks Spanish, right?”
There was a small twitch at the corners of Miguel’s lips. A happy one, not a grumpy one. So Miguel liked the rest of his family—or at least his mom—but not Tyler? Miles added the observation to his mental notebook. “Mostly to yell at my—mostly to yell when someone was being ‘un idiota tan tontísimo que su cabeza debe caer de sus hombros’,” he admitted. “I mostly picked up swear words. And insults.”
“Oh, I know some words that my mamá would wash out my mouth with soap for,” Miles said cheerfully. “But I learned them from her, so it’s a little unfair that I don’t get to say them.”
Miguel laughed.
Laughed.
Actually snickered a little at Miles’s stupid joke, the edges of his mouth turning up and showing a flash of teeth. Miles would’ve sworn his eyes crinkled even behind those sunglasses.
Miles cheered a little in his mind and gave himself a congratulatory fist-pump.
“Normally you punch out, not up,” Miguel said dryly.
“Oh, shit,” Miles blurted out, then covered his mouth. “Um.” Maybe the fist-pump had been a little too much in the real world and not quite enough in his mind.
Miguel laughed again. Miles was going to die of happiness. He’d finally broken past the grumpy exterior shell! This was major progress. “I’m not your mother. I don’t care if you swear.”
Miles fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “I was just. Um. Happy you laughed. Because maybe I thought you looked a little sad and could use some laughter and have been trying to get you to smile or laugh these last couple of days?”
Instead of looking weirded out that a random kid Miguel had known for less than a week had made it his personal mission to make Miguel laugh, Miguel said with almost painful sincerity, “Thank you, Miles. You’re right. It did help.”
Miles preened a little. Just a little. He knew how to be humble.
“You know, I wasn’t looking forward to this at first,” said Miguel. He paused, then corrected, “Well, I was looking forward to… having some time off from my job. But I’ve never been good with kids. Or teenagers. Or people in general.”
“I think you’re pretty good at talking to people,” Miles said loyally.
Miguel huffed. “That’s nice of you to say, but also very untrue. My own brother spent years thinking of me as a soulless corporate sell-out.” He glanced down. “He wasn’t wrong.”
“I’ll fight your brother for you,” offered Miles. Not entirely seriously. It would be wrong to fight someone without superpowers who also hadn’t done anything worse than dislike his brother. But verbally eviscerate him? Miles could do that.
“No, we made up,” Miguel said. “I… I hope he’s doing alright.” He sighed. “But Gabri’s probably doing something stupid, if I know him at all.”
“But you love him,” Miles said.
With a soft smile, Miguel said, “Yeah. He’s my brother. Even if he’s a shocking idiot.”
“And…” Miles hesitated, then went for it. “You don’t like Mr. Stone, though.”
Miguel froze. They were standing in a corner that let Miguel see the entire room without moving, and Miles watched as Miguel’s gaze lingered for a moment on Winston. But nothing happened. Miguel swallowed, throat bobbing, then forcefully relaxed. “You know what?” he said. Miguel just looked bitter. “Yeah. You’re right. I shouldn’t be afraid of saying it. I hate him. He’s a bastard who deserves to rot in the lowest layer of hell for a thousand years for what he’s done, and I want him to live a long, long life full of suffering and pain. He’s despicable. He’s a manipulative piece of shit and—” His voice had been rising, but now Miguel’s shoulders slumped. “Well.”
One of the scientists was looking at them. Miguel hadn’t been yelling or anything, but he hadn’t been quiet and Miles was a little worried. “Yeah,” he said. “Um. I hate him too. The president of… Synthia?” he tried. It sounded right. He was pretty sure that was a corporation someone had mentioned before.
“Oh, Darrius Rush is a massive asshole,” Miguel said easily. “But so is Ty—”
“Are you sure we should be talking so loudly?” Miles squeaked.
Miguel laughed darkly. “Not if I don’t want to end up taking another break,” he said.
Miles gulped. “If someone’s hurting you,” he began.
“You’re kind, Miles,” Miguel said. “You, your friends. They’re good kids too, but they’re avoiding me. Not trying to befriend me the way you are. Because they’re smart enough to know that it’s only going to end up with them hurt. You should stop digging.”
Miles opened his mouth to what, exactly, that was supposed to mean, but then someone called, “O’Hara, I could use your input on this equation!” and Miguel cast Miles a glance before striding off.
Something was deeply, deeply wrong here. And Miles was going to get to the bottom of it.
Firelight wore a business suit this time. Peter wasn’t sure if that was supposed to send some sort of message. He was still in the dad bod avatar Margo had made for him—which at least had a different face. The beer belly was uncomfortably reminiscent of the depression he’d spiraled into after the breakup with MJ.
“Are you here to tell me that your backdoor is planted?” Firelight asked. The suit made him look more constrained. Less wild without flames wisping off in every direction, though the places where bare skin should have been were still covered in fire. “Because if you are, you really should have just broken the disc instead of going to all this trouble to get in contact with me the ‘normal’ way.”
Peter licked his lips. “Um. Not exactly.”
Firelight sighed. He ran his hand over the hood of the car he sat on. His fingers trailed streaks of fire and smoke. The woman next to him leaned her head on his shoulder. Peter wasn’t sure if she was an AI or someone plugging into Cyberspace as well. “What is it, then?”
“Do you ever sell code to other people?” Peter asked.
“Occasionally. A man’s gotta eat.” Peter got the impression Firelight’s full attention was focused on him, now. “Why?”
“And is the stuff you sell ever… customized? And maybe less than legal?” Peter hesitated, then took the plunge. “Say, the kind of malware that completely shuts down a system?”
“No,” Firelight said curtly. “I’m not interested. I’m cooperating with you for as long as it takes to get into Alchemax’s servers, and that’s it. I don’t do that kind of stuff. Not if people are going to get hurt.”
What were the merits of asking him if he’d had any code stolen recently? But Firelight didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would share that sort of information easily, and it might tip Peter’s hand if he had knowledge he shouldn’t. Firelight was already conspiring with Peter to break into Alchemax’s servers, which was about as illegal as it got when Alchemax practically ran law enforcement. There was no reason not to try and make a quick buck on the side by selling malware.
Peter raised his hands. “Fine, fine, have it your way,” he said. “Just don’t back out on me when it comes to Alchemax.”
“As if,” Firelight said. “That’s it, then?”
“That’s it,” Peter confirmed.
Firelight flickered, then disappeared. The car and the woman vanished with him simultaneously. Which answered Peter’s earlier musings, at least.
“Great,” Peter muttered to himself. “Another lead wasted.”
He wasn’t looking forward to the all-nighters in his future.
Pavitr was starting to worry. Out of fourteen days, they’d already used ten.
And they weren’t any closer to managing to hack into Alchemax’s servers.
Every attempt had failed. Stealing a tablet. Getting ‘lost’. Hobie playing the part of the rebel and touching things he shouldn’t have. Distracting Winston with a conversation about the numerous faults of beans. At this point, Pavitr felt like they’d tried practically everything.
None of them wanted to give up. And every time the idea of calling Peter had been brought up, it’d been shot down. Pavitr understood. He felt that way too. It was too much like giving up. Admitting they couldn’t do it on their own. That they needed an adult Spider to bail them out. That they just weren’t good enough.
So as Pavitr listened for the sounds of Gwen’s breathing to even out through the walls, then pulled out his watch and entered Peter’s contact information, he told himself it wasn’t a betrayal.
It wasn’t. Really. Pavitr wasn’t going behind his friends’ backs to admit they couldn’t do it.
He was just… gathering some information first.
“Pavitr!” Peter said, holo-face popping up. “How’s it going, kid? Please tell me you have some good news.” He looked tired. Based on what Pavitr could see of Peter’s shoulders, he was holding Mayday. And the bags under Peter’s eyes practically had bags of their own. Pavitr would swear Peter had gained an extra dozen wrinkles over the last week and a half.
“We’re making progress,” Pavitr told him, which wasn’t a lie, necessarily. They’d managed to figure out a lot of plans that wouldn’t work. Mostly through trial and error. And Miles had been chatting up Miguel every day. It could pan out.
Maybe.
Peter sighed gratefully. “Thank God. I mean, you know it’s okay if you can’t do it, right?” he hastened to add. “Don’t take stupid risks.”
“We won’t,” Pavitr said. “But we are working very hard on this. You need us to complete this mission, right?”
With a tired nod, Peter said, “Yeah, the Goblin’s running circles around us. Shitty Earth-928 and its shitty tech-savvy villains.” That alone spoke to how exhausted Peter must have been. He usually avoided swearing around teenagers. “Gotta figure out what he’s after. Listen, Pav—I’ve got a dozen things I need to get to, but I’m glad you’re doing this. I know I call you guys kids a lot, but you’re good. Really good. You’ve got this.” He paused. “Stay safe, okay? Call me back when you have a chance.”
“Bye,” Pavitr said softly as the light clicked off and Peter disappeared.
He knew what he had to do.
So the next evening, when Gwen began arguing that they only had three days left and Miles pled with her to ask Miguel for help and Hobie brought up his plan to break in and out yet another time, Pavitr cleared his throat.
“I think,” he said carefully, “that Hobie’s right. It’s time to stop being subtle.”
