Chapter Text
Let’s try this again.
Peter Parker was twenty-six.
He had never seen a radioactive spider, much less been bitten by one.
Which was a problem, really, because he was fairly certain that if he did not see a radioactive spider by five o’clock Friday, the only thing he would be doing on the weekend was lying in a cheap casket. If there was enough of him left to bury.
“C’mon, Queenie. One more time. Try not to shit out all the good stuff this time, okay?” As he spoke, he gingerly picked up a brilliant teal fly corpse from his petri dish and opened the large tank that took up most of his workspace. Inside, waiting patiently on her web, was an unnaturally large orb weaver.
Peter carefully placed the corpse on it and gave it a little wiggle. The vibrations reverberated up through the web. “Din din!”
The spider immediately began to move.
“There we go, good girl.”
As the spider quickly approached her prey, Peter took the time to take out his own lunch. “Anya, start today’s lab log.”
The virtual assistant spoke in a soft voice. “Lab Log #426 started.”
“Try twelve at reproducing Dr. Barron’s work on genetic manipulation with radioactive particles,” he said. “Test subject #3 is currently wrapping the delivery vehicle up in a very neat cocoon. Nice job, Queenie.”
Peter Parker had been working at Alchemax for two years. He had been making it work as a run of the mill researcher in one of the smaller labs. At least until he had been too good at his job and caught the eye of Doc Ock after the last three heads of genetic engineering had mysteriously disappeared.
She had given him a single task, one that had belonged to each head before him. One that they all failed.
Recreate a genetically modified, radioactive spider that had gone missing over a year ago.
Or else.
As he sat and ate his plain ham and cheese sandwich, absently watching Queenie begin to suck the juices out of her prize, he was completely unaware that, in another universe, an alarm dinged.
“Miguel!” Lyla called. “We’ve got a new Spider-Man incoming, and I think you’ll want to see this one!”
There was a tired scowl on Miguel O’Hara’s face when he turned away from the screens in front of him to look at his holographic assistant. He arched a brow at her, but he came over to see what she was indicating. “Why are you saying it like that? Is there something special about this one, or-“
Lyla did not let him finish, pushing another screen right in front of him, and the moment Miguel saw, he understood. The air disappeared from his lungs. “Which Earth is this?”
“This is Earth-42.”
Miguel’s eyes snapped to her, glaring. “Ha ha. Tell me where this is, Lyla.”
Her expression was serious for once as she said, “I did. Look.” She made the screen zoom out so that the skyscape of a different but familiar New York City was shown. “This Peter Parker has created his own spider.”
“How?” Miguel asked, studying the screen.
“Just watch,” was Lyla’s reply.
For a few minutes, it was fairly boring. This Peter - blond, blue-eyed, too much like another certain Peter - finished his sandwich and wrinkled his nose when he realized he got crumbs all over himself. He then poured himself the last of a pot of coffee from a beaten-up coffee maker that looked really out of place among all the high-dollar tech, and started a fresh batch despite the fact it was past noon.
Then he glanced at the tank and gasped. “You’re glowing!”
Forgetting all about the coffee, he raced over to the tank and opened it. “C’mere, c’mere, let me see—“ He held his hand out flat and carefully scooped it under the spider’s legs until she crawled onto his palm. “Look at your tarsus! They turned the same color as the fly! I gotta get you over to do some tests — ow! ”
Irritated or overwhelmed by his excitement, the spider had sunk her fangs into the soft flesh of his palm.
Unlike most of his ilk, who would slap, fling, or otherwise dislodge the spider, Peter just took it with a wince. It was not the first time a lab subject had bitten him.
“Sorry, sorry, I’ll calm down, jeez, don’t have to get all rude on me.” He was much more gentle as he carried her over to a small machine.
For an event that was so life-altering and universe impacting, watching it happen seemed so mundane. The spider had bitten him and at any moment the effects of its venom would begin to show. There was a brand new Spider-Man for Miguel to keep track of, in one of the most dangerous universes imaginable.
