Leap of faith
When Miles Morales snuck out of his dorm window after class as Spider-Man, he expected to have to deal with a few pickpockets and purse snatchers at best, and maybe a random criminal turned super-villain at worst. It was much more common than he thought it probably should have been. (He'd lost count of the number of times he'd stopped a person for a small crime, and the next week they came back in a ridiculous costume as a self-proclaimed super-villain.) It normally took him less than 15 minutes to catch them.
He hadn't been expecting to get roped up in a drug cartel. The day started off normal, well, as normal as possible when you're a crime-fighting freshly fifteen-year-old. He gets an alert on his phone about a new super-villain calling themselves "The Shocker," and he quickly raises his hand to use the bathroom then rushes out of English class in a frenzy. He turns invisible and quickly dresses in his suit before pulling his window open and swinging out. The news app on his phone lets him know that the villain is in downtown Brooklyn, threatening to tase anyone if Spider-Man doesn't appear soon. Miles doesn't resist the urge to roll his eyes. People in New York are so weird. Though he thinks he shouldn't really be talking since he does swing around the city in spandex all the time.
When he arrives, a few people are already on the scene. The villain, Taserface, has a weird taser extension glove on his arm. "Well, this here is a shocking scene," he quips, and Shocker looks towards him and snarls, "Glad you finally arrived, Spider-Man. It is I, your arch-nemesis, Taser Face—"
His sentence is cut short by Miles shooting a web at his hand, then over his mouth. "Seriously, man, why does everybody want to be a supervillain, and also what type of villain name is Taser Face? Something like Shocker would have been much cooler." He does a flip for show, then webs him up high against the nearest wall.
There's still a few people on the ground who look as if they've been tased, and Miles quickly goes to each of them, checking their pulse if they're unconscious and asking them a few simple questions if they're not. After he makes a quick call to the NYPD and calls in the haul of criminals, he stays with Taserface, who is still muttering something through the web fluid.
Before long, another police car rolls in, and Jefferson Davis steps out. Unbeknownst to him, his dad. Miles quickly runs up to him, deepening his voice, and says, "Officer Davis, I got another supervillain here for you." The officer takes a look around the scene then sighs in exasperation, "What did I tell you about webbing them that high on the walls? It makes it harder for us to do our job when they're almost fifteen feet in the air." Miles' shoulders visibly slack, and Jefferson seems to pick up on this action. Miles is about to say something to defend himself, but Jefferson beats him to it. "You didn't make a mess out of buildings this time, so great job on that."
Miles beams under the mask. "I'ma turn things over to you," he says in his ridiculous accent, salutes, then swings his way out of sight from the scene. It's almost 3:30, so he missed the rest of English. Oh well, he thinks, he's got a high A in the class anyway.
He finds the next few hours of his patrol to be quiet. He stops a petty theft and walks an old lady across the street. Once it hits 11, he's decided that he might as well end the patrol for the day. He swings above a building when he hears shouting and quickly swoops closer to the sound. It's in a less-than-ideal part of New York, and the streets are filthier than usual. Above an alleyway, he can see four figures who all seem to be wearing similar outfits and color schemes. He's aware enough to know that this is probably either a gang initiation or a gang fight, and either way, he'll need to intervene.
Miles flips from the building onto the ground between the four men. "Isn't it past y'alls bedtime?" he quips, and the gang members turn to him. One of them snarls, while the other laughs, "See, man, I told you he'd be here."
Shit, he thinks. Okay, maybe jumping into this situation unprepared wasn't his best move. He quickly puts his hands up, "Why don't we all go home? You don't want to go to jail, and I don't want to fight." He's sure he can dodge the bullets himself; his spider senses would definitely help with that. But if they all start shooting, someone's bound to catch a stray bullet.
"Naw, man, you took down one of our most profitable rings. Boss didn't like that." The other two pull out guns, and he springs into action. He flips his wrist and webs the bald guy closest to him, gun and hand, to the wall. A shot rings out as he narrowly dodges a bullet that almost hits his side. Before pulling the first goon's leg from under him and webbing him to the ground. Three more shots ring out, and he manages to dodge the bullet headed for his neck and temple. The third member aims a weird-looking gun at him at the same time that the fourth member aims, shoots, and a bullet strikes his side with full force.
He lets out a string of curses before rushing to the man who shot him and punching hard in the chest. He's knocked back several feet, and as Miles goes to web him, a second bullet hits him on his right side. He flips and knocks the gun out of the last member's hand before a burning sensation fills his entire body. "What the hell was that, man?" There's blood pooling through his fingers, and he knows that without his enhanced healing, he'd probably be dead already.
The man who shot the last bullet smirks, "You like that? It's our new batch of meta-weapons. You ain't so big and bad when you can't heal yourself." The adrenaline is wearing off, and he can feel the world swaying. He needs to get help. He manages to stagger out of the alleyway towards a bright light-up sign before kneeling over. His entire body feels as if it's on fire, and he sees the pool of blood that seems to be pooling out from under him. He grabs his phone from his pocket, now slick with his blood, and sends a picture of the sign that he can see reads "Jones Sneaker Locker." He tries to type his location, but he can't seem to remember where he is, just that every nerve in his body feels like it's set aflame. Hot tears pool down his eyes, and he pulls off the mask, trying to get some air into his lungs. He doesn't want to die, not without telling his mami and dad how much he loves them, or that he's sorry for lying about the whole Spider-Man thing. His fingers
slip over the keyboard, but he doesn't manage to type in words before he blacks out.
