Archive of Our Own

Miles didn’t view himself as an expert people reader. He wasn’t so bad at it either, but this was another whole thing. It wasn’t subtle nor was it obvious to everyone. He asked and no one could explain what was it. They knew what he was talking about though, so Miles surely wasn’t overthinking. Peter was the last one he went to because of the man’s relationship with one of the subjects here. It would be awkward if it was actually worse than Miles had in mind.

All the same, Peter had no idea.

“Well, the most I can say is I don’t think Miguel knows what’s he doing either.” The older Spider-Man shrugged. Both of them were at one of Diner of the Week. Somehow a lot of Peter’s childhood favorite franchises and products survived on Earth-1610. Some even just came out recently.

At first, it was “What could I do to make it up to you?” disguised as “How are you?”

It continued because Miles had no answers for any of that either. He sincerely felt grateful and happy they came to help him both from the wrong dimension he landed, the Miguel’s conflict, and the canon event. He couldn’t have done that alone. The young Spider-Man believed at first all was forgiven too. He really thought that way until he realized three weeks went by without him wanting to contact any of them. Miles didn’t enjoy the silence. It was quiet, not peaceful. However, he didn’t feel comfortable going to meet them. Whenever he thought about jumping across to drop by at the Spider-Society’s HQ, he found himself doing something else entirely.

Then Peter showed up without Mayday. They talked miscellaneous to bury what was quite hard to directly voice them out. (“What am I angry at you all still? You saved me. You came back for me. Why can’t I want to hang out with you guys like before I even know we can crossover dimension to dimension now?”) Miles wished Peter could tell him, but one look of Peter when the older man stared at him as if he was waiting for Miles to express how much he hated the man who used to be his mentor, the teenager inevitably realized Peter came here because he wished the same thing. Thus, Peter kept making an excuse to drop by. They ate together occasionally and talked until Miles didn’t have to pretend the Spider-Society didn’t exist. He started asking about how others were doing. Peter trying with all his might to not let it slip that Gwen wanted to visit was what made it easier for Miles to mend the broken feelings inside his chest when her name touched his mind.

Peter’s face betrayed everything the older man wanted to hide when Miles finally asked about Gwen. “She’s fine. She misses you.” Wondrous how simple words had these gaps filled with unsaid “She hates herself because she hurt you. She hates herself more for needing you to forgive her to be okay again.” between them. It was miraculous how all of them, the Spider-Man, had zero ability to cover anything yet most of them managed to keep their identity a secret.

“I miss her too.” Honesty had its place and the place was between them no matter what unyielding hurt that wouldn’t go away. Not yet. When they didn’t laugh or fight new challenge in someone’s dimension together, Miles’s thought reeled right back to the fact that they would let his dad die because that was how it should be.

It took a little more silence, awkward conversations, and Hobie, yes, Hobie, for Miles to understand himself.

“A real letdown here to be honest, but, yup, I know you enough by now to know you’re not holding grudge against them for nod siding with you.” The lanky punk made it sound like a complaint. “Gwendy would have been able to take it but nah-ah. You’re angry at the point too right, hit too home for all of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think you can’t let this go because all the bullshit they sprouted? Nope, mate. It was because they were being Spider-Man. Letting canon events happen, protecting the universe with one life sacrificed? They were being self-pity. All of them, and you know.”

And Hobie was right. Fuck. Hobie was right. It fell right into finally a whole picture of this agony that had been bothering Miles since he was almost caged.

“You’re punk and a psychic too now?”

“Nah, just said what made me quit. If they were themselves, being who they were when they chose to wear mask, they wouldn’t consider letting that happen again. If this were someone else’s fate, some poor little child with a teddy bear, they would be swinging all over every universe looking for any of us who still had a chance to save their beloved and salvaging it one by one like how you did for Pav and if universes collectively collapsed because some poor unlucky folks didn’t die tragically, they would just shoot the webs at every crack to hold it together themselves --

“But they were so deep in self-hatred they saw everyone with this mask a poor sod who had to accept the same fate. They stopped reaching, the most un-Spider-Man habit, isn’t it?”

Hobie was talking, narrating, about a young boy who was fine being the one and only Spider-Man for a while because they boy had friends who understood until the same thing that connected them together across infinite worlds stopped them from reaching further. Miles let each word sink unto him like bathing under the first rain after drought. Each crack on the dry land inside his mind shaped into questions, doubts, fear; what if one day being Spider-Man drove him to the same mistake like them? Being able to take a leap looked so meaningless when you were too afraid to reach.

“Were you fine? Before Miguel recruited you, I mean.”

“I got by. I had my band in my own world,” replied Hobie. “Not the same thing. Wouldn’t trade them for this or you lot them. Need both. I’m glad I met Pav, Gwendy, and you through all this. That’s why when Gwendy hated herself that much like the rest of th – us, I wanted to look out for her.”

‘Us’

“Miles.”

“What is it?”

“I’m glad you, Gwendy, and Pav get to have that.”

For many others who didn’t. That also included Hobie. The young man shrugged it off, saying more like Miles hadn’t hit that sad realization yet. “You, them, everyone, all got shit tons of pain and more of it coming, but at least you lot have thes—”

Before the Hobie could finish, Miles hugged him with one arm, tightening his right to hold around the older boy’s shoulder because Hobie smiled so kind, so satisfied, just like how uncle Aaron did when he saw Miles’s tag.