And more than that, he looked so much like Peter Parker from Earth-1610B, it made Miguel’s pulse thump rapidly.
It was another few moments before he realized he was hearing his name. “Miguuuuel,” Lyla called to him.
He snapped back to himself. “What?”
“Do you want me to send someone to handle it?” she asked, already swiping through the catalog of universes to check who to call on.
Miguel shook his head. “Not yet. We need to monitor how he handles this.” His eyes stayed glued to the screen. He knew that it wasn't the Peter he once knew, but it was hard to convince his heart that who he was seeing was someone else.
Peter had coaxed the spider into a little carrier box, and was clacking away at a keyboard. “Just hold still a second—“ He lit up as success messages started appearing on his screen. “That’s it! The readings are matching up! Hell ye—“ He started to fist pump, planning to do a little victory dance around the lab before running down the hall, when the dizziness took over. Stumbling, he caught himself on the table. “Oh. Maybe— maybe telling the Doc can wait a minute,” he mumbled to himself as he aimed for the closest chair.
“He works for a Doctor Octavius,” Lyla mentioned casually. “Letting her have that spider would probably be bad.”
“That would have been helpful to lead with,” Miguel grumbled to Lyla, though she just shrugged. But she looked at him expectantly, and he thought there was a look in her eyes that showed she knew what he was about to do and didn’t think it was the best idea. Which shouldn’t be possible, she was an AI.
“I’ll go,” he said, and the way her face scrunched a little confirmed that was the look he was seeing. Miguel’s defensiveness reared up and he glared at her. “What?” he snapped.
Lyla held her hands up, but the wonderful and terrible thing about her was that she was not programmed to spare his feelings. “You have an emotional history with a blond Peter Parker from a closely related universe,” she pointed out bluntly. “It is likely that the similarities will cause impaired judgment.” Then her personality model kicked back in and she shrugged, flopping back into a non-existent chair. “That’s what my algorithm predicts, anyway. What do I know, I’m just a computer.”
“I didn’t have anything with that Peter,” Miguel replied bitterly, his mouth curving down into the frown that was not a pout, no matter what Hobie or Peter B. said. He looked away from Lyla so he couldn’t see whatever expression she directed his way, thinking that he shouldn’t have programmed her to have expressions at all.
He still heard the little tutting sound she made, and his shoulders rose, tense. Before she could say anything else, he said, “I’ll be back. Let all agents know I’m on a mission.”
“Yeah yeah, I’ll let them know.” He did not have to look at her to know she was waving her hand dismissively. “Your chat status is always on Do Not Disturb anyway.”
She automatically set his watch to Earth-42 for him.
On the screen, the newly minted Spider-Man was running his hands through his blond hair and coaching himself to take deep breaths.
Miguel did not respond to Lyla. He pressed the new coordinates on his watch and the portal formed in front of him, orange light spilling from it. He glanced to the screen one more time, just for a moment, steeling himself. Then his mask formed across his face in rapid pixels and he walked through.
The sensation of going to another universe was common for him now. There was the rush of everything he was leaving falling apart into colors that mixed and then merged into the different colors of where he was going. And this universe’s colors were dark.
The portal opened up in front of him to reveal a corner of the lab he’d been looking at on a monitor just moments ago. As Miguel stepped through, he could tell there was no hiding himself. He was in plain sight of the Peter in front of him.
That, and Peter was staring openly at him.
Here Peter had been wondering if he had developed a sudden allergy to spider bites, and thinking maybe he should go beg an EpiPen off of one of the lab techs - he thought that Miller was allergic to bees and had one - and then everything in the room not bolted down started lifting into the air.
Then a giant orange portal opened in the corner of the room and let out a terrifyingly tall man in a super costume.
Peter had grabbed Queenie’s box instinctively and was now clutching it against his chest in the same manner that an anxious middle schooler held their textbooks.