Notes:
Man, I swear half the comments last chapter were up in arms for Miles to go and rescue Miguel from Tyler. Which... yeah, Miguel could definitely use some help. Unfortunately, Miles didn't have any reason to doubt that Miguel is just chronically ill and that Tyler was being a good father :( up until now, at least! Since I condensed a week into this chapter haha and Miles has been investigating.
Serena Patel makes somewhat of an appearance! I have been informed that she is the 2099 Doc Ock and also ironically works at Alchemax, so she gets a little cameo. Apparently she's also a megalomaniac and super evil. Run away, Spider-Kids, run away.
The conversation between Peter and Pavitr is basically:
Peter: the kid must be feeling down! I think he needs a pep talk. I could sure use someone to reassure me that I can do this...
Pavitr: PETER IS COUNTING ON US AND WE CAN'T LET HIM DOWN AND DISAPPOINT HIM HE BELIEVES IN US AHHHHHHGwen will get her POV next chapter! This one was getting a bit long, and I wanted to post it today, plus I felt like this was a good place to end it. And is that the long-awaited Miguel POV I see in the future?
Thanks for reading!
(Next chapter: shit hits the fan. And what's Miles been up to in the background while Pavitr timeskipped ahead several days?)
Chapter Text
Once Pavitr started going along with Hobie’s plan, Gwen folded too.
Miles held strong.
“I’m serious, guys,” he said. “Just give me one more day with Miguel. I just need to ask him.”
Hobie shook his head. “Too risky, mate. What if he says no, huh? What if he reports you? Our whole plan goes down the drain, and I wouldn’t bet on him not snitchin’ on us.”
“He wouldn’t,” Miles insisted.
“Hobie has a point,” Gwen said. “If Miguel reported us, it would make it a lot harder to plant the spiderbot. And even if he somehow did decide to help us, how is that any better than us just completing the mission on our own?”
Miles bit his lip. He’d been asking Miguel some probing questions. Subtly. Ish. But Miguel didn’t like Alchemax. At all. And he didn’t approve of their research, and he hated Tyler, and—
It was all speculation, but Miles was starting to suspect that maybe Miguel wasn’t actually sick.
The day after Miles had talked with Miguel about Alchemax and someone else had overheard them, Miguel had been sick again. Or, well. ‘Sick.’ Because Miguel had come back pale and shaking and looking worse than Miles had ever seen him and refusing any semblance of touch.
Maybe it was just the aftereffects of Miguel’s illness relapsing.
Or maybe it was something worse.
Miles didn’t have any concrete evidence, but he had a lot of suspicions.
He knew it wouldn’t be good enough for his friends, and he couldn’t blame them. He was asking them to take a major risk, jeopardizing the entire mission, and even if all of them were friendly with Miguel, none of them had gotten close like Miles had. On purpose, no less.
So he said, “Okay, but can we plant the spiderbot on the fifty-seventh floor?” That was the highest the public elevators went. And considering the Alchemax building was seventy floors tall, if Alchemax was hiding information or evidence or something about Miguel, it’d be only a few more floors up.
“Why?” Pavitr asked. “Any room with a computer will work.”
“C’mon, I’m not asking for that much here,” Miles begged. He fidgeted a little. “I… might have done some reconnaissance,” he admitted.
“How?” Gwen said. “The whole reason we’re going with Hobie’s plan is because we don’t have any good opportunities to get away.”
Miles coughed. “I. Asked Miguel nicely. If we could go see the fifty-seventh floor.”
“And he took you?” said an incredulous Hobie.
“I told you!” Miles protested. “He’s nice. And he doesn’t actually like Alchemax. But the fifty-seventh floor is where the access to the private floors starts, and trust me when I say it was swarming with guards.” He coaxed his friends a little farther. “Just think about what Alchemax could be hiding up there. We could get a peek at the actual technology and maybe even steal some. And it’s not like it’d be an extra risk. If anything seems wrong, we portal out immediately.”
“It would be nice if could bring back something,” Pavitr mused.
Hobie sighed. “Gwennie?”
Gwen grumbled, “Fine.” She held up a finger. “But if one thing goes wrong, we’re leaving, okay? Getting out alive is way more important than any nebulous research.”
“Alright,” Miles said. “The first hint of trouble, and we run.”
When the elevator door opened, the guard standing there said, “What?” The second guard’s eyes widened. After a moment of both groups staring at each other, a guard’s hand fell to the radio on their waist. Pavitr flicked out his hand and webbed the guard’s mouth shut while Miles lunged for the other one, pinning them to the floor.
Hobie whapped both guards on the head, and they slumped to the ground, unconscious.
“Hobie!” Gwen scolded quietly.
He shrugged. “What? No point in wasting the web fluid to try and immobilize them completely.”
Miles glanced down the hall. No one else was around, but when he’d come here before, patrols had passed through the fifty-seventh floor’s passageways every few minutes. And if they couldn’t silence the next set of guards in time, there’d be at least two dozen members of security chasing them down. “We should hurry,” he said, and no one disagreed.
They got lucky. The first door they opened led to what looked like an office space, complete with three monitors and a computer tower.
“I wonder why there’s so much security for an administrative area,” Pavitr commented as he plugged in the spiderbot. As the adapter slid neatly into the computer’s ports, eight little wires unspooled from the sides and jacked into other parts of the computer. It really did resemble a spider like this.
“Because they’re hiding something on the floors above us,” Miles insisted. “And we’ve made it this far. You all agreed to at least try and see what else there is.”
Hobie raised his hands placidly. “Fair’s fair. I think we’re all pretty curious about what’s goin’ on up there.”
Pavitr had once convinced the rest of them to play a game he called Spires and Slayers, which was basically just what Miles knew as Dungeons and Dragons. Hobie said it was actually Apartments and Anarchists and Gwen’s version was Palaces and Phoenixes, but gaming together had drilled in an important lesson that applied equally in real life as it did in tabletop games.
No one ever looked up.
At least five sets of patrols passed by them while Miles and his friends clung to the ceiling. Clearly, no one had been expecting Spider-people to infiltrate Alchemax. The cameras weren’t even pointed at the right angles to catch anyone on the ceiling as long as they were careful to stick to the edges where the walls met the ceiling.
The trouble didn’t begin because someone saw them.
Instead, the alarm started ringing after someone discovered the two guards that Hobie had knocked unconscious earlier.
At least, Miles assumed that was why. The guards standing watch beneath them paused, hands raising to their earpieces, then turned and rushed in the direction of the elevators. Footsteps echoed through the halls, and Miles didn’t know how long they had before someone thought to check the ceilings or even just saw them with a passing glance. There weren’t that many superheroes that used spiderwebs, and there had been a Spider-Man here. Alchemax’s guards had to have made the connection.
Hobie raised an eyebrow and tapped at the watch on his wrist.
Miles hesitated. There was a door right in front of them. It’d been left unguarded, though Miles didn’t know how long that would last. Already, Miles could hear someone shouting, “Everyone didn’t mean you, numbskulls! Can’t believe you shocking left the door alone!”
The voice was getting closer, and fast.
Miles went for it.
He dropped to the floor, dodging away from Gwen’s attempt to grab him, and tugged the door open.
It led to a stairwell.
Miles ducked in, then glanced back up at his friends. It clearly occurred to them as well that even if they opened a portal, they didn’t want anyone to follow them back to Spider Society’s base, and they jumped in after him. Miles eased the door shut behind them just as he saw someone round the corner.
No one wanted to risk getting caught. Miles led them in a stealthy tiptoe up the stairs until they were out of hearing distance from the door to the fifty-seventh floor.
“You idiot,” Hobie hissed. “The bloody hell was that?”
Gwen groaned and slid to the floor. “I can’t believe that fucking worked,” she said.
“No thanks to Miles,” Hobie grumbled, but even he seemed relieved.
“Well, as long as we’re here…” Pavitr said. He nodded at the door they’d come to a halt in front of.
The fifty-eighth floor was quiet. And very empty, especially compared to the chaos only a floor below. Whatever was up here, Alchemax didn’t want many people to have access to. The corridor they’d entered was dark. Everyone who worked here must have gone home for the night.
Except for Miguel, who apparently slept somewhere around here.
They split up cautiously, staying within sight of each other but investigating the different areas. Hobie went to go poke at a panel on the wall. Miles caught a glimpse of Gwen and Pavitr each opening a door before he was distracted by the sight of a large panel of glass. Unlike the rest of the floor, the room it looked into was brightly lit. Which made sense because it looked almost like an observation room, and one-way glass worked by being placed between two areas with a dramatic light difference.
At least, it did in Miles’s universe. Maybe the future had invented legitimate one-way glass that didn’t need the light difference to work.
Gwen’s voice broke the silence. “Guys?” she said, hushed despite the lack of a need for secrecy. “I think you should come see this.”
Miles broke away from the window and headed over to Gwen. She didn’t sound panicked, but her voice had an unusual tremble to it. That couldn’t be good.
She stood in a doorway, stock-still and staring at something inside. Miles tried to peer over her shoulder, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that Hobie and Pavitr were both trying to do the exact same thing.
“What—what is that?” Pavitr said.
The room was a surgical operating suite. Miles had seen them before at his mom’s work. But unlike any hospital room he’d seen before, it had…
Well, the only way he could describe it was restraints.
This wasn’t the type of equipment that was used to help save people’s lives. This was for what his mom might call medical torture. People who were being operated on consensually didn’t need to be chained down to their beds.