After that, Miles went to Gwen’s. Her place, her world, her father, her tears and regrets, their promise.

“Save me again. Always save me. I’ll save you. Always.”

He went to the Spider Society days after that with Gwen and the next thing Miles knew, He was another official member like the rest. They went on fixing cross-dimensional problem, in-dimensional problem, or even within-HQ problem. He didn’t really talk to Miguel or with Miguel. It was normal even since Miguel didn’t talk to everyone when he needed someone to do something. Usually, it was Jess. She knew how to communicate with the gloomy Spider-Man. Miles couldn’t hold anything much against Miguel after he made amend with his friends so he thought it was going to be like this; they worked together when necessary, but Miguel was not his leader or anything personal.

The distance between Miles and Miguel was a relief balanced by how they mutually felt they owed each other something and nothing. Miles fought his part, Miguel accepted. The older man shouldn’t be anything but the head manager of this chaotic HQ, an equivalence of a dean no one in the faculty knew what they looked like. Miles was surprised when he noticed how close Peter and Miguel were to each other. The dark-haired man did more than tolerated Peter’s shenanigans plus chatty persona.  “Holy shit. He chuckled.” Miguel did more than smiling too. Miles heard him picked a call from Peter’s wife, MJ, and talked to the communicator warmly about how Peter and Mayday must be somewhere in the HQ doing whatever God forgave.

That was it. That should be it. Miles really thought that was the most personal thing he knew or noticed about Miguel. He wasn’t even interested enough to ask Peter about ‘How’, ‘When’, or ‘What’.

Then Miles, or maybe he could blame his nosy spider sense. had to notice something else and this time he was interested.

“HOBIE, DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT STEAL THE GUITARS FROM THE VARIANT BEFORE SENDING HIM BACK?”

“Why are you trying to make me give a fuck about the difference between taking and stealing from a rich ass fucker?”

“HOBIE!”

No one could comprehend where the ‘I’m ignoring you’ of Miguel had gone. He was the one who asked Hobie to rejoin the Spider Society. Everyone assumed it was out of guilt for how he handled the serial incidents; to prove to Hobie he could do better than a self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrat wallowing in remorse mixed with distrustful overcompensation. Spider-Man variants who bet Hobie would reject lost a sum of money that day. Pavitr gained quite a pocket money though. “I swear Hobie didn’t tell me! He didn’t even know Miguel was gonna ask him!” Since Miles wasn’t there, he could only picture the tension before Hobie agreed.

If anyone would be even more distant from Miguel than Miles, he thought it would totally be Hobie, and Miguel wouldn’t, couldn’t, care less. Asking the anarchist to come back should had been the last olive branch left in the older man. Colored Miles stunned when he heard Miguel yelling followed by Hobie’s deadpan voice. The visual also matched the voices. Across the floor there was Miguel scolding Hobie who didn’t seem to grow an ability to give a single fuck. They constantly argued back and forth like this. Hobie did something he shouldn’t on a mission then Miguel summoned him to reprimand, but Hobie never showed up, so Miguel searched the entire HQ for the punk. Yet, Miguel never stopped giving mission after mission to Hobie. He only asked Hobie to stop taking the dimension-lost villain’s device, quit picking a fight with other universe cops, or restrain his anti-corporation self from urging literal worlds apart rebel teenagers to burn their greedy principal’s office down.

Superficially, it sounded like Miguel tried to made Hobie quit his punk-ness (or fuckery), but the lack of defiant ferocity from Hobie’s side when he argued or ignored Miguel entirely made Miles and the others noticed their grumpy vampire spider-boomer only protested Hobie’s practices only if it occurred outside the anarchist’s own dimension and had nothing to do with capturing a misplaced variant.

“You don’t know if they are like your world.” Miguel reasoned with Hobie.

“I saw Starbucks there.” Hobie reasoned right back.

Peter who was knitting a new…something nearby shrugged. “He has a point.” He smiled sheepishly as Miguel stared at him. Hobie took the chance to walk away.

“I can’t decide which one of them is weirder.”

“I vote Hobie.” Pavitr cheerfully waved his arm.

“He’s your best friend.”

“That’s how I know for sure he’s being weird.”

“Who’s being weird?”

Hobie poked his face over Gwen’s shoulder. Pavitr almost swallowed his tea into the wrong pipe. Good thing the cafeteria was quite bustling and Spider-Man variants together got even chattier so Miles could at least hide his overly sharp gasp that would give him away whom they were discussing about.

“Talking behind my back, huh?”

Or not. Hobie smirked before shooting a web to pull a chair for himself. He joined their table with ease. “What is it this time? I told you six times already I don’t have any ink on me. Also, if I did have that tat where you lot believed, how the fuck would Pav know?” Pavitr laughed out loud in glee.

“No, no, it’s not that,” said Gwen. “We are just wondering what is it between you and Miguel.”

“What between me and him?”

“You tell us!” Pavitr playfully shoved at Hobie. “Are you getting along with Miguel now?”

“Fuck. No.”

“Are you two still hating each other?”