“Oh no, no, no.” He had just succeeded. He had his ticket to living another week. Maybe even a month. Now was not the time for some villain versus villain beef.
Peter swallowed hard. “Uh, are you looking for the Doc? She’s down the hall, to the right.” It was worth a shot. “Or Doctor Connors? I can page him –”
The defensive body language was not the expected reaction. Miguel took one step forward, the portal sealing shut behind him, but didn’t go any further. “Not this time,” he said. “You’re the reason I’m here.” He paused, then gestured to the chair Peter had shot up from. “You might want to sit down. You’re kind of swaying.”
He wasn’t bitten, himself, but he remembered the effects of the spider DNA splicing with his own. And he’d seen the effects in so many others. It always ranged. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad. Other times it was excruciating. At least this Peter only seemed a little wobbly so far.
“Oh.” The super being after Peter in particular was really bad. There was only one reason a super would show up right now for him.
If he let this guy have the spider, spending the weekend in a pine box was back on the table.
Running was not an option. He did not know what this guy’s powers were, but his bulging thigh muscles did not give the impression he was slow.
And there was the fact Peter was swaying. That too.
He sat heavily, the chair squeaking under his weight. “Uh, how can I help you, um, sir?” Slowly, he shifted back, letting the lab chair roll towards his desk. Wasn’t there an alarm button around here somewhere? He should have paid more attention during the annual safety compliance training.
Those movements were definitely the actions of someone trying to find a way to escape or sound an alarm, and Miguel barely managed to resist a groan. He did sigh. “Don’t do that.” With a thwip of his wrist, he sent out a web. It latched to Peter’s chair, and all Miguel had to do was draw his arm back so Peter came rolling across the room toward him. “I really don’t want to have to deal with your Doc Ock right now, and neither do you.”
So maybe Peter uttered a little scream when that glowing red thread shot out and sent him on a trip across the room. Shit, this guy was even bigger up close. Maybe not Rhino big, but definitely in the upper percentile of normal human limits big.
When the chair stopped rolling, it left Peter just a couple of feet in front of him. Miguel stared at him, his throat constricting. He knew this face, or at least, he knew one so close to it. One that he would never see again. The same ache he felt when he sat in his office watching old home videos hit him. “Things are going to start getting strange, but I’m here to help,” he finally managed to say. “I’m Spider-Man. And so are you, now.”
“Yeah, because things definitely aren’t weird right now,” Peter quipped before he caught himself. He cringed, scolding himself internally. Damn it, Peter, do not piss off the super. “Sorry! Sorry. Spider-Man? Cool name.” Humor the guy, Peter.
Why were his thoughts so loud?
Miguel’s snippiness got the best of him. “Did you not just hear me say you’re Spider-Man too? Why are you saying it’s ‘cool’ like it’s really not cool? It is cool. It-” He tilted his head back, made an annoyed sound for being drawn in and distracted, then snapped his gaze back down to this Peter, who did look genuinely nervous. “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a good guy. I’m here to help you.”
To try to show some sort of proof of that, he severed the web thread with the talon on his thumb so that the chair was free to be rolled around again. “You should come with me.”
Peter laughed nervously, eyeing that claw.
A good guy.
There was no such thing as a good super. Everyone knew that. The closest thing was the Prowler, and he was still scary as hell. But if this guy wanted to play good cop, that was better for Peter than the alternative.
“Look,” he said slowly. “I’m, um- being a Spider-Man sounds cool and all. I mean it! Having claws, definitely cool.” And terrifying. “But I really, really have to go give this spider to my boss before I go anywhere.”
He felt a sudden pang of regret that had nothing to do with the man in front of him. It was stupid to get attached to any lab animal, much less insect, but Peter never managed to keep himself from it. He cried when Specimen #1 died. Cried harder with #2. “Don’t worry, she’ll take care of you,” he mumbled to the box. “She’ll have to, you’re really valuable.” He did not know if he was trying to assure the spider or himself.