People who were given anesthesia didn’t usually need to be restrained either.
Gwen and Pavitr were both staring at the equipment as well, but Hobie had ducked out of the room, which was unusual for them. He was the most hardened out of them all. Miles was surprised it bothered him enough to need to leave the room.
Miles really hoped Hobie didn’t have experience with rooms like this one.
“Miles,” Hobie said grimly, snapping him out of his reverie. “Bad news.”
Miles didn’t like the sound of that, but he headed over to see what Hobie had found. Hobie hadn’t gone far. He’d just used his watch as a flashlight, and he was peering at a small label next to the door. In the darkness, Gwen must have missed it the first time. Miles had to squint to make out the lettering. Even with Hobie’s watch as a light source, it wasn’t easy to read.
But once he made out the words—
“No,” Miles said. “He wouldn’t.”
It was more to himself than to Hobie, but by now, Gwen and Pavitr had both come over to see what had caught Hobie’s attention as well. Softly, Pavitr said, “He’s… like a biologist, right? It would make sense.”
He, in this case, was Miguel O’Hara.
Which also happened to be the name on the label next to the door.
“So this is, what, his experiment room?” Gwen said. “Torture room? Mad scientist lab?”
It couldn’t be.
“No way,” Miles said. “It’s gotta be—it’s something else.”
Gwen looked ready to argue, but then the lights flickered on. Down the hallway, a door slammed open, and a loud voice called, “Spread out and search! They’re up here somewhere.”
Pavitr pulled them all into the room and shut the door. “Argue later, get out now!”
Miles glanced at the doorknob, but it didn’t look like it would lock. He webbed it shut instead.
“Okay, Hobie,” Gwen said, voice filled with barely controlled panic, “time to open us up a portal?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hobie said, and Miles turned to look at him sharply. “It’s not working.”
“What?” Pavitr yelped. Quietly, but it was a yelp all the same.
Already tapping away at her watch, Gwen said, “Let me try mine.”
The handle turned. The door opened a crack, and Miles’s breath caught, but the webbing held.
For now.
“Mine’s not working either,” Miles added grimly. All the other functions seemed fine. Nobody was glitching out. Pavitr had admitted to calling Peter the night before. Hobie used it as a flashlight. It showed the location of all four of them, plus a couple of other moving dots that had to be other Spider-People running around Earth-928. Everything was in perfect working condition.
It just couldn’t open a portal.
People were banging on the door and shouting. Miles let go of his watch in frustration. “It’s gotta be something about Alchemax. If we can get out of the building—”
“Way ahead of you,” Hobie said. The webbing was already beginning to fray, and with an ease granted by super-strength, Hobie tore it the rest of the way and yanked the door open.
Half a dozen security guards spilled into the room, clearly not having expected the door to be opened from the inside. Faster than the guards could react, Hobie webbed them to the floor. One of the guards reached toward him, but Miles spotted the gun and wrenched it from their hand.
“Which way?” Miles shouted as they ran out of the room.
“Window?” Hobie said. Most of Alchemax’s exterior walls had tall windows built into them, and this floor was no different, even if it was hiding some serious secrets.
Miles still didn’t want to think about that.
Pavitr frantically shook his head. “We are too high up! None of the buildings around us are tall enough for us to swing to.”
“Climb down the wall?” Gwen suggested, throwing out her arm and webbing together the legs of an approaching guard, who collapsed to the floor.
“We’ll be sitting ducks!” Miles yelped. “All they have to do is lean out the window and start shooting at us while we try to climb down a building that’s like a thousand feet tall!”
“Elevator would be a bad idea, they could shut it down… and the shaft could get us killed if someone sends the elevator up or down…” Pavitr muttered. “Stairs?”
Hobie’s lips thinned to a line. “Don’t see any other options. Stairs it is.”
Miles chose not to point out that they’d have to fight their way through almost sixty floors’ worth of guards. He didn’t have any other better ideas. They all knew the risks. And the chances of surviving.
Which didn’t look good.
They ran for it. Miles picked off a few more of the guards chasing them. Clearly, the average security team wasn’t equipped to deal with superpowered teenagers, and the guards didn’t have any good ways to free themselves from the webbing. But the webshooters only had so much fluid, and Alchemax had hundreds of guards.
But the guards were swarming up from the stairwell to the fifty-seventh floor, and Miles pivoted and ran the other way, his friends following him. “I think there’s an elevator!” Miles gasped. “It goes up to the rest of the restricted floors, but it also goes down to the fifty-seventh. We can take the stairs from there.”
Unless someone shut down that elevator, but Miles was choosing to hope that whoever was running Alchemax’s internal security tech wouldn’t be able to react fast enough before the elevator could descend a single floor.
Alchemax had the fancy kind of elevators that were enclosed in their own separate rooms, and for the first time, Miles was thankful for it. The moment all four of them were safely past the doorway, Gwen pulled the door shut and set to creating as thick a cover of webbing as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pavitr take careful aim and knock out the security camera. It might buy them a few extra seconds.
Miles headed straight for the elevator button.
The elevator gave a cheery ding.
Miles froze.
He hadn’t pressed anything yet.
The elevator doors began to slide apart. Already, Miles could hear someone muttering from the other side. “—Tyler’s dirty work, and I was really shocking hopin’ to get some sleep tonight—”
Miles just stared.
Miguel looked exactly as surprised as Miles felt.
When Gwen heard the elevator open, she allowed herself to feel a bit of relief. Her webshooters were almost out of ammo, so she turned away from her efforts at gluing the door shut, planning to run into the elevator.
What she saw made her so frustrated she wanted to cry.
Because Miguel O’Hara had stepped out of the elevator, hands shoved into his pockets, and Miles was just standing there.
Miles wanted to get to know Miguel. Fine. Miles wanted to wander off and try and convert Miguel to their side. Fine. Miles saw what was practically a torture chamber with Miguel’s name on it and still thought he might be a good guy?
It was very, well, Miles of him. But Gwen wasn’t the kind of person who could give everyone a second and third and fourth chance.
Gwen was the one who’d killed her best friend.
Pavitr and Hobie both seemed shocked but were beginning to snap out of it, and Gwen lunged past them. It would take the last of her web fluid, but it’d be worth it. She raised her arm and watched with satisfaction as the web slammed Miguel into the back wall, pinning his hand to the wall and trapping him there.
He didn’t seem annoyed. Just surprised. Miguel kept turning his head to glance between the webbing and Gwen, like he hadn’t already been informed that there were people with Spider-Man’s powers breaking into Alchemax.
“Into the elevator,” Gwen snapped, and that broke Miles out of his hesitation. He moved toward the elevator door.
And then, with his free arm, Miguel reached over and ripped the webbing off.
Gwen froze.
Just like every other time she’d seen him, Miguel was wearing the same outfit. A turtleneck, slacks, and more importantly, those sunglasses. But even though they helped to hide Miguel’s expression, the emotion was evident as he said, “You’re—mutates? Spider mutates?”
Gwen fell back into a fighting position, raising her hands. She was out of web fluid, but her friends still had some. Miguel had superpowers. Super-strength, at least. It would make it harder to win the fight, and they wouldn’t be able to get into the elevator until they’d taken him down, but they would do it.
They had to.
“Are you from an indy?” Miguel pressed. “Or—no. What was your plan to get out? You’re all too smart to have done this without a good escape plan in mind.” He paused. “Though current circumstances are making me rethink that.”
Miles exchanged a look with Gwen.
No, Gwen tried to communicate with a fierce glare.
Miguel was working for Alchemax. They couldn’t trust him.
“We have a teleporter,” Miles blurted out.
“Miles!” Gwen yelped.
“Shock,” Miguel hissed. He slumped against the wall, even though he’d broken free of the webbing without batting an eye. “I’m such a shockin’ idiot. Shouldn’t do this. Even if you’re just stupid, stupid kids. And spider mutates.”
“We should web both arms this time and make a break for it,” Hobie whispered to Gwen.
She liked that plan. Clearly, not everyone did, because Miles shook his head. “Miguel?” he said tentatively.
“Shockin’ bleedin’ heart, that’s me,” Miguel muttered. Gwen didn’t think it was meant for them. “Fine,” he said, louder. “You might not like it, but I can get you out of here.”
Well, that was the most obvious lie she’d heard all day.
Never in a million years had Miguel planned to help the intruders Tyler had sent him after.
Like a trained attack dog. Miguel hadn’t liked the idea to begin with, but he’d never claimed to be a good person either. And between letting Tyler order him around and being sent back there, Miguel knew what he would pick.
But that had been before he’d seen exactly who the intruders were.
“You don’t trust me,” he said. “Fine. But there’s no way you’re getting out of here on your own.”
“Yeah?” Gwen snapped. “So what’s your plan?”
“And why are you helping us?” Hobie added. “It’s your company, innit?”
Miles just stared at him with those big, pleading eyes.
Miguel grimaced. “To the second, no, it’s not. And I know why you can’t teleport out. Alchemax put down some anti-portal tech over the whole building after the Virtual Unreality debacle, but there’s only a single anti-portal generator for the entire building. And it’s fragile.” He paused. “It also happens to be located three floors up from us, and that elevator can take us there.”
“We can’t trust him,” said Gwen. “You all saw that room!”