“Why you sound like a celeb gossip journalist?” Gwen couldn’t help but ask.

“We don’t agree, that’s all.” Hobie shrugged, both hands shoved inside his jacket pockets then leaned to the side without taking the hands out to bite of pastry Pavitr offered from the younger boy’s plate. “Seriously, what’s this all about? Aren’t you supposed to be curious about Miles more? You were the 15-year-old he had a throw down with, not me.”

“It’s just weird. I couldn’t picture you putting up with all this again since you seem to hate big organization so much. I still can’t even with you right in front of me,” admitted Miles as he gestured wildly and meaninglessly at Hobie.

“When I learned about this I thought it must be the most useless assemble ever because, damn, a bunch of goofy idiots who volunteer to do this? It’s a miracle Miguel didn’t lose whatever order he tried to maintain after he recruited more than five Spider-Folk, but it’s still bound to become disorderly eventually.”

There were at least thirty Spider-Man variants in the area, chatting, eating, annoying each other or civilly exchanged conversations. Only few were by themselves yet they seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere.

“If we were to follow orders, none of us would be here. I trust that. I quit because it was sad and meaningless to look when I could be doing something else to help my band.” He and Gwen knowingly knocked theirs fist together softly. He then looked at Miles and Pavitr. “You are my guy. Pav, you too.”

“You’re really here for me!” Pavitr used his entire body to hug Hobie who laughed and Miles never knew anyone whose laughter was kinder than the anarchist. The punk and Pav were so close to fall off the chair, but many variants, so many everywhere always painted in red and blue, shot the webs, pulling them to stay still without even really looking.

As Hobie laughed openly, his eyes squinted in a way that Miles caught some bright glint within those dark eyes.

Like how you caught a bright star right before it faded into an early morn.

He didn’t understand why.

“I swear to God that young man better be in the 65,” grumbled Miguel to his watch as he rushed past Miles and Gwen on one of the complicated corridors. “Call for backup!”

Miles’s finger automatically pointed to Gwen who was pointing at herself too. “My dimension?” “Yours?” uttered in unison. The way Miguel said ‘that young man’ left no doubt whom he was grumping about.

It wasn’t strange to have whatever happened in some universe dealt by other variants if Lyla analyzed the overview and deemed that another Spider-Man was more suitable, but it was peculiar when one of them had no idea a member of their circle was supposed to be in their dimension, especially when this was about Hobie. He totally would let Gwen know he had some business to deal with in her world. They waited a bit, but apparently whatever backup Miguel mentioned to Lyla was, the two teenager here weren’t included.

The two decided to check it out. It was Gwen’s home anyway.

“You ever thought about how jumping dimensions broadened our responsibilities?” Gwen’s question pierced through the windy noised.

“It was INSANE. Every time I think about it my head hurts,” yelled back from Miles as he followed Gwen over the busy city of her New York. “Weren’t we like…local?” he sent himself up high over a block of building, flipping mid-air to balance himself for the next aim. They moved side-by-side like two synchronized rubber balls dashing weightlessly along with the city wind.

She landed on the top of a building Miles had no recognition what an equivalence of it in his New York City, yet it was tall enough for various purposes: observation, focus, searching.

“Please don’t tell me our spider sense can go to sleep and that moment is now,” said Gwen. She looked as if she wanted to slap or shake herself the way people would do to a broken television.

“I can’t sense anything either. Maybe this is not a mission?”

“What else coul --”

Then it came right to them with a sense of malicious bad omen. Miles turned, no, he was pulled to the sense of spreading, crawling ominous fate

‘Fate’

“Underground!”

The two teenager dove down, going for the nearest manhole cover. They moved through a maze of old tunnels to get to the source of this feeling as soon as possible.

The sense screamed within them louder and louder. Miles found it hard to concentrate. Everything under his skins prickled constantly until it stopped abruptly because both him and Gwen stopped their movements altogether when they reached a bottom of an abandoned shaft.

The silence here was deafening then Miles’s heartbeat tore the absence of voice so hard it could cut his auricular system.

“H -- HOBIE!”

None of them knew who screamed the name first. Before them was Spider-Punk, no one could mistake that spikes on the top of the red mask. Miles and Gwen rushed to the blood-covered form on the filthy ground. However, a strong pull physically dragged them so hard they were lifted off the ground backward. “Don’t!!!” They knew this voice. Pavitr splinted to Miles and Gwen. He caught them. The impact couldn’t send them topple. Miles got on his feet, so did Gwen, while Pavitr turned to put himself between the two and the lying form.

“Pavitr? What are you doing here? What happened to Hobie!???”

“I’m not sure. Miguel didn’t explain much! Wait, he didn’t call you two?”

“No?”

“Talk about that later! Hobie’s hurt!”

“I know!” shouted Pavitr Prabhakar. “But you can’t go near him! It already ate my bangle!” with that, Pavitr sharply turned to where Hobie was lying and shot webs at the half-dead punk’s torso. What Miles thought was blood reacted the way that was too sentient for blood. “Come on, come on, come on!” Pavitr shot more but at the ground next to Hobie this time. The sticky red slime-like being followed and swallowed the webbing on each spot like a hungry wild animal devouring its prey in one gulp.