Between Spider-Man and Miles, Jeff is sure he’s going to go gray before 45. The interaction with the new Spider-Man had left him both concerned and aggravated. But the stuff with Miles? Well, he has to try not to scream into pillows. While Jeff is mostly used to Miles' antics by now, he's used to his son coming home late and occasionally missing classes, but from what he can tell, it doesn't severely affect Mile's grades. If he's being honest with himself, in high school, he'd definitely skipped more than one class, but it only really started to become a problem within the last four months. For Rio's sake, he has stayed on Miles about it, only for him to shrug it off. Deep down, he knows that she's just worried about him slipping down the same path as his late brother Aaron, and he can't really blame her for that. He himself is terrified of Miles sharing a similar fate as Aaron.
He thinks that's why he flips out when Rio gets a phone call from the school counselor at Visions Academy. He'd been sitting in his car eating lunch before he had to go in for his shift when she called, practically fuming with rage. "¡Aparentemente, Miles skipped two classes today! Two!" "¡Lo juro! ¡Ese chico va a ser la muerte para mí!" Rio's voice screams into the phone, and Jeff feels her anger too because he's tried to be lenient with him. He's trying to understand that it's barely been a year since he lost his role model, but he's got to take some responsibility. So many people had worked their tails off to get him where he was, and he couldn't seem to even comprehend that fact! He'd done his best to reassure Rio before 5:00 and gone in for the night.
By the time 10 o'clock came around, Jeff was already exhausted. The night had been hectic so far, and honestly, he couldn't wait to go home and crawl into bed. Around... "Jones Sneaker Department 11:15" Following the message was a blurry picture of a red and orange overhead sign of Jones Sneaker Department, and Jeff freezes. Why would Miles send him a picture of a random sneaker shop at 11 o'clock at night? Why was he even out this late on a Thursday? He had school in the morning, for crying out loud! He wants to feel angry, but something in his gut is screaming that something is off, that something is wrong. He presses the call button on his phone, but it rings out. He tries again, only to get the same response. Frustration overtaking his emotions, he takes a deep breath, trying to quell the anger growing in his gut. He knows Miles is smarter than this. Hell, he'd raised him better than this. He begins to call Rio.
Then all at once, his radio goes off, dispatching him to the corner of 23rd street because of a report of gunshots, and he finds himself sweating and clutching the steering wheel, praying that no one was fatally injured. Seventeen years on the police force has shown him just how many young men are lost to gun-related violence. He shoots Miles a text to call him immediately, then another to Rio to call Miles. He slams his hands against the steering wheel and lets out a frustrated sigh, then starts his car. With sirens blaring and red and blue lights flashing, he takes a harsh turn towards 23rd street.
He yanks the door to the white police car open and, with quiet steps, analyzes the scene. There doesn't seem to be anyone actively shooting anymore, so a shootout isn't likely. Now he just has to make sure that no one was injured. He hears the loud clang of something heavy hitting metal an alleyway down and whips out his pistol and flashlight to follow the sound. He doesn't think any police training could have prepared him to handle the absolute fear he felt. The light shines on a figure slumped beside a wall. Directly across from him was Jones Sneaker Locker, and he feels his heart stop. Miles... Miles had sent him a picture of that same sign! Had he been here? Was he okay?
He turns his radio on and asks for an ambulance in advance. When he walks down the alley, he finds four goons webbed up against the walls and ground. But his ease isn't lifted. Spider-Man hardly ever leaves a scene before a cop comes, and the trail of blood wasn’t promising. “Hey, this is Officer Jefferson Davis on the 23rd unit; we've got four men webbed up. I think Spider-Man might have been involved; there's blood. I believe that someone might be injured.” A voice of "copy that" comes back, and “an ambulance is in dispatch; it's about 3 minutes out.” He finds himself holding his breath and praying out loud that Spider-Man isn't injured. "Don't let this be him," he finds himself praying out loud.