He desperately wanted to ask, ‘What room?’ but now wasn’t the time. Not if he wanted to help them get out of Alchemax in one piece.
Miguel didn’t think he could condemn anyone else to the horrors of Alchemax’s labs. The students—though that was now an obvious lie—were spider mutates. Miguel knew all too well what happened to spider mutates.
If it were anyone else, he would have just killed them and told Tyler it was the only way to take down the intruders. A mercy, really, compared to the alternative of being taken apart by Alchemax piece by piece.
But he couldn’t do that to these kids.
He couldn’t do that to Miles.
“You can distrust me all you like,” Miguel settled for saying, “but I guarantee the minute you exit those elevator doors onto the floor below us, you’ll be swarmed with guards. Too many to take down. But trust me when I say there’s not nearly as much security above us.”
The only dangerous experiment on the upper floors was Miguel, after all, and Tyler was more worried about someone else trying to steal Alchemax’s research than he was about Miguel turning on him. They’d worked through the rebellious phase months ago.
The teens exchanged uncertain glances. Then, Miles stepped toward Miguel. “Okay. I trust you, tío,” he said.
“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Miguel said, but he let himself smile. Just a little.
There wouldn’t be much cause for joy once Tyler figured out what Miguel had done.
“I still don’t trust him,” Pavitr said. Miguel wanted to curse the stupidity of teenagers until Pavitr continued, “But I trust you, Miles.”
Hobie and Gwen had always been the less friendly two. Miguel cast a sideways glance at them. “Well?” he asked. “Gonna let your friends run off and take your chances on your own?”
It was pretty easy to get them all into the elevator after that. Miguel dearly hoped that Tyler thought he was just busy subduing the superpowered intruders. He’d been worried about the cameras in the elevator before Miles spoke up and informed him that they had a portable jammer.
Whoever was behind these kids had resources. A lot of them, to make four spider mutates and give them this kind of equipment. Miguel just hoped they were kinder than Alchemax.
Though experimenting on teenagers didn’t exactly cast them in the most generous light.
Miguel had been planning to protect the kids, but they didn’t seem to need it. The few scientists that they’d run into had been easily taken down without Miguel lifting a finger, and all he had to do was guide them to where the generator for the anti-portal field was kept.
He’d thought he might need to help with the electronic lock on the door, or at least apply his strength to the task, but Miles had reached out, a look of deep concentration on his face, until electricity jumped from his fingers to the lock and the deadbolt slid open.
They were clearly practiced at using their powers. They worked like a well-oiled team, and it spoke to the kind of trust that only formed from fighting in life-and-death battles and knowing the other person would have your back.
Miguel broke the generator for them. It felt like the least he could do.
Miles tapped at his watch. Miguel had seen it a few times on all of their arms and never given it a second thought, but now he realized the utility of having a miniature portal generator disguised as a plain timepiece. It was the kind of thing he would’ve loved to have during his tenure as Spider-Man.
The portal that slowly spun open didn’t resemble any portal Miguel had ever seen before, but it wasn’t like he had much experience to draw on besides the fiasco that had been Virtual Unreality.
“Well?” Miguel said impatiently. “Are you going or not?”
Miles glanced at the portal uncertainly. “Are you—going to get in, like, trouble for this?”
Miguel laughed. It was an ugly, unhappy sound. “A shocking understatement.”
“You could come with us,” Miles said tentatively.
Miguel sighed. It was a thoughtful offer. It was also a useless one. “I’m stuck here. Just go through the portal. Get out of here before someone realizes where we are.”
Hobie spoke up in support, “Nah, fuck the rules, mate. Trust us. Alchemax can’t follow you where we’re goin’.”
It seemed that Miguel had managed to win even Hobie and Gwen over because Gwen was nodding along to Hobie’s words.
They’d known each other for so little time, but Miguel could tell they were good people. All four of them. Determined to protect each other, and even him. It was the kind of hero Miguel had tried to be. The kind straight out of the old Heroic Age that tried to save everyone.
But Miguel couldn’t be saved. And he wasn’t about to let these four condemn themselves in a failed attempt to save them too.
Not after everything he’d sacrificed for them.
Miguel shut his eyes. He didn’t want to see their faces. Then, he fisted his hand in the fabric of his turtleneck’s collar and yanked it down.
“Bloody hell,” Hobie breathed.
“Is that—” Pavitr started, then fell silent, unable to finish the sentence.
“A shock collar?” Gwen said for him.
Miguel risked opening his eyes. Miles looked nauseous. That was about how Miguel had felt when he’d seen it for the first time too. Tipping his head toward the portal, Miguel said, “I’m guessing that takes you far away from here? Hope it does, at least. Well, the further I get from Alchemax, the worse the shocks get. Over a mile? Strong enough to be lethal within seconds.”
“We can’t just leave you here!” Miles exclaimed.
“Yes, you can,” snapped Miguel. “Go.”
Miles shook his head frantically. “I can—I can disable it—something.”
“The electricity trick?” Miguel said. “It’s a shock collar, Miles. Trust me, it can handle a little electricity. And if you pumped in enough to overload it, I guarantee you it’d kill me too.”
“But—”
“Miles,” Hobie interrupted. Good. He’d always seemed like a practical kid. “We don’t have a way to fix this. Not now.”
Miles’s lips thinned into a thin line. He met Miguel’s eyes, even though the glasses. “We’re gonna come back for you, okay?”
Miguel offered him a sad smile. “Don’t,” he said. “Please. The last thing I want is for any of you to get caught either. Just go.”
It took a few more minutes of convincing, which was significantly more than Miguel would have liked, but by the end of it, he had promises from all four of them, even Hobie and Gwen, to come and rescue him, against Miguel’s wishes. But they all filed into the portal, which was what Miguel really wanted, so he could live with it.
As long as they weren’t stupid enough to try and break into Alchemax a second time without Miguel there to help them out of it.
Miguel was already in pretty deep shit. He could have gone around breaking the rest of the tech Alchemax kept on this floor. Create some problems for Tyler. It wasn’t like Miguel could be punished any more for it than he was already going to be. He could set Tyler’s research back and wreck millions of dollars’ worth of equipment just to be contrary. A few months ago, Miguel would have done it.
But that was the Miguel who still had the desire to fight back, not the Miguel of now. He was tired. And resigned. It wouldn’t make any difference in the end.
He didn’t have to wait long before the first shock came. It was a light one. Like a routine alarm going off in the morning to remind him that it was time to wake up and go to work, except it was Tyler’s way of reminding Miguel that he should hurry up with catching the intruders and drag them back to Tyler like a good boy.
Miguel didn’t move.
The kids were gone and their jammer with them. There was a camera in the room, of course. There were cameras everywhere. Miguel could have webbed the camera and eked out a few more minutes for himself, but he didn’t.
What was the point?
It didn’t take Tyler long to figure out what Miguel had done. The second set of shocks was strong enough to send Miguel crashing down to the floor, screams tearing their way out of his freshly healed vocal cords. The electricity just kept churning out. Pain blotted out every other sense.
When Miguel finally came to, curled in a shaking ball, Tyler loomed over him, disapproval painted across his face.
Miguel had never more badly wanted to punch the asshole.
“Mike,” Tyler said, and if Miguel could have unclenched his jaw to argue with that, he would have, “you’ve really shocked it up this time.”
“Good,” Miguel rasped out, voice hoarse. It hurt to speak, but it was worth it.
Tyler sighed patronizingly. “Trust me, it certainly isn’t.”
Never in his life had Miguel trusted Tyler. Except to not stoop so low as to dose his wine with drugs, and Miguel bitterly regretted that now. He wasn’t about to give Tyler another inch of trust. Instead, he mustered his strength enough to twitch his head toward Tyler and spat on those shiny shoes.
Tyler didn’t grow angry. He just sighed again. “I see there’s quite a few things we’ll have to work on fixing.”
“I don’t need to be fixed,” Miguel snarled.
“Oh, but you do.” Tyler crouched, his eyes meeting Miguel’s. “And let me assure you that you will regret this behavior.”
Miguel had given up on fighting back a long time ago, but now, he unsheathed his talons and swiped at Tyler.
It missed, of course. Tyler stood and stepped away. “Winston?” he called. “Take him away.”
Miguel closed his eyes and didn't bother fighting back this time.
Notes:
To everyone who guessed all the way back in chapter one that Miguel was hiding a shock collar: congratulations! I'm sure you're overjoyed to have your suspicions confirmed. I know the Spider-kids are super happy about finding this out.
To everyone who wanted them to break Miguel out as a result: sorry, I couldn't do that to Gabriel. I mean, c'mon, he's putting in all this effort to jailbreak Miguel, and what am I supposed to do, let someone else rescue Miguel? Ridiculous! Besides, look at him. Miguel doesn't even want to be rescued.
...is probably what Tyler would say.
Between arguing with some very annoying people over the phone and catching a cold (not just allergies apparently), it's been a rough week. But I'm a lot more motivated to write hurt/comfort than I am to write action, so hopefully the next chapter will be out a bit faster.
Thanks for reading! Drop a kudos or comment if you enjoyed :) or hated it but really want to see good things happen to Miguel. After some bad things first, of course.
Chapter Text
When Peter got the notification that the infiltration squad had come back three days ahead of schedule, his heart clenched. It couldn’t be anything good. Had one of them been injured? Worse? And it only took him a moment to connect to the call Pavitr had made the day before, and Peter’s heart dropped.