“What the fuck is it?!”

“Ask Miguel! He only told me to keep shooting webs at it!”

Pavitr shot his webs more. The bloody slime went after its food. Despite that, Hobie didn’t look better without it on his chest. “Okay, go, go! Check Hobie. I’ll take this part to the others. If you see anything like it, take Hobie away. They told me only shoot organic webbing at it.”

“Who are the others?” asked Gwen. She dashed to kneel next to the older boy, checking his breathing. Miles took the other side and pulled off the torn mask.

“I only saw Miguel and Noir but I think there are other Spidey too! They’re fighting the other part of this gluey red in the other tunnel!” Pavitr carefully retreated back to the side tunnel he came from, luring the slime away. “I’ll come back ASAP! Take care of him!”

Hobie was still alive, barely. His pulse was weak. “Is that…a bullet wound?” Miles looked at a deep scarlet hole on Hobie’s left side in horror. It was pierced clean. Miles used his webs to stop the blood. “Hobie, please, wake up. Can you hear us?” He shook the shoulders. Gwen couldn’t let go of the punk’s wrist like the tips of her fingers were keeping his weak pulse from fading away.

Then the closed eyelids move before slowly half-opened. Hobie winced. “Miles? G -- Gwendy?” Miles never saw Hobie looking this worn out. “Where -- I saw -- be careful --”

“Miles, his fingers.”

Gwen held up Hobie’s hand a bit higher. The arm of his costume, from the elbow to the hand, was torn, revealing cut skin and weirdly black color spreading over the anarchist’s point and middle fingers. It was nothing like bruises. “What is this?”

“It’s -- alright.” It was not if you asked Miles. Hobie sounded so out of strength to the point that there was nothing about this could be categorized as ‘alright’ and Miles wanted to deck anyone who said otherwise including Hobie himself.

“It will be alright. I have no idea what’s happening, but, hey, I stop the bleeding and Pavitr’s joining the other to deal with this red slime. You’ll be alright.”

“Miles’s right, you just have to stay awake, Hobie. I know you hate order, but you have to stay awake!” begged Gwen.

“He called me…bankable, that bastard.” Hobie’s breathe hitched. “At least this way he can’t profit off me, I guess. Sucker.” The sharp facial feathers all twisted from the pain and the attempt to grin.

“What -- what are you talking about?”

“Fate is changeable, mate….Doesn’t mean it’s easy, does it?.

Hobie didn’t sound hurt. He sounded isolated.

He sounded content yet lonely.

“Damn, I’m…really not a role model. You lot are though. Did Prove them all...”

“Hobie, open your eyes! HOBIE!” Gwen shook him harder.

But after Hobie’s eyes shut once more, they stayed that way. The black mark on his fingers grew rapidly bigger. It was reaching Hobie’s forearm --

“What the fuck is this. Stop -- STOP! I won’t let you take him!!!!”

Miles grabbed right onto the color changing hand. It wasn’t even what his spider sense guided him to do, it was what Hobie told him.

Reach out.

‘Use the palm, not just your fingers.’

The unleashed bioelectricity rushed in a strong wave from Miles’s palm straight to Hobie’s arm. The black mark stopped in its track immediately. “It…it worked?” Hobie’s pulse also continued in its weak state.

“This mark and that slime…shit,” cursed the Spidey in white costume. “Miles, I think this is about Venom or at least some kind of the symbiote. He might lose consciousness because of it, not the bleeding.”

“The alien that looks like if slime has anger issue and sharp teeth? Isn’t it more sentient than that?” Miles hadn’t come across any Venom yet it his ‘canon events’ included that being at all, but Peter talked about the older man’s own encounter with one once. That red hungry slime Pavitr lured away like scattering a trail of breadcrumbs for a pigeon didn’t keep a single similarity to it.

“I never heard fixing any Venom-related issue by feeding it our webbing either but that slime, wrong color aside, and this mark on Hobie’s arm? I think it’s really about the symbiote. Hobie had to face one on his own too years ago. Shit, Miles, it’s spreading again! Shock it!”

“You mean shock Hobie again!”

“Focus on shocking the mark. It must be a part or some effect from that red slime.”

Pulling off her own mask, Gwen grabbed Miles face with both of her hands. “I know he looks so vulnerable and you’re not used to this, neither am I, but Hobie’s still just like us. He has the same durability like us to get back up again every time, just like you.” Her lips trembled. “We will save each other. We already promised.”

‘Reach’

‘Reach’

‘Reach out’

Reach for the sky even when you knew you couldn’t touch it on your own. You still would remember how your fist curled so tight trying to grab the star.

In your palm, even in broad day light that hide the cold light of the star, you could remember it well and find it again and again and again, right within your reach.

‘Do it’

He burned the black mark on Hobie’s arm away from the Spider-Punk with bioelectricity weaved from him like golden webbing. Hobie’s whole frame arched with the screaming voice broke out from the now pale lips. The mark retreat back to Hobie’s fingertips then released itself out. It turned red like the previous slime, shooting itself out, getting away from them.