It was reflex, when Miguel sent out the next web and it attached to the little bug container. He could perfectly hear the way Peter spoke quietly to the spider inside and had to repress the urge to want to squash it. If they killed it, then it could not get into the wrong hands. But he was not that big an asshole.
Well, not anymore. He guessed he did chase Miles up a train, but that was over half a year ago.
He pulled and the webbing whipped the cage out of Peter’s hands and into his own. “You really, really aren’t going to do that. That’s a tremendously bad idea. You can bring it with us. She won’t be able to follow. And if she manages to, I’ll take care of it.” He tucked the cage between bicep and chest so he could reset his watch back to Nueva York.
“Hey!” Peter launched out of his chair, grabbing for the container, true panic in his eyes. He heard the guy’s words, but they did not make sense. It was Doc Ock. She was the leader of the Cabal of Six. Some random guy in a blue leotard wasn’t going to be able to take her.
They’d both die.
He did not actually expect to be able to pull the box out of the man’s grip. The man was ripped, and Peter was a scrawny scientist who was 170 pounds sopping wet.
But the plastic seemed to stick to his fingers, and he yanked it back with a strength he had no idea he had.
There was a heartbeat where he stood there, stunned by himself.
Then he bolted for the door.
The moment the box was pulled from his arm, Miguel’s stomach dropped. He really did not want to have to come here and do anything drastic to try to get this Peter to come with him. But it seemed like he was not going to have any choice. At least Peter’s powers were new, though they definitely seemed to be there, considering that it made Miguel stagger slightly when he jerked the spider away.
“Hey! No!” he shouted, chasing after Peter. It took him five strides to cross the room and get to the door first, though he barely managed it, and he braced himself for the impact of Peter running right into him.
Which Peter did. He managed to turn at the last second, shielding the container from the impact, at the cost of ramming his shoulder into Miguel’s abdomen. It was like hitting a brick wall. He staggered back, clutching the box like a lifeline. Inside, on the fake web Peter had carefully made, the spider clung tight.
“You don’t understand,” he babbled, face white with terror. “If I don’t give the Doc this spider, I won’t just lose my job. I will die. She will hunt me down.”
Miguel was used to dealing with panic, but that didn’t mean he was the best at calming people down. He learned a while ago that trying to lift up his hands didn’t really do much good, because then people focused on his claws and it just didn’t go well. So instead he folded his arms, keeping the doorway blocked, and kept his tone calm even through his building irritation.
“She’s going to kill you either way, probably,” he said.
Ok, so he was outright bad at calming people down.
He winced at himself, pressing on. “If all she wants from you is that spider, unless she has something else to keep you around for, she isn't going to want you telling anyone what you’ve been doing working for her. That’s just a guess, but if I know Doc Ock, and I know a lot of them, that’s what’s gonna happen. I can keep you safe, you just have to come with me.”
There was solid reasoning behind what he said. For all of his emotions, Peter was a rational man at heart. He was a scientist, after all.
And it was not like he had not considered that possibility before.
Go with this strange Spider-Man and possibly die, or go to Doc Ock and possibly die.
In the end, Queenie was the deciding factor. She was his successful experiment. She had been his only company. He was afraid of what the Doc wanted to use her for. If he went to Doc Ock, he definitely wouldn’t get to keep her. If he went with this man, there was a chance he would.
“Okay.” His voice was very small. “But I’m holding onto her.”
“Fine,” Miguel responded. He stayed still for a moment, assessing whether or not Peter was trying to fake him out and run again. He at last decided that he had really, finally agreed to come with him. Glancing down, he pressed the button on his watch to confirm his own dimension as their destination. “Alright. The portal is going to open. You can walk through it or jump, it doesn’t matter. You’ll land fine,” he explained, right before a rift opened up in the lab again and the bright glow emanated from it as it grew into something large enough to travel through.
For a second, fascination overtook fear. Peter’s blue eyes went wide as he took it all in. “Teleportation? Or dimensional warping? Guess technically they could be the same thing, it is just a matter of endpoints, but— wow.”