He hadn’t meant for them to throw themselves into danger, but with the advantage of three hours of sleep and several shots of espresso, it was easy to see exactly how Pavitr had interpreted their conversation.
The first he noticed when he barged into the warehouse was that Miles was crying.
“Oh, shit,” Peter breathed, and dropped to his knees next to Miles. “Where are you hurt? Do we need to get medical attention?”
Miles swiped at his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, which he obviously wasn’t. These kids were going to be the death of Peter.
“He means that he didn’t get injured,” Hobie interjected. “Not physically, at least.”
“We have to go back for him,” Miles said through the tears, and Peter just about had a heart attack on the spot before he counted up the kids and realized that there were exactly as many as expected. Four total. No more, no less.
“Who’s ‘him’?” Peter asked.
Pavitr had an arm wrapped around Miles’s shoulders, but he looked up and said, “The tour guide. Miguel. They were hurting him. He had a—” And here, Pavitr’s words seemed to fail him because his voice cut off into nothingness.
Gwen didn’t look much better than the rest of the kids, but she took over the explanation. She scrubbed her hands over her face, then said, “Miguel helped us escape. They’re going to punish him for it.”
“He had a shock collar on,” Hobie said, low and furious, which was the most helpful any of them had been so far, but the knowledge made Peter’s eyes widen. “Bloody corpos thinking they can treat people like property.”
“Aw, hell,” Peter said. “And you couldn’t get him out.”
Miles shook his head. “Please, you have to—”
Peter gripped Miles’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “I will, okay? We’re Spider-People. Heroes. We don’t leave people behind.”
Already, Peter was calculating the best way to go about it. Spider Society tried to avoid interfering too much with local dimensions’ timelines. Hopping in and out without knowing all the specifics of a situation could cause more harm than good, so they tried to stick to anomalies and universes already tied to Spider Society. But Spider-Man 2099 was still missing, and Peter wasn’t nearly heartless enough to leave an innocent to be punished for helping his kids escape. Since their cover story was long blown and everyone was out of danger now, there wasn’t any harm in pushing up the Firelight timeline by a week. Judging by Firelight’s eagerness in past interactions, he wouldn’t mind the opportunity to go after Alchemax ahead of schedule.
“Okay,” Peter said. “You kids stay here, alright? Rest, recover, and I don’t want to hear about any of you running off on some foolish rescue mission.” He fixed them all with a stern glare. “I’m going to work on getting him back right now, but the last thing I need is for any of you to get hurt in the process.”
“But—” Miles protested.
“No ‘buts’,” insisted Peter.
With Pavitr tugging at his arm, Miles slumped back onto the floor and let Hobie hand him a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Peter caught Jessica’s eye, who was standing there with a tray of hot chocolates, and she nodded at him. Good. At least there was one responsible adult to watch over the kids. More of Spider Society than Peter liked to admit were technically adults but also very far from being anyone Peter would call responsible.
It was early morning at Spider Society HQ. Peter ran the mental calculations. For Margo, it was probably late afternoon or early night. Good timing. She could hopefully help him out without needing to be pulled out of school or staying up late and missing out on sleep. He was feeling pretty shitty about all the extra work he’d been asking Margo to do. She was one of their only qualified members, if not the only one, yes, but she was also a teenager. She had to finish homework and attend clubs and spend time with her friends. Once the whole mess with Earth-928 was over, Peter was going to do his best to cycle some Spider-People into her universe to take over Spider-Byte duties for a bit so Margo could relax.
Before Peter could open up the portal, Gwen caught his arm. She’d left the group cuddle pile to do it, and Peter eyed her warily. “I told you, none of you are allowed to come with me. It’s just recon and tech stuff.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that.” In a low voice, she confessed, “I think Alchemax was experimenting on Miguel. There was a room with his name on it, and I thought he worked there, but I think they were operating on him.” Gwen looked up at him. Her eyes revealed the subtle horror underneath, and not for the first time, Peter cursed out the multiverse for giving so many Spider-People their powers before even being out of high school. “He had super-strength. So if you’re looking for information, I think…” She trailed off, biting her lip. “I think Miguel might be related to whatever the Goblin’s trying to find.”
Fuck, Peter thought. Alchemax playing with forces they didn’t understand and trying to brew home-grown superpowers was just the cherry on top, not to mention the Goblin potentially going after the research. It made sense. He ruffled Gwen’s hair. “Thanks for the tip,” he said, and she ducked her head. “I’ll keep that in mind. You go drink some hot cocoa with your friends, alright?”
He sent Margo a message, and she responded almost immediately. But Peter waited until he saw Jessica drape a blanket around Gwen’s shoulders and press a mug into her hands before opening the portal and stepping through.
Earth-928 was as dreary as it always was, with the Public Eye soaring overhead and camera lights blinking on every corner. Peter was glad to escape it all and step into the dive bar, where everyone was hooked into Cyberspace, but at least none of them were watching him. He took a deep breath and plugged in.
Margo was waiting for him. “We need to figure out what we’re looking for ahead of time,” she said, straight to business. “There’ll only be time to download some select pieces of information before Alchemax’s active defenses notice we’re there and kick us out, and I also don’t want to talk about it in front of Firelight.”
Peter couldn’t help but agree with that. Firelight was helpful, but he was also a complete unknown. For all Peter knew, Firelight was planning to sell the Alchemax data to the highest bidder. It made him a liability. “Is there a way you can aim for… whatever the most secret information is?” Peter tried.
With a shrug, Margo said, “I can go for the most heavily encrypted stuff, but it’s possible that they’d purposefully hide the important information in a way that doesn’t make it obvious. If you’ve got keywords or something, that’s best.”
“Anything with Tyler Stone,” Peter said immediately. That guy had set his spider-sense tingling with only a glance. And as CEO, Tyler had to know about all the most important projects. He hesitated, then added, “Try to get their research on genetic editing. Superpowers. And keep an eye out for Miguel O’Hara.”
“Got it,” said Margo. “If we have time, I’ll try and snag whatever their other most classified stuff is too.”
“Ready?” Peter asked, holding up the disc Firelight had given them.
Margo nodded, and Peter cracked it in half.
In the distance, there was an answering roar of a car engine, and Peter blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected Firelight to show up quite so fast. How much time did he spend plugged into Cyberspace? With that response speed, Firelight must have been in Cyberspace already. Firelight’s obnoxiously red car peeled down the strange, twisted roads and skidded to a halt next to Peter, fire trailing behind it. “Spyte,” Firelight greeted. “Span. You’re earlier than I expected.”
“Our timeline got moved up,” Peter said. “We can launch the attack on Alchemax now.”
“Quite the different tune from earlier,” Firelight remarked, but he didn’t press any further. It only served to reinforce Peter’s certainty that Firelight had his own, desperate reasons for a vendetta against Alchemax. The carelessness just didn’t seem right. “Hop in, then.”
Margo pulled open the door to the backseat, but Peter didn’t move. “Er, the trail of fire doesn’t seem terribly inconspicuous,” he said.
Firelight snorted. Peter would have been offended, but Margo’s face was pursed in a way that made it clear she was struggling not to laugh. “Where’d you get him from?” Firelight said, turning to face Margo. “A retirement home?”
“Sorry, he’s not exactly a netizen,” Margo said. “Just let it slide.”
“What?” Peter protested. “What’d I say wrong? I don’t get it.”
Neither of them explained, but Margo didn’t seem concerned about the literal trail that Firelight’s car was leaving behind him, so Peter grudgingly let himself be corralled into the car.
“Alright, hold tight,” Firelight said. “We’re gonna be jumping between several dozen servers to mask our origin point, and it might get a little bumpy.”
Margo leaned over and whispered to Peter, “Think of it like VPNs.”
Peter wasn’t about to admit he didn’t know what a VPN was either, so he nodded along and pretended he understood everything that was happening. Despite Firelight’s warning, the ride was smooth enough that if Peter closed his eyes, it almost felt like he wasn’t moving at all. The only indication that something was happening was the way that every so often, the space around them seemed to warp and shift slightly. Peter couldn’t pinpoint the exact change and whether it was color or sound or texture or something else entirely, but it was different. They repeated the process until Firelight was satisfied, at which point their driver turned, rested his arms on the headrest, and said, “Alright, we’re here.”
As far as Peter could tell, this stretch of Cyberspace looked the exact same as the rest of Cyberspace.
Margo hopped out of the car. She rubbed her hands together gleefully, hair bouncing slightly, and for all that her avatar hid her under the illusion of a grown woman, she’d never looked more like a kid. “Time to get to work.” She knelt and traced the outline of a spider, leaving behind neon streaks on the ground. Peter wanted to shake her. The whole point of their cover identities was to not have obvious spider-theming. But if Firelight hadn’t noticed anything unusual, it’d be worse for Peter to point it out, so he let Margo work. As she finished the last leg, the whole picture shivered, then peeled itself off the ground.
Firelight made a mildly impressed noise.
“Nice job,” Peter said. He had no idea what she’d done, but he was proud regardless.
The spider was all harsh angles, glowing lines sketched into the air that didn’t quite seem three-dimensional. Balancing on six of its legs, it raised its front two and clacked them together before beginning to weave a web in midair.