“OH NO YOU FUCKING WILL NOT YOU MOTHERFUCKING GODFORSAKEN PARASITE”

Next to Miles was something that made him want to take back the ‘The alien that looks like if slime has anger issue and sharp teeth’ comment because ‘The alien that looks like if GWEN has anger issue and sharp teeth’ was right there. Her form looks almost the same, all lithe and dainty as expected from an ex-ballet dancer who maintained their shape by fighting crimes, except for the white color on her costume was now consumed by pitch darkness. The spider pattern was covered with a beast mouth filled with fangs across her torso and with that mouth she devoured the fleeing red part of a symbiote right in front of Miles.

Under the darkness engulfing Gwen’s form, a glimpse of red brightened up for a second or two. Miles sensed the struggling of both side. Eventually the black color erased every drop of red altogether. It was swallowed.

A beat of silence like how a world could go still for a moment after someone’s head was chopped off, that was how Miles felt until he found his words. “Um…Gwanda?”

The white color gradually returned. The blue eyes met Mile’s brown ones. “It’s still Gwen.”

“So you know about Venom because…”

“I have one in me, yeah. It was not long after we parted the first time. I lost my power for a while.”

“Didn’t know it broadened you palate like that too,” the weak voice joined.

“Hobie!” called Miles in utmost relief yet it didn’t stay with him long as Hobie struggled to get up and still looked so pale, face all sweaty, right arm burned. He clutched at the bandage wound on his left side. The younger Spider-Man helped the older one sat up. “How are you feeling?”

Miles went cold when he noticed the web bandage he made was turning red. The bleeding started anew.

“Like shit,” the punk chuckled to himself tiredly. He was panting. “Shame you all are here, do a miracle worker, yet I couldn’t just dodge this shitty bullet, sorry.”

“Seriously, Hobie, we don’t know what are you talking about --”

“I die young. I died young.”

The other two went still. “What?”

“I don’t have any much clearer understanding of this than any of you.” Hobie’s other hand went into Miles’s hair, ruffling it. “Sorry, man.”

“Stop apologizing and tell me why your wound’s bleeding again. It stopped a minute ago! I can tell! I’m taking you back to the HQ. We will get help --”

“A weird-ass variant mixed from the Osborn I killed and a broken glitch of the symbiote made this hole. Lyla analyzed it already. She said it left part of it inflicted to the wound, some time, space, dimension-related complications. This can’t heal as long as it lives. It’s like I decided to avoid shitty thing so said thing got more persistent and worse.”

Hobie squeezed Miles’s wrist which only let the latter sensed how trembling the wounded friend was right now.

“But they’re being Spider-Man and it's good this time, so not everything is bad.”

‘Don’t stop just because sometimes it’s not enough.’

He hated Hobie now. When Hobie wanted to understand someone, like Miles, he got them all. He guided, he helped, and he was honest with them. He was as gentle and kind as how he was fierce and sharp. However, Hobie was always also cloaked with deadpan remarks and false impression that his characterizations were so obvious what he stood for everyone felt like they knew him. The truth was the only knew of him, no one understood him. No one had a single insight of what lied behind his defiance. It was so natural that he was in Miles’s arms like this, talking, yet Miles understood none of it. He had no idea what was going on. He hated Hobie like this very much.

“I’ll make this enough, so you can breathe without bleeding simultaneously to explain it to me later. Gwen.”

“I got him. Go!”

Miles left Hobie to Gwen. He had to find Pavitr, the others, and whatever piece of shit responsible for Hobie’s non-stop bleeding injury.

“You alright there, Gwendy? No alien gooey slime hurting your stomach?”

“You’re so uncool, worrying about me when you’re like this. Get better quick or I’m telling the others.”

“What a cruel mistress friend of mine.”

They were no longer inside any old secret tunnel. Miles followed the wreckage back above the ground, right to an alley between two mid-rise buildings. Miles pulled himself to the side when a trash can flew right at him. No civilians nearby, so at least there was no screaming or complaint about the contents from the trash flying every where when it crashed hard in to a streetlight behind.

Miles saw Pavitr, Noir, and “S – Spider-Cat?” he blinked, the cat was still there, engaging in the fight with eight-foot-tall scarlet slime. “You called Spider-Cat to help about Hobie but not me and Gwen, no offense, but full offense!” Miles threw himself toward them while also avoided getting in someone’s way. The cat hissed at him then went back shooting the webbing from its mouth at the slime. From what he saw, everyone except Miguel mostly just shot webs to feed the enemy and dodge its attack at the same time. Miguel was the only one who was attacking it with his crawls.

“We called for those who have organic webbing!” yelled back the older Spider-Man. “We never met something like this before. It’s made of something that existed in the past separately but from the same world.”

“Hobie’s?”

“And it wants him.” The left crawl tore at the slime. "It’s been leeching off Hobie’s energy to manifest itself in the same plane with him. This kind of link enables it to manipulate the wound. That’s why I have it analyzed to find a way to alter its structure from him or we can’t really kill it. We destroy this and it still exists through the wound it put on Hobie. Most things we use exist across many dimensions until Lyla found that each of Spider-Man who can create organic webbing is unique enough for that.”

“What? How the fuck is that even possible???”

“Spider-Punk’s bound to cause it to exist, to born.” Noir came back to them. “Changing a canon event is one thing as we have witnessed but that boy has been delaying it. That’s new. Canon events have to happen, one way or another.”