He did not so much step into the portal as stray too close to it in his wonder and fall in.
Then the terror was back as he was hurtling through time and space.
Two hours ago, he would have landed flat on his face. Instead he landed on both feet, somehow catching himself, and realized he could stop screaming.
Miguel pointed it out, too, stepping through behind Peter. “Will you stop yelling? You’re fine. Look.” He took Peter’s hand that wasn’t clutching the spider cage as if it was going to keep him from dying somehow. He held it up, twisted Peter’s wrist, gave his arm a little shake, and then released it. “Alright?”
There was a small headache building behind his temples. He had been supposed to go home and at least take a nap, until the notification of this new Spider-Man popped up. This new Peter, who was making Miguel’s chest squeeze every time he looked at him.
Peter snapped his jaw shut and slowly straightened. “Right. Sorry. That was — new.” And fascinating. The science part of his brain had started rapidly processing everything he had seen and had not stopped. “Uh, where are w-“
He did not get the last of the question out before letting out another small scream, this one of pain as he glitched for the first time.
Lyla glanced over from where she was hovering above Miguel’s console. “Don’t worry, I already have two daypasses inbound.”
Things went white for a second, for Miguel. Because hearing that scream and seeing that face in pain felt like being hit over the back of the head. It stole the breath from him until Peter went quiet. Miguel snapped back to himself. He was breathing harder, trying to fill his lungs again.
It was unlike Lyla to be quiet and just watch, but she was. He did not look at her. Just muttered, “Thank you,” and turned to walk toward the console. “Come here, Peter. Sit down.”
The fascination was gone from Peter’s eyes, replaced with fear. He had no idea what that was, but it had hurt like his body was falling apart. He did what he was told, stomach churning as he sat, like he had just drunk battery acid.
That exact moment, a clanking sound came from the walls and a little spider-esque robot climbed down. It went straight to Peter, presenting a band for his wrist and another band that was barely even visible, hardly more than a speck. When the robot approached him, Peter shied away from it like a dog who had been hit and feared another kick. Nothing here, however, was programmed to be polite. The robot recognized its targets and snapped the band onto Peter’s wrist, making him jump. He only started to protest when it flipped open the top of Queenie’s container, making her raise her front legs up defensively.
Giving the robot the opening it needed to stick the tiniest of bands on her.
“Good thing we made extra for SP//dr,” Lyla noted.
An unintelligible mutter was Miguel’s reply. He brought up the screen that he and Lyla had been looking at before of the lab from Peter’s world. The lab they had just left was now showing as completely empty and silent. And then he brought up a few more screens - one showing various street cameras of Nueva York, another of a map of the gigantic HQ building, and one… no, he keeps that one closed.
Composure regained, he turned back to Peter. There was a pause, then his mask receded, revealing his face. A bit of his dark hair fell forward over his forehead and he pushed it back. He looked at those blue eyes for the first time without any barrier between their gazes.
Oh, shit. Peter did not expect the man to be hot under the mask. The one part of his brain dedicated solely to appreciating attractive men immediately took over all mental functions as he admired the sight in front of him.
“Peter Parker. My name is Miguel O’Hara. You’re in my dimension now.”
Lyla appeared near Peter’s shoulder, talking to him softly. “This is going to take a while. Do you want some popcorn or something?”
She nearly made him jump out of his skin. “Uh— I’m good. Fine. Thanks?” His gaze darted between Lyla and Miguel.
Scowling at her, Miguel gestured to Lyla. “This is Lyla. She’s my personal AI assistant.” He gave her a moment to wave at Peter, pulling up her heart-shaped sunglasses and casting him a wink. “And this,” he held out his arms to indicate the room around them, “is my office in Spider-Man HQ. Your city is called New York. Mine is Nueva York. It’s… the future here. Sort of.”
Leaning back against the edge of the console, just at hip-height for him, Miguel left that information there in the air between them, waiting for the questions. There were always so many questions.