Peter was pretty sure spiderweb actually came out of spiders’ butts, not their front legs, but he’d always hated it when someone asked Spider-Man if the webbing came out of his asshole, so he let it slide.
When the spider finished, it glowed brightly, then vanished, but the web remained. “Your turn,” Margo said, and she definitely wasn’t talking to Peter.
Firelight stepped forward, wiggled a finger into the center of the web, and almost seemed to peel it apart until there was a web-shaped hole that led … somewhere. “After you,” he said, gesturing at it.
Margo crossed her arms and stood back.
Peter groaned. He looked between the two of them. Neither one seemed particularly incentivized to move. The things I do for these kids, he thought, then threw caution to the wind and climbed into the hole.
On the other side was an ocean. Peter blinked. The breeze against his face and the smell of sea salt reminded him of trips to the beach as a child, but it wasn’t what he would have expected out of Alchemax’s servers.
He was thinking more murder lab. Or supervillain lair. Clinical hallways and giant databanks, at least, not a nice seaside day.
Margo and Firelight both climbed through the hole as well. Placing her hands on her hips, Margo surveyed the beach and declared, “Well, you can’t say Alchemax doesn’t hide their data thoroughly.”
Firelight had already crouched on the sand and was picking up seashells, judging them by some unknown metric, and dropping some back onto the beach while others were shoved into a bag.
Peter gestured at Firelight. “Should we be…?”
Margo grimaced, then said to Firelight, “You’re just going to throw caution to the wind, then.” It wasn’t a question.
Curtly, Firelight said, “You can do what you want. I’m taking what I came for.”
“I don’t get what’s going on,” Peter muttered.
“He’s taking Alchemax’s data, not making a copy of it,” Margo explained. “It’ll be obvious we were here.”
“I’m not letting them keep this,” said Firelight. He was still shoving seashells into the bag he’d procured from somewhere, but he’d also moved on to picking up crabs. Peter wasn’t sure what the difference was. And why didn’t the sand seem to matter? The whole beach setting was really confusing him.
Margo sighed but started rifling through the seashells. Peter had no idea how she was picking out the important ones and stood there uselessly as Margo started separating the shells into two piles. Presumably, keep and discard. Every so often, Firelight or Margo would move onto a different section of the beach, but it wasn’t terribly large. After an hour or so, Firelight stood, dusted off his hands—which were still made of fire and didn’t have any sand clinging to them—and started tossing little balls of fire into the ocean. When they hit the water, they sizzled, turned into little lumps of charcoal, and began to sink.
Peter stared blankly. Margo didn’t seem bothered. It had to be another weird Cyberspace thing.
Right?
Peter had never considered himself a tech-incompetent. He was a genius. Better at chemistry than computer science, sure, but he knew his way around computers.
This was making him reconsider.
It was all a little too metaphor-like for him. English had always been his least favorite class in school. As far as Peter could tell, the things Firelight and Margo did had a lot less to do with computer code and a lot more to do with weird, symbolic abstractions of things.
Eventually, Firelight grew bored of trying to set the ocean on fire and sat down cross-legged on the sand. Margo finished up a few minutes later and said, “Ready to go?”
For his part, Peter was more than ready, but he waited for Firelight to say, “Sure.” The hacker walked over to the web-entrance they’d originally come through, stepped through, and disappeared. When Peter and Margo followed suit, Firelight was gone.
Margo looked around, then said, “We should talk.” Before Peter could say anything, she added, “Not here,” and then disappeared as well.
Peter groaned but dutifully unplugged from Cyberspace. Returning to the grimy dive bar was a shock after the crystal-clear water and sea-salt spray of Alchemax’s servers. No one stopped him on his way out as he ran into the nearest alleyway, found a good corner out of sight of the cameras, and took a portal back to Spider Society HQ.
When he got there, Margo was waiting for him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “I got a lot of data on Alchemax’s genetics and superpower research,” she said. “But… I couldn’t find anything on Miguel O’Hara specifically.”
Peter frowned. “Okay, so he wasn’t involved in their superpower research. What’s the issue?”
Shaking her head, Margo said, “Not like that. Some of the data was missing. There were holes in the research I stole.” She sucked in a breath. “I think Firelight took it all.”
“Wait, so you’re saying Firelight only took Alchemax’s files on Miguel O’Hara? And… whatever his related genetics and superpower research was?” Peter asked, a little incredulously.
Margo nodded. “Not just that,” she said. Great. More bad news. “At the end there? He was planting viruses into Alchemax’s server. Bombs, basically, that he can detonate whenever he wants.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Not unless you want to tell Alchemax we broke into their servers,” Margo said. “And I mean… what’s the worst that could happen?”
That, to Peter, seemed a little too much like tempting fate.
Gabriel didn’t know what Spyte and Span—which were also stupid shocking names—had wanted out of Alchemax, but it didn’t matter.
He had all of their data on Miguel. And with the several dormant viruses he’d carefully embedded into their code, Gabriel could send Alchemax spiraling into chaos the minute he was ready to strike. All he had to do now was prepare the countermeasures for whatever was keeping Miguel trapped. Had they dosed him with Rapture again? Gabriel could deal with that.
The files were encrypted, but Gabriel cracked it in minutes. He checked the most recent one. It was tagged as being from only a few hours ago. There was a voiceover attached to the video file, and he let them both play.
“Subject’s genetic mutations have modified reaction time and sensitivity away from human baseline. We recommend comparing against—”
Gabriel yanked himself out of Cyberspace. Literally. Electrodes clenched in shaking hands, he threw them against the wall. A nasty crack sound followed, but he was already stumbling out of his room and toward the kitchen.
He barely made it to the sink before throwing up.
They’d—
Miguel strapped down to a table, thrashing against the restraints and screaming past a gag as a team of scientists sliced him open—
Gabriel pressed the palms of his shaking hands into his eyes and tried to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Tyler Stone and his smug face, standing off to the side of the video while he watched Miguel—
His stomach heaved again, but all he managed was bile. Gabriel turned on the water and tried to rinse the taste out of his mouth.
Shock. Shock, shock, shock.
And right then, he wasn’t Gabriel O’Hara, Firelight, master hacker, the Goblin, vigilante, or any of the numerous labels he held. He was just Gabri, four years old and terrified, huddling in the corner and watching Miguel get backhanded into a wall by their father.
George hadn’t even been Miguel’s biological father, in the end. But Miguel had somehow gotten Tyler Stone for that, and going off that video, Tyler was also an abusive asshole. Maybe even worse.
At least George had never let someone take a scalpel to Miguel’s stomach and—
Gabriel breathed. In. Out.
Throwing up in the sink again wouldn’t help Miguel. Getting trapped in a flashback wouldn’t help Miguel. And by the looks of things, no one else was going to help Miguel if Gabriel didn’t. He’d sat back and done nothing for months. Months that Miguel had been tortured. Months that Miguel had been trapped and terrified.
It didn’t matter that Gabriel couldn’t find a backdoor into Alchemax. He should have made one. He’d wasted so much time trying to find the solution in other universes when he should have focused on his home world. He should have placed more pressure on Spyte and Span to speed it up. He should have—
‘Should have’ and ‘would have’ weren’t going to help Miguel. Only action would.
He straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Firelight would disable Alchemax’s security system. The Goblin would take out the security guards.
And then Gabriel would rescue his brother.
The spider was hungry.
It was always hungry. But it was in pain, and the humans had covered its claws and fangs in strange materials, and it did not think it would be able to move fast enough to find food.
So it hid in the corner.
It wanted to weave a web. Webs were good. Webs were safe. But the last time the humans had taken the spider away, they had done something to its spinnerets, and the spider could not spin a web. And one of its arms hurt. The spider didn’t think it could weave a web. So the spider stayed in the corner and tried to convince itself that being in the corner would help when the humans came looking for it.
Deep down, the spider knew it wouldn’t.
The room was too bright. It was always too bright. The light hurt the spider’s eyes, but it didn’t want to risk closing them in case the humans came. There were no shadows for the spider to hide in. Vaguely, the spider knew this hadn’t always been the case. But the spider was not very good with judging time. There was a part of the spider, buried and hidden away from the pain, that could understand the trickier things like time. But that part had retreated and fallen silent when the humans had pumped poison into the spider’s veins and it burned and burned and burned and burned—
The spider didn’t like to think about that.
When the lights began to pulse red, the spider hissed. There were loud, repetitive noises, too, and the spider was still sensitive after what the humans had done. This had never happened before. The spider didn’t know if it was another one of the humans’ experiments.
The spider hated the experiments.
But the spider’s room did not fill with the strange gas that hurt the spider’s lungs and sent it spiraling into a dizzy fight for consciousness. Whenever it was time for the humans to drag the spider away, they always weakened it first.
Instead, the door opened.
A human walked in. A strange human, covered in green material and with a snarling face, but the spider could tell it was a human even beneath the strange coverings. And then the human shut the door behind him.
Warily, the spider inched out of its corner. The human was big. Not as big as the spider, but the spider was still in pain. It wasn’t sure it could take down the human.
But the spider didn’t want to be taken away for experiments.
The human took a few more steps forward until he was in the center of the room. Stupid. Better to stay against the wall so no one could sneak up. The spider prowled around the human, sticking close to the walls. He was foolish. The other humans were smart. They didn’t come near the spider. Not until they’d flooded the spider’s nest with poison and it woke up twitching and in pain.