“How did Hobie --”

“Dimension hopping,” answered Miguel. “I told him to stay out of Earth-138 as much as possible. I tried to make him stop doing anything he usually does too because when you heard Spider-Punk’s going to die young then becomes the idea, there are not many causes to make a hypothesis or two.”

The crawls tore the slime apart into two this time. Miguel kept both sides pierced to his sharp crawls while the others shot the webs as fast as they could at it. The moment it was close to get away Miguel slammed it back together again once more.

“This is insane. Hobie’s bleeding down there. How long will it take for this thing to be separated enough for him?”

“The red color is from Hobie’s blood.” Pavitr landed next to Miles. They were both grabbing the same metal balcony. “Lyla has been analyzing it all this time. She’ll tell us when it’s not connected to Hobie even more. How’s he?”

“He’s not good. The wound is getting worse after we got rid of the mark this thing left within him. He wasn’t bleeding when the mark was turning his arm black and might cover all over his body.”

“No, no, no. Miguel, we have to find a faster way!” Pavitr plead.

Always cheerful, forever optimistic, never without humor and energy Pavitr Prabhakar. Miles was hoping Pavitr could come with some wild, crazy idea as he tried to lift the mood with some humor in desperate time. They anxiously joked all the time anyway.

“I don’t want to lose him!” not ‘Come on, Hobie promised me not to let the Brit take anything from me’ Not even ‘Why don’t we put this thing in a fridge, yeah?’ It’s just plain “I will do anything. I will not let Hobie die! Please don’t let him die. We changed fate so many times why can’t we do it this time too!”

Then it hit Miles. “Pavits’s right. Can’t we make it happen now? This is what should kill Hobie, right? Then let Hobie kill it. Set the event back on its track! We cut their link this way instead because the event will happen and end!”

“That’s what he tried to do here at first but his condition now is far from ready to fight,”

There was a moment the red color blipped, as if it was about to change color, but still not. Miles couldn’t wait longer. “He can. He’s Hobie, he will do it. He only needs some help. Everyone, step aside!”

The help from Miles Morales came in as the strongest venom strike Miguel had ever seen. He couldn’t care less that he felt like he burned his own nerve system and dry his own blood in the veins with it. Miles would gladly do more as long as Pavit didn’t have to cry, so Gwen never lost another friend, for himself to never be afraid to reach as far as he could, and then farther, further, for the ones he loved would always be on the other side, reaching back.

‘You’re on your way. Just keep going.’

“This is lame.”

“Please, Hobie, not being cool for once in your life won’t kill you.”

And the guy had such a nerve to laugh with the cursed-like hole in his torso poring out blood. Gwen brought him out of the tunnel to them. The webbing Miles used on his wound was now soaking wet. Pavitr helped holding Hobie up so Hobie was on his knees. Gwen held the guitar for him.

The red slime exploded into pieces when Miles blasted it with the bioelectricity, just like how the webbing reacted to his venom strike. The others caught every single gooey drop of it in the webbing. The gooey beings moved against the sticking nest, trying to get back in to one big form. Miles couldn’t really tell whether the vision or the noise was creepier.

Hobie coughed and for a moment everyone was afraid that would take him out, but the punk grinned. He took this chance to detached from Pavitr and snatched the instrument from Gwen to hold it by himself right before they could protest. He plucked the guitar, sending the sonic wave amplified through the set-up Gwen and Noir help prepared in short time straight to the entire webs that almost covered the entire alley in white and red. His melody was strong, quick, fierce, and very Hobie, the Spider-Punk.

Miles concluded even at the lamest Hobie could complained, the punk was still quite cool.

The wound started to heal the moment the slime, the symbiote died, (for the third time, according to Hobie), but it didn’t return the blood he lost, so Hobie collapse not long after that. He was unconscious before their feet touched the HQ’s ground.

Despite anyone there except for the Spider-Cat could carry Hobie to the medical wing just fine, Miguel carried the anarchist on his back to take him there himself. Many looked without commenting anything.

“Not long after I recruited Hobie, he became quite reckless. Too reckless. We argued.”

“You were endangering yourself unnecessarily.”

“Is it though? I’m going to die young anyway. Any risk seems necessary if you ask me.”

“At the time, I thought he was being sarcastic to me and to his life.”

Miles listened as Miguel explained from the start. They gathered around his work station like the day he first arrived here.

“But after everything, after you, Miles, I put a thought in everything I thought I knew. I recalled how Hobie reacted toward you and it finally dawned on me.”

“That he has been doing the same thing?” Gwen solemnly looked at the blue sneakers. They used to belong to Hobie but when she eventually returned, he insisted she should keep wearing them.

“He told me about a man who came from his future revealed to him that he was going to die young. That man wanted to take Hobie to the future with him because he had been profiting from Spider-Punk’s image because in the future, he owned the copyrights of Hobie.”

“Like Disney owns Mickey Mouse?” Miles wasn’t sure he heard it right or had the correct understanding.

Miguel nodded.

“H O W?”

“It’s not as complicated as it sounds. Think of all the Spider-Man merch in your world.”

“I know, but that just people putting cartoon picture of Spider-Man on everything. Anyone can do it. How can one own the right to Spider-Man?”