They did not come. Peter learned early on in his career that asking questions of supers was a bad idea. So even though his mind was running wild, he just nodded, accepting what information he was given. “Okay.” Instead his eyes flicked around the room, taking in as much information as he possibly could without asking for it.
Miguel took it the wrong way and landed Peter with a hard look. “Hey. Are you even paying attention? There’s way too much we need to go over and if you’re not shocking listening to me then I’m not going to waste my time and you can just figure it out-“
“I’m glad it’s not just me he yells at immediately,” came a grumbled, familiar voice from the hall leading to Miguel’s office chamber.
He whipped around, scowling even more as Miles and Peter B. Parker stepped inside.
“New guy’s scared, Miguel,” Peter B. said casually, only needing a single glance at the other Peter to read him. He was used to playing the emotionally aware one to Miguel’s antisocial behavior. “You’re only scaring him more.”
Meanwhile, Miles had stopped, staring at the new Peter with wide eyes. “Whoa. You look just like—“ Old pain flashed across his face.
Completely at a loss now, Peter opened his mouth, but no sound comes out.
Scoffing, Miguel dodged the arm that Peter B. attempted to sling around his shoulders. “Nothing I’m doing is scary! I swear, all of you Peters are the worst at actually listening-“
“I know you’re not being scary!” Peter B. said soothingly, holding out his hands. “You’ve just got a presence, you know—“
“Is that the spider that bit you?” Miles asked, tilting his head and lifting an eyebrow high. He peered at the cage that Peter was holding, blinked, then leaned in closer. “Even the spider looks exactly the same!”
Peter stared at Miles. Then at the other Peter. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“Why is everything spider themed? Did New York get renamed or is it another place? How far in the future? Is it also a different dimension? Why does he look like me but old? What do you mean about my spider looking the same? Why did you put this band on my wrist? What happened that hurt so much? What is going on?! ”
Peter B. dropped his hands to his hips and sighed. “Look, now he’s having a panic attack.”
There it was. All the questions that Miguel had been waiting for. It showed that Peter had been listening and taking in what he’d been saying. He moved away from Peter B. towards blond Peter, despite Peter B. trying to catch his arm. “Miguel, hold on-!”
“This is another place. It’s not the same as your New York,” he began, but before he could say more, Miles was rolling his eyes and interrupting.
“Hey, don’t worry. It took me some time to fully understand everything, too. Did Miguel even start with the fact you’re a superhero now?” he asked, then cast Miguel an unimpressed frown that was fully returned.
“A what?” Peter’s eyes were wide and frantic. He had gone back to clinging to the spider’s container as if it was a safety blanket.
“A superhero!” Miles repeated, giving him a winning smile. “You know, like- you all got a Captain America or an Iron Man where you’re from?”
It is Lyla who said, “He is from Earth-42.”
Miles’s smile faltered. Of all of them, he had spent the longest on Earth-42. “Oh. Uh. I guess you don’t really have superheroes there.”
“Which is why I didn’t start with that,” Miguel snapped, coming to stand next to Miles. He folded his arms and glowered down at the teenager. They’d settled their differences. It took a very, very, very long conversation and some time to build up trust. Miguel would even admit he’d gotten used to having Miles around and it was nice on occasion. But they still could piss each other off.
Which was why Peter B. was usually around, too. “Alright, well, look, the kid’s asked some stuff, so let’s answer that first. Hi, Peter. I’m also Peter. Feel free to call me B, otherwise it's going to get extremely confusing. This is Miles.”
“Also Peter.” The way Peter said it, he sounded shell-shocked. He honestly was. “Hi?”
“So, you know Parallel Dimension Theory?” Miles asked after glowering right back at Miguel. He was trying to appeal to Peter’s academic side. The guy was in a lab coat, after all.
It seemed to work, as it got Peter’s attention. “… yes.”
“So, in every dimension, there’s eventually someone who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains really cool abilities from it,” Miles explained. “And a bunch of us got together and started a club.”