This human, though, had entered the spider’s nest. And he didn’t smell afraid. He should be afraid. He was covered in strange material, but the spider could rip it apart.
It would have, at least, if it weren’t for the tight metal around its neck. The spider had learned its lesson from that. Attacking the humans only led to more pain. But the spider could fight through it long enough to hurt the human badly. Even if one of its limbs was still aching and twisted in a way the spider didn’t like, the spider still had three other perfectly functioning limbs.
The spider snarled at the human. If he knew what was good for him, he would leave.
Rather than run, the human knelt. More foolishness. It would be harder for him to flee the spider. Perhaps it could use its weight to pin the human to the floor. The human didn’t move to attack, though, so the spider waited.
“Dios mío,” the human said. “God. I’m sorry.”
The spider eyed the human warily. Something in the back of its mind registered the words. But the human didn’t make sense.
“I’m sorry I took so long. I should have been faster, smarter—I’m so sorry—I’m sorry—I—” The human broke off into choked sobs.
For some reason, the spider didn’t like that. Why? The human smelled of sadness. The human wasn’t on guard. The human would be easy to kill.
The part of the spider that had gone away and hidden stirred at the sound of the human’s voice. The spider tried to push it back down. Everything still hurt. If that part of the spider was smart, it would stay away until things stopped hurting. That part was stupid. It was telling the spider to approach the human, but not to attack. To comfort. Spiders didn’t do that. The spider squashed that part of it. The spider would keep itself safe.
And then the human took off his mask.
The spider froze.
“Miguel,” the human said gently. “C’mon. It’s me. Gabri. You know me.”
It did know him. And not from the cold rooms, like how it knew the humans in white coats and the human who liked to watch and smile. This new human’s face, scent, voice—all of it was familiar. It stirred old memories. Memories the spider had locked away along with the weakest part of itself.
Warily, the spider took a few steps toward the human. It was exhausted. It was vulnerable. The human had to know that. He could have moved to attack, and the spider wouldn’t have been able to flee in time. But he didn’t.
Humans had never done anything but hurt the spider. They pinned it down, they cut out parts of the spider’s flesh, they shattered the spider’s arms, they fed it poison—
The spider knew humans couldn’t be trusted.
But it thought this one might be an exception.
Notes:
I spent like three days sick in bed and sleeping fourteen hours a day, which kinda sucked. Let that be a lesson about overworking yourself while sick. No idea when the next chapter will be out because I have a much harder time writing action-y escape scenes than writing hurt/comfort, which won't come until after escaping, unfortunately. But I do have an outline for how things are going to go, so if you all get particularly unlucky, I might just summarize the escape in three sentences and call it a day.
(I wouldn't do that. That was a joke. Even if I'm sorely tempted.)Shout-out to pretty much every feral Miguel fic I've ever read for his POV in this chapter. This is obviously not intended to be an accurate depiction of any mental health situation considering he got comic book science'd into a half-spider DNA half-human DNA situation, and I'm going to handwave it away as messing with his brain + coping mechanisms in a really sucky situation.
On a side note, I feel like the Tyler hate clubs forming in the comments are really meriting the graphic depictions of violence tag on this fic, haha. You're all so much more violent than the actual fic depicts on-screen.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Four hours. That was how long Peter had waited. Four hours, and in the span of those four hours, Earth-928 was in chaos.
“It’s not that bad,” Jess offered.
He stared at her.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she corrected. “And what else could you have done?”
“Moved faster,” said Peter. The duh was implied.
She rolled her eyes. “How were you supposed to do that? Alchemax’s anti-portal technology was back up by the time you and Margo returned. Did you want to launch a frontal assault and probably get half of us killed? Even the kids were willing to sit and gather more information before we rescued Miguel.”
Peter groaned. He’d forgotten about them. “Shit. Jess, how are we going to tell them that not only can we not get Miguel out of Alchemax, it’s because the Green Goblin took him?”
She hesitated. “Maybe we don’t.”
“What?”
“You know them,” Jess said. “If you tell them, do you honestly think they’re not going to go after him? Regardless of what we say? I don’t think the thought of being a rule follower has crossed through any of their minds. Ever. And especially not when someone’s in danger. We’re all vigilantes. It’s fundamentally a job that involves not listening to other people in order to try and save lives, Peter.”
Peter dragged his hand down his face. “I hate that you’re right.”
“We’re going to have to be fast,” Jess decided.
“Wait, what?” Peter asked.
She fixed him with an appraising stare. “Well, we can hardly leave Miguel with his universe’s Green Goblin, can we? Not to mention that Miguel seems to have been Goblin-928’s goal all along. And the Goblin spent months raiding different dimensions’ Alchemaxes. Clearly, whatever he wants from Miguel can’t be good. It’ll have to be fast, or the kids will notice. You and me. Our problem has been that the Goblin keeps escaping, but now he’s pinned down by dragging along a captive. We can catch him.”
“Okay,” Peter said, mind whirling. “You’re right. But—wait.”
Jess tilted her head.
“You, me, and Margo,” he said. “She’ll be accompanying us digitally, of course. No chance for her to get hurt.”
“Why?” Jess asked. Peter liked that about her. She didn’t assume he was dragging Margo into danger—or something close to it—senselessly. She knew he had to have a reason.
“Firelight,” Peter said grimly. “It can’t be a coincidence that he plants viruses within Alchemax’s servers, and then mere hours later, Alchemax’s security goes down and the Green Goblin takes the opportunity to break in. If that wasn’t enough, Firelight took all of the files on Miguel, too. They’re working together.”
Jess nodded along as he spoke. “You know the situation better than I do. If you think we need Margo, I trust your judgment.”
He grimaced. “I don’t think we can risk facing Firelight and the Goblin together without a hacker on our side. And her physical body will be safely back in her universe.”
Dryly, Jess remarked, “You know, when the other kids find out after the fact, this is only going to make them more pissed at you.”
“I know,” Peter said. “But they’re not going to know about this until after. In and out. We’ll be fast. And none of them have to get involved.”
“Alright,” Jess said. “How are we finding the Goblin?”
Peter’s lips pressed into a thin line. Firelight had played him. But—“Firelight is working with the Green Goblin. We find Firelight, we find the Goblin.”
All they needed now was Margo’s help.
Miles slumped on the couch. “Still nothing?” he asked.
Hobie heaved a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. “No, mate, Peter hasn’t suddenly announced a rescue mission for Miguel to everyone except you in the last five minutes since you asked.”
With a light shove to Hobie’s shoulder, Gwen added, “This is his way of saying he’s worried too.”
“Peter wouldn’t leave him,” Pavitr said. “There must be something else going on. He and Margo went to get access to their systems, right?”
“And they came back from that two hours ago,” Gwen pointed out.
Miles sank into the couch some more. He hated waiting. They needed to take action. They couldn’t just—leave Miguel there, not even for another minute or hour or day. Not after he’d gotten them all out at his own expense.
His watch buzzed, and Miles pulled himself upright fast enough to give him whiplash. A message from Margo popped up on-screen, and he deflated a little. Not Peter, then.
“What does it say?” Pavitr asked, leaning over his shoulder. “She didn’t send any of us a message.”
Miles tapped the screen, and Margo’s message began scrolling across. <miguel taken by gob928> it read. <me peter jess going to find him. cldnt convince ptr to tell u, sry. hes trying 2 keep it quiet, but ngl u deserve 2 no>
“That fucker,” Hobie said, which summed up Miles’s feelings on the subject pretty well.
“So we’re going too?” Gwen asked. “I mean, I feel like it’s pretty obvious that we’re going, but just in case.”
Miles’s hands clenched into fists. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re going.”
Gabriel ran a finger over the cold metal of the shock collar. It was deceptively plain for something that had caused Miguel so much pain. Softly, he whispered, “How are we doing on time?”
Lyla flickered into existence on the other side of the bed, shining face grim. “Not great, Gabriel. The Public Eye appears to have tracked your flight path within a mile radius of your current location.”
He pressed his hand over his eyes. “Shock,” he said, with emotion. “We needed—”
More time, Gabriel didn’t finish, because how could they have possibly waited another minute after seeing exactly what was happening to Miguel?
Lyla was silent. She knew too.
They’d been so close. So damn close. Gabriel had easily broken into Alchemax after disabling their security system. It’d been a cakewalk to gather Miguel up in his arms, jump out the window, and soar away on the Goblin’s wings. But everything after that was where the problems began to arise.
Alchemax’s files contained the schematics for the collar. Gabriel had taken an hour to cobble together a transmitter that blocked any outside signals and tricked the tracker into thinking Miguel was still inside the Alchemax building, but the sheer risk involved was far higher than Gabriel liked. If anything happened to the transmitter, the collar would kill Miguel. And now, the Public Eye was on the hunt. Gabriel hadn’t finished putting together a plan to escape their notice before rescuing Miguel.
He didn’t regret it, though. He couldn’t.
Miguel had fallen asleep after they’d made it to Gabriel’s apartment. It made sense. He must have been constantly on edge inside Alchemax, inside that tiny room they’d labeled as a containment chamber. And with those bright lights, searing enough that they’d hurt even Gabriel’s human eyes, Miguel couldn’t have rested even if he wanted to. Now, he was sleeping in Gabriel’s bed. It wasn’t unfamiliar. As children, they’d climbed into each other’s beds plenty of times.