“No one knows for sure but we can deduce it’s something like Hobie dies with many witnesses. He dies for the cause, becomes famous and a martyr. Spider-Punk is gone shortly afterward too so the public in his world connects the dots with no one to confirm. He’s turned into a myth because his front is still ‘Hobie Brown, the known freedom fighter’ and the conspiracy theory goes behind his name with ‘He’s the Spider-Man’, then imagine some big corporation taking this theory into making it a movie. To the public, Hobie Brown being the Spider-Man is not a fact but an interpretation of a famous historical event, so the Hobie Brown who is the Spider-Man becomes fictional character and is owned by the corporation.”

“None of us should know how and when it actually happens. One day I noticed how he’s been showing up here more often so I asked. He told me about sensing that it’s coming soon so he decided to avoid his dimension and wait it out. I didn’t think that would be enough. Canon Events are persistent, as you can see.”

Miles gulped. Suddenly it made sense why they all hopped from another universe to another with ease but none of them messed with time. He had seen Peter variants geeked over clean energy theories or just ‘what you used with your webs?’ or just arguing to troll each other that centaur should be categorized as insect or not. Even with the concept of Canon Event right in front of them, taking a peek into the future for a clue was out of question, but some capitalist prick threw it straight at Hobie’s face, unasked. Miguel paused for a second like he noticed how the gears turned inside Miles’s head then continued.

“I was afraid while Hobie was, well, practicing his belief, his cause, in the other world, there could be a chance of him dying there and became famous just the same so I suggested him not to do that but…” Miguel’s head dropped a bit with a sigh. “Well, if he ever listened to me, he wouldn’t be Spider-Punk. And obviously it didn’t help at all. We just didn’t have a single idea he felt his death was happening soon because that could be the moment that thing started leeching off his life mana. We still have no further data to tell what is it but at least it’s destroyed now.”

“Wait – wait! Go back for a bit please.” Miles shot up, his heart beat faster. “Does this mean…all this time Hobie has been trying to – die outside his dimension?”

“It’s not like he was looking for a place to die, Miles.” The older man argued softly. “He couldn’t be sure how to change or conquer the fate so at least he wanted it altered. He didn’t want to be monetized.”

“But why didn’t he tell anyone of us?” He told you. Miles held back what he actually wanted to scream out.

Then Miguel was in front of him, his almost seven-feet-tall frame towering over the three teenagers. “You will have to ask him that yourself but I can tell you this.” He took a breath then exhaled out in the calmest manner Miles ever seen from the men. “He told me, opened up to me, because of you.”

This was Miguel, speaking to Miles. The boy looked up back at him in disbelief. “I think he has always believed bad things can be changed, prevented, better. But it’s you who showed him he, no, none of us have to believe it quietly on our own.”

“Because that’s what he showed me.”

“And you reciprocated back to him. He believed in us again. He trusted me enough to tell me about this because of you. You helped me save one of us again, so, thank you, Miles.”

Miguel O’Hara was finally right. Miles or Hobie, they were one of them.

Before all this Miguel was a husband and a father, the same things other people shared. Miles had seen how his dad treated these two parts of him; with love and dedication. Past the anger, hatred, paranoid, and broken ripples of false hope so the man found true hope to live for, it finally became clear to Miles why Miguel still bothered with all of them especially the young variants. Gwen was like what if his daughter grew up to take interest in joining a band? Hobie was like what if his daughter learned about the unfairness of the world and wanted to become an activist? Pavitr was like what if she could stay warm and cheerful, taking the world with smile? While other variants who were adults became a pool of best wishes, that they, any of them or all of them, would get to keep what Miguel had lost. Peter B. was at the beginning of new journey Miguel missed. That was why the Spider Society stayed.

Miles walked into their medical wing with that notion. It made him less surprised to see Peter B. on a chair next to the bed where Hobie was resting. Mostly Peter only needed to keep Mayday from playing with blood transfusion line connected to Hobie, or climbing to sit on the punk’s chest. (Hobie always let her sit there and paint his face whenever he took the babysit duty and Mayday never saw Hobie slept before, so she thought he was waiting for her face painting like usual.) Peter also occasionally wiped the young boy’s face and arms with a wet cloth. “He has quite a fever. Jess thinks it’s from his body fighting away whatever left from that thing’s attempt to alter his body.”

Miles carefully dragged another chair to sit, eyes finding it hard to leave the injured frame on the medical bed. The one reassuring feeling this image provided Miles was how Hobie looked a lot better. He didn’t seem to be dying anymore. “Did he tell you too?” asked Miles.

“No. I don’t think he wanted to.”

“Why? And please don’t tell me to wait to ask him. I want to know what I’m facing.”

Peter sighed. “I don’t think he’s scared or tried to protect you or anything. He knew you would hate that.” Peter put the cloth on the rim of the metal basin. “Someone like him is sensitive to what people they cherish hate. I know that much.”

“Then what is the sensible reason about all this?”

“Do you know why I didn’t go to you the moment I could?”

Miles looked at Peter, then at Mayday in her father’s lap. She was still trying to poke Hobie awake.