Slouched against the side of the building is a figure, and Jefferson rushes towards it. "He calls out to the figure as he closes in on the area and gasps, trying to force the air back into his lungs when his flashlight illuminates them. The Spider-Man mask has been pulled mostly off, leaving his dark brown eyes exposed. He's clutching his bleeding torso with one hand and a phone with a custom-painted phone case in the other. A case that he'd seen Miles work on for a week straight. There's so much blood that Jeff is afraid that he’s already dead. That's Miles, his Miles. His kid. He has to snap himself out of shock and crouches down towards him. "Miles?" he calls out, his voice laced with panic and shock. He tries to shake hands as he drops down on one of his knees, trying to get a better look at Miles. No, not just Miles, Spider-Man. He's bleeding heavily, and there's a pool of red blooming under him while clutching his gut and judging from the holes in his suit there are two bullet wounds. "Miles," he calls out again. This time, Miles manages to open his eyes. They look slightly glassed and red (he wonders if he's been drugged), but Jeff can tell he manages to recognize him. "Papi?" Miles breathes out the word slightly slurred. "Yeah, it's me," Jeff says, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. He only gets a hum in reply before Miles' eyes are closing again. "Hey, hey, Miles, keep your eyes open, okay?" He presses a hand to the bullet wound, and tears flow down his eyes because he knows what to do. He doesn't want to hurt Miles further, but he knows that if he doesn't apply pressure to the gunshot, then at this rate, he will bleed out within the next few minutes. Miles screams, and Jeff thinks that they will haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. "Where is that goddamn ambulance?" he shouts on his radio. "My... he's my kid, got shot. I need that ambulance." A feminine voice picks up through his radio, “Jeff, can you hear me? An ambulance is on the way; we
tracked your location. Everything is going to be okay.” He knows what she's doing; he's done it to victims of horrible situations hundreds of times. With tears in his eyes and pleas of "I'm sorry," he presses down with both hands on the gunshot wound. Miles' screams intensify, and Jeff is so scared, scared because this is exactly how his brother died, alone in some stupid alley, tied up in some stupid game of heroes and villains. He’s counting seconds and doing the best he can to stop the bleeding. His hands are red with Miles; he has to stop himself from vomiting at the thought. He’s about to turn his com back on, but the loud wailing sound of sirens cuts through the alleyway. A few police cars and two ambulances arrive. A tall woman and a buff-looking dude pull out a stretcher and load miles onto it, looking half amazed and half terrified at Spider-Man. They check his pulse then start rambling things about BMI and blood loss and critical condition. “Is he going to be okay?” he shouts to the EMT workers, a sob starting to build in his throat. The woman Amanda gives him a sympathetic smile. “We will do what we can.” The doors shut, and the ambulance drives off with miles in critical condition. As Josh, his force captain, drives him to the hospital, he tries not to think about the drying blood on his hands as he picks up his phone to call Rio.
It rings once, then twice before she finally picks up. “It’s 11:30, baby, is everything ok?." His throat is tight, and his words are clipped. “Río, cariño, algo pasó.” Her voice is soft but worried when she speaks; her words are fast-paced. “What happened? Is Miles ok? Estás bien?” The words fall out of his mouth. “Miles is in the hospital; he got shot.” There's a stretched silence, then “I'm on my way.” Her voice shakes, and he hangs up the phone.
“I'll have everyone sign NDAs,” Josh says, and Jeff sighs a bit in relief. He hadn't even thought about the fact people could leak miles' identity. “Thank you.”
Before long, they make it to the hospital, and Jeff rushes out. He asks the lady at the front desk about miles and waits impatiently for an answer. He’s in the ICU but is stable for now, and Jeff thanks every god in existence that Miles is alive. He takes the elevator to the 8th floor and quickly makes his way to Miles' room. There are a dozen tubes around him and IVs every which way. But he’s breathing, and for now, that’s enough for him. He sits in the uncomfortable plastic chair waiting for Rio; it's almost half an hour before she arrives, and she looks as disheveled as he feels. When she sees miles, she sobs, and Jeff wraps her arms around her, comforting her and running fingers through her thick brown hair. “Will he be ok?” “He’s stable, okay Rio, he’s strong; he’ll pull through.” She nods her head almost rapidly. “He’s Spider-Man,” Jeff says, and he sees Rio’s eyes widen at that declaration, “I should have known.” A small smile graces Rio’s face, and she walks over to miles to gently comb through his curls with her fingers. “He’s always had a hero's heart.”
---
The next few days are hell for both Rio and Jeff, they manage to counteract whatever drug that effects peters healing ability and when the third day comes around, Miles opens his eyes. He scrunches his nose at the smell of antiseptics but smiles when he sees Rio sleeping in the plastic chair beside his bed. His dad, on the other hand, walks into the room with coffee and proceeds to drop it on the floor when he spots Miles. “Miles, thank god.” He rushes towards Miles, disregarding the spilled cup of coffee, and ever so gently wraps him in a hug, then shakes Rio away. She practically jumps up when she sees Miles and lets out a string of both curses and prayers as she hugs him. “Don't you ever do that again, hear me miho?” he nods, “I don’t ever plan to get shot again,” he says with a hint of humor in his voice. The commotion has made him tired again, and the yawn he lets out has his mom lowering him back into the hospital bed. “Sleep, Miles, but when you wake up, we're addressing the whole Spider-Man fiasco.”
It feels as if a hug burden has been lifted from his shoulders with her words “ I love you guys” miles says sheepishly voice horse. he wishes it didn’t take him almost dying to say it more. Rios eyes soften her voice is gentle yet firm. “We love you to now rest”
His eyes close, he’s glad that they know now, he’s glad that he dosent have to constantly lie to their faces about bruises or why he’s out late. The blankets are warm and the medication going through his system makes him feel loopy. He rests this time without fear.