But Miguel had always been a careless sleeper. He’d slept with arms outstretched, thrown into Gabriel’s face plenty of times, and deeply enough that nothing short of an airhorn could wake him up.
Now, he shifted restlessly. He laid on his side, curled up into himself in a way that Gabriel could tell protected all of Miguel’s most vulnerable areas. And Miguel was frail. Thin. Practically starved. Gabriel wished he could say he didn’t know what had happened to Miguel, but—
Lyla had taken the time to process all of Alchemax’s files on Miguel. Gabriel couldn’t find the words to express how much he appreciated her for that. It hadn’t been easy on her either, but at least now they knew what Alchemax had done.
“He’s going to be okay,” Lyla said. She reached out to Miguel, then dropped her hand, letting it hover just above his hair. “You did it. You got him out.”
“Should we have waited?” Gabriel said. He couldn’t regret rescuing Miguel, but the thought that he’d ruined it all by being impulsive still remained.
She shrugged. “You tell me, Gabriel. How long would it have taken you to develop the technology to cloak your flight path? Or a different plan?”
“A week, maybe,” Gabriel admitted. “More, if I wanted to be thorough.”
Lyla gestured at Miguel. “And how much longer do you think Alchemax would have kept him alive?”
Not a week, that much was clear. It didn’t change the fact that Gabriel had simultaneously been too late and too early. If he’d been faster, Miguel wouldn’t have suffered. If he hadn’t been impulsive, Miguel wouldn’t be in danger of recapture.
With a sigh, Lyla said, “Stop beating yourself up over it. It’s done. And besides, I need you thinking about what we do next.”
“The suit won’t work,” Gabriel muttered, more to himself than to Lyla. He was still wearing it in case the Public Eye found them, but it wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. But Gabriel could hardly lift Miguel on his own without the technological assistance of the Goblin suit. Even if he managed to, how would they escape? A car? On foot? The Public Eye could easily track any of those methods.
Lyla flickered, then said, “Wake him up.”
“Huh?” Gabriel said.
“You fight. He runs. He can stick to walls.” She gestured at the wall. “There’s a window right there he can go out of. If he lays low, you can fight off the Public Eye long enough for Miguel to get away, and then you run too and meet up at a predetermined location. It’s the only way.”
Gabriel hesitated. “Do you think he can even walk?”
“It’s the only way,” Lyla repeated grimly. “You have to distract them. And it would be far too easy for them to track anything else.”
Miguel could do it. He had to be able to do it. Even if it went against all of Gabriel’s instincts to wake Miguel from the rest he clearly, desperately needed and send him running for his life. Gabriel wanted to protect Miguel, not let him out of Gabriel’s sight.
But maybe this was the best way to protect him.
They were out of options.
“Oh, Firelight will be easy to track,” Margo said confidently. “He used to plaster his face all over Cyberspace. I mean, yeah, he hid it recently, but when I was talking to Duke Stratosphere, he told me that plenty of people had old photos and stuff with Firelight in them. Give me five minutes, tops, and I’ll have a name to match the face.”
Peter blinked. It almost seemed too easy. “You’re sure it’s not a fake face?”
She shrugged. “Well, it could be, but apparently, he also used to brag about his great genetics and the fact that he didn’t have to hide his face like most of the other hackers for being, and I quote, ‘too ugly to be seen even in disreputable society.’”
Peter choked.
“Even if it is, it won’t take me long to track him down, and it’ll be much faster than trying to follow his cyber trail. If it doesn’t work, no harm does. If it does, it saves a lot of time,” Margo continued. “I can connect a face to a name easily.”
It wasn’t like Peter knew any better. He nodded at her.
Her hologram disappeared for a few minutes, which Peter spent alternating between staring at the wall and staring at a collected and composed Jess. Then, Margo reappeared, wide-eyed.
“What’s wrong?” Peter demanded.
“Is something wrong?” Jess asked.
Margo shifted back and forth on her feet. “Uh,” she said. “No. I found him. It must be his real identity.”
“What makes you so sure?” pressed Jess.
“Firelight’s real name is…” Margo paused, then said, “Well. I think he’s Gabriel O’Hara.”
It took a moment for it to click. “O’Hara?” Peter exclaimed. “As in, Miguel O’Hara?”
She nodded. “They’re brothers.”
Peter’s mind swirled furiously. “Miguel was being held captive by Alchemax. Probably in order to force him to work for them. So… Gabriel reaches out to someone he knows can take down Alchemax. Someone powerful. Someone outside the law. A villain. The Green Goblin.”
“It makes sense,” Jess said. “And he handles the tech while the Goblin does the work of physically breaking out Miguel. But what does the Goblin get out of it?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, as the pieces finally laid themselves out, “except for the fact that now he’s in possession of a scientist involved in Alchemax’s genetics and superpower research. And there’s nothing forcing him to let Miguel go.”
Margo sucked in a breath. “Firelight—Gabriel—probably knows where the Goblin is. He’s at least communicated. He can find the Goblin.”
“He’ll help us if we explain the Goblin isn’t planning to let Miguel go,” Jess added.
“And we can track down Gabriel?” Peter inquired.
Margo nodded. “I know who he is. It’ll be easy to get the address for whatever house or apartment he lives in.”
“Do it,” Peter said. “And then we’ll go talk to him.”
The spider woke up. But there was no new pain. Even though the spider had fallen unconscious in the human’s arms.
It turned to look at the human, who was staring at it. The human hadn’t lied. And… there was another human. But a strange, golden one, with no scent. That, too, was familiar to the spider. Even the room the spider had woken up in was familiar.
Something stirred inside of the spider. The spider pushed it back down. This human was safe, but that did not mean the spider was safe. The last time the spider had trusted a human, had trusted shocking Tyler, had trusted a family member, then—
The spider blinked. The spider did not remember the last time it had trusted a human. The spider did not know a human named Tyler. The spider did not have family.
But the safe human did share scents with the spider. The spider did not have family, but perhaps the soft parts the spider protected had family. Family meant weakness. Family meant pain.
Yes, the spider decided, the soft parts had family. It fit.
The safe human wanted to protect its kin. That made sense. Humans found it important to ensure the survival of kin. Spiders did not, but humans were emotional creatures. The safe human would protect it, if out of emotion if nothing else. The spider did not think the safe human would hurt it. The safe human—
The safe human was talking.
“You need to run, okay, Miguel? You need to run. You can’t let them catch you,” the safe human said. He turned to the golden human. “Is any of this even getting through to him?”
The golden human shrugged. She seemed sad. The spider did not like it. Humans who were sad and unhappy and angry were more likely to hurt the spider.
The safe human would protect the spider, it reminded itself.
“Miguel—” the safe human began, reaching out.
The spider flinched away.
Frozen in place, the safe human stared at the spider. In response, the spider huddled in a little tighter on itself.
The spider did not want to be touched.
The safe human pulled back. Good. He was still a safe human. The spider had not meant to flinch. Flinching meant weakness. Flinching meant that the spider was not fleeing or fighting instead. Flinching meant being frozen with fear. Like a human. Weak.
Again, the soft parts of the spider began to rise. The spider ignored them. It would protect them all.
Then, a loud noise echoed, and the spider flinched again. This time, the safe human and the golden human jolted as well. “Someone’s at the door,” the golden human said. “I won’t be able to delay them long. They’re trying to break in.”
The safe human’s face twisted in ways that the spider did not like. What if the safe human hurt it? It did not want to be hurt by the safe human. Even though the spider was protecting them, the soft parts of the spider recoiled away at the thought. “Miguel,” the safe human said again, urgently. “You have to go. Okay?” He pointed at the opening to the outside. “Stay hidden.” He picked up something metal and strange from the floor, and the spider shifted away. It did not like strange metal things. But the safe human pressed it into the spider’s hands, and it didn’t hurt. “This will stop the collar from hurting you. And I can find you through it. Don’t lose it.”
The noise, again. The golden human vanished.
With fear in his voice, the safe human said, “Go, Miguel. I love you.”
Before the spider could move, the safe human picked up the green covering and placed it over its head again. Then, the safe human turned and ran out of the other opening, sealing it shut behind him.
The spider could leave. The spider should leave. The spider did not want to be hurt. The safe human was foolish to protect it. Kin was important to humans, but that was foolish as well. Spiders knew better. Spiders knew that the smartest and the strongest and the fastest should survive. There was no value in being hurt for a different spider.
These were the things the spider told itself.
But the spider hadn’t always been a spider.
The spider had kept itself safe. The spider could handle pain and fear and anger and betrayal. The spider didn’t understand the concept of cruelty or torture.
The spider didn’t understand why anyone would protect their family, either.
Miguel did.
Notes:
(Alternate summary of this chapter: Gabriel's terrible cybersecurity catches up to him.)
Betaed by Trainwreck95. Thanks a ton! Good thing they caught some of those errors and gave feedback on the flow. Also, check out this awesome art by VoidHoodie, which is very amazing and also something Miles should totally do. He won't, but let's be honest, Tyler Stone deserves to be a literal and metaphorical trashfire.
It's been a bit rough for me lately, so I'm not sure when the next chapter will be, but hopefully, it won't take as long as this one.
Thanks for reading!
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