“Yes.” Peter nodded to himself. “But not the way you think. I finally had it, my wife, my kid, my love, I couldn’t go to you because I couldn’t bring myself to just tell someone like Miguel he was wrong about everything while I had no evidence. I only had my guts that you were not a mistake. The everything back then was the only thing kept Miguel going. Maybe you, Gwen, and Pavitr not knowing was the only thing kept Hobie going while he waited for the answer too.”

Miles took Mayday when Peter needed to washed Hobie’s sweats once more. The young Spider-Man watched his friend’s twisted face gradually relaxed, Mayday warm between his hands but never stay still. He was glad Peter had her as his daughter. She wanted Hobie to wake up already and Miles liked her for that.

“Peter.”

“Hm?”

“I missed you.”

Peter hugged him tight. “I missed you too, kiddo.”

“Universe, fate, destiny, Canon Events, they are like wind if you ask me.” The hand stretched out, didn’t aim to catch anything specifically. They bathed in sunlight and shadow. “Can’t really communicate with it. You get a superbeing something with an ability to control wind and it’s gonna be just that, just like how human find a way to forge metal or utilize fire. It’s never an actual conversational relationship between us and the wind or the universe. I think it just flow to us, past us, with us. When we try to stop it, alter it, change it, It doesn’t understand. It just wants to flow. It doesn’t hate or feel annoyed. It finds its way to love us too sometimes.”

Miguel brought up the old record to look at his family. Lyla peeked from behind his shoulder, staring at the same girl in football jersey, but this time it wasn’t the same old record on loop until Miguel could bring himself to rest for the day. The record file changed to the new one after what was currently playing ended. This time it was a video of Mayday eating caramelized popcorn for the first time with her mom. Mary Jane said hi, emphasizing to Miguel directly her daughter had used up the quota of sweets of the week so don’t he let Peter give Mayday any more treat at the HQ. I’m not dealing with high sugar spider-child, Miguel. Stop enabling them.

Lyla sneaked a snapshot of Miguel’s side profile as he smiled to himself.

A day of full rest and Hobie was better. His fever hadn’t completely gone yet but the wound closed nicely and he wasn’t as sick. Jessica had the final words that the punk still couldn’t leave the medical wing so Miles and the others stay with him in there around Hobie’s bed.

“Why you look weird in one color and to think we have Noir.” Pavitr couldn’t help but gesture at Hobie’s whole attire of just long-sleeved black lounge t-shirt numerous sizes too big for the punk and black sweatpants. No spiky decorating, and no leather jacket on a sick guy, also no Spider-Man suit. It was as strange as seeing Peter B. anywhere nowadays without his pink bathrobe or Mayday or both. They didn’t make Hobie took off his piercings though.

The four played card game which must be the most dishonest game in Miles’s life since everyone tried to use one or two of their abilities to cheat.

“But seriously, Hobie, what is that thing?”

Hobie paused the card shuffling hands. He resumed when he found his voice for this. “You all know by now I killed Osborn. During my three years of being Spider-Man, I killed him twice.”

“What?” exclaimed Gwen.

“Yeah. He came back once. My band defeated him again.” Resting his arms on both knees, Hobie hummed a soft low noise in the throat. “I was sent to Gwendy’s world here to retrieve some lost boomer back to his world. When I was about to go myself, it appeared, hurt a copper nearby before eating her gun. Then it shot me, mimicking how a gun shooting a bullet. That was when I felt. It’s him. It was Osborn. He was to come back again for the third time and killed me. Maybe we killed each other. Osborn was obsessed with symbiotes. No wonder he and that shit found each other fourth wall breaking style to haunt my ass.”

Hobie breathed harder as if his head was hurting him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell any of you.” His gentle gaze directed to Miles and the younger boy lost every question he had for Hobie before coming to visit. “That man from the future, Kan or something, not gonna remember that piece of shit, but he didn’t spill just one crap. He told me and my friend, Karl, that Karl will live long until he’s all old and grey. I – I was happy for him, but Karl wasn’t. It’s been weird between us since. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about this with anyone I count as friends. It’s a good thing Miguel is so far from it.”

Gwen squeezed Hobie’s wrist, telling him she understood. Miles silently moved himself from the chair to sit next to Hobie on the bed, not really caring about the card game anymore.

“I’m glad at least you told Miguel.”

“Me too, mate.”

It took a while before Pavitr chipped in. “Do you think your friend’s afraid?”

“Of me dying?”

“No, Hobie, you silly. That was obvious. Of course, he’s afraid of that but if he was afraid of just that, he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. I wouldn’t neither. But I mean, you two fight together in your world, right? Maybe he’s afraid that he gets to live long and you die so young because he quits, or that he leaves you?”

“No way. Karl’s Captain Anarchy. He leaves no one behind.”

Pavitr shrugged. “We don’t trust in ourselves as much as others trust us. Look at Gwen.”

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry but among us four, you’re the peak epitome of self-hatred.”

“That’s not a sorry!”

Hobie grabbed Miles’s shoulder hard, leaning to him, because he was laughing and despite the fast healing, it still hurt the punk’s side.

But overall, they were fine.

“So, Miguel constantly reprimanded you for your sake, huh?”

“Nah, I was on his nerve. He’s our boomer still.”

“What a relief.”