Peter glanced down at Queenie.
“It’s not a club , it’s a society of Spider-people, and we-“
Peter B. pulled Miguel back by his shoulders and forced him to turn around, while Miles grinned and continued his explanation for the new Peter. Despite what he liked to say about Miguel having no bite, he did pull his hands back to himself quickly. “Miguel, I don’t think your way is going to be the easiest for him to understand, buddy. Let Miles get him started.”
Miguel wanted to argue, but instead he rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. “Fine,” he bit out.
“What we do is we try and help people the best way we can,” Miles continued. “Which mainly involves fighting supervillains with our cool powers.”
“You’re saying I got superpowers from Queenie biting me?” Peter asked slowly.
It was Miles’ turn to be dumbfounded. “Queenie? She has a name?”
“Yeah.” Peter murmured it absently before he started mumbling to himself. “I mean, yeah, she’s genetically enhanced, but that shouldn’t be transferable — unless she excreted all the nuclear particles in her venom, which caused an unpredictable reaction when it hit my bloodstream— that would make some sense—“
“See?” B beamed proudly. “Kid’s doing great at the explaining thing.”
Begrudgingly, Miguel took another step back, folding his arms, then looked away. “Lyla called for you, didn’t she?”
“What? No! Lyla?! Noooo! Miles and I just have great intuition. And you’ve done enough already. You got him here, right? I’m not sure how, but- Anyway. Miguel,” B’s near-constant smile faded. His voice dropped. “Is this going to be a little too close to home?”
Miguel did not have to ask what he was talking about. He rubbed his face again and left his hand covering his eyes as he tilted his head back, sighing. “No. Why would it be? Especially if it isn’t that way for Miles.”
“That’s different, and you know it,” B said, gentle but firm. “You’re already on edge, bud. You’re treating him like you first did Miles.”
Sitting down beside him, Miles continued to chat with the new Peter. Slowly, the defensiveness in Peter’s posture was easing, the fear in his face melting away under the rays of Miles’ charm.
“I’m not-“ But he was. Looking over at Peter and seeing how much more at ease he was with Miles, Miguel rolled his eyes to the other side of the room.
“Come on, don’t push your jaw out like that. You really pout more than anyone I know, even Mayday. I’m just trying to look out for you. There are hundreds of us. You don’t have to be so involved, especially if him looking like that is going to make it har-“
“That Peter is dead,” Miguel cut him off, eyes gleaming a little more red than usual. “I know he’s gone.”
“I’m not arguing that.” The expression B was making was one Miguel has gotten to know well over the past six months. It was the telling-it-to-you-tough face. It came right before the Jessica-and-I-will-out-vote-you face. “But it doesn’t mean this isn’t still tough to do. Let the kid and I handle this one, okay? We’ll keep you updated.”
It was not really an offer anymore and Miguel knew it. But after so long leading this huge network of agents, he still found it uncomfortable and difficult to give up control. To not be involved with each and every step of whatever was going on.
He slowly looked back to Miles and Peter.
It was the way his chest hitched as soon as he took in Peter’s face again that had him closing his eyes, nodding. “Alright.” He was suddenly so incredibly tired.
“There we go.” Peter B. patted Miguel’s shoulder with a sympathetic smile. “Lyla! Bully this man into getting some sleep.”
“On it!” Lyla answered cheerfully, giving B a salute.
Gently shoving Miguel toward the door, B then turned to join the conversation with animated cheer.
Miguel did not budge from the shove, just leaned. But after B had walked away, he turned and started to leave.
Lyla appeared near his shoulder. It did not even take her a second before she started. “Didn’t I say-?”
Miguel physically waved her away, breaking her image up into pixels. She flickered, then disappeared. As he stepped into an elevator, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall inside, regretting it immediately. She was not going to appear for him for a week now, at least.
But he did not need a single other reminder of the person he didn’t lose, because that person wasn’t ever his.