Miguel had spent the rest of the month in recovery as it was advised by the doctors, even though he felt better far earlier, it was deemed for the best that he’d complete a full month under care before he goes anywhere.
His healing may have returned but it could be unstable, and overexerting himself in any way could backfire on him.
So he stayed.
And that marked three months since he’s seen his dimension again.
It’s been a day since the doctors allowed him to leave the medbay.
And honestly, since he was never allowed to get out of there, he never got to admire the spider society at its fullest and might, it was safe to say that he was baffled by the whole thing.
Sure he may have visited that one time with his counterpart, but that was a quick trip to his lab, and back out, they were rushed.
But while he was being toured around the place, he knew that he was gonna be asking a lot of questions down the line.
But not now.
Now he needs to go home.
Three months is… a lot of time, he’s been away for way too long and god knows what was going down in his universe while he was out cold, it makes him nervous.
The second day after he was let out, he became an official member of the spider society.
He was given a gizmo instead of that day pass on his wrist, and was taught about how he could use it, and was advised to ask Lyla for help in case he was lost.
He didn’t waste time.
After another night of dread and nerves, the next morning he wrote his universe on the watch (after asking about it, he really doesn’t know the number of his dimension) and an orange hexagonal portal appeared.
Neat.
The watch was also set at the coordinates of his house specifically, he put down his mask, took a deep breath then braced himself as he traveled between space and time.
It didn’t take long before he felt the ground on his feet as he fell from the portal that was on his sealing, he quickly closed the portal then looked at his surroundings.
Yup, that's his appartement alright.
He searched around the place, in case of any flyboys or Alchemax goons being there, he really is paranoid about that company figuring out his identity because of his disappearance.
And his doubts were confirmed when he saw his bedroom all pillaged.
They must’ve come to pay him a surprise visit, how sweet.
Most of his belongings were gone, probably taken for testing, didn’t bother him much, he really didn’t have all that much sentimental value to his belongings, not like he owned much.
Except…
He panicked a little as he hurried outside of his bedroom.
“Lyla?” He spoke to nothing, and there was a wait, and his heart almost stopped, but then a yellow flash appeared behind him and relief flooded his chest.
“Welcome back home Miguel,” she said.
“Oh thank shock you’re here” he said with a relieved sigh.
“I never left, you did though” she said and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yeah long story, doesn’t matter, what happened while I was gone?” He asked.
“You received many unanswered messages, plus a surprise visit from Tyler Stone”.
Well that confirmed his theory at least.
“Who sent the message?” He asked.
“A few from Alchemax, and several from Gabriel, would you like to hear them?”.
He went silent for a minute, thinking over some things, he then parted his lips again.
“Dump the Alchemax messages…” he said then paused, “and… play the ones from Gabri”.
—-
It’s been three months.
Three months since Spider-Man disappeared from existence.
Three months since his big brother went missing.
Gabriel is really starting to lose hope here, he’s been scouting downtown and looking for any possible information on Spider-Man also known as Miguel O’hara, also known as his jerk big brother.
But to no avail.
And the mystery is truly what’s scaring him here, he has no idea what happened to him.
Before Miguel’s disappearance, he didn’t talk to him and ignored him, he was upset, he was mad because of Dana’s death and put the blame on Miguel.
And he’s really scared that that’s what might’ve pushed Miguel away.
But at the same time he doesn’t know, and that’s what’s frustrating him,his brother could be gone, abandoning him like he did several years ago when he was a toddler, or he could be dead for all he knows.
Maybe he finally ran out of luck and a villain somewhere managed to actually take his life, or he could be in Alchemax’s labs being experimented on… well he doubts that, if Tyler paying him a visit to his house for interrogation indicates anything, it’s that they’re looking for Miguel as much as he is.
He’s lucky his mom somehow has dirt on Tyler to keep them safe from the public eye.
That was all in the first days though, the whole thing died down after a while, especially with the Atlanteans revolting against Alchemax.
Shock he doesn’t even know what’s going on anymore.
So he just sat there, a few seconds before entering cyberspace when his doorbell rang across the house, he opted to ignore it but it didn’t stop, so he stood up and walked to the door.
Nothing would’ve prepared him for the sight of the man he was looking for for the past three months, standing right there, in awkward silence.
He immediately shut the door in his face with a slam.
Not out of hatred or anything, he just needed that second to process.
Process the fact that his brother is on the other end of the door, this must be a joke, surely it’s a joke.
But it’s not, because he can hear him outside with a muffled voice.
“Gabri?” then silence, then Miguel spoke again, “I uh… I got you messages” he heard again, “a bit late I know…”
Then silence again.
“Gabri…?”
He didn’t respond.
He heard Miguel sigh outside.
“Listen, if you don’t wanna see me right now I understand… just call me when you’re ready, I’ll answer this time”.
Finally processing the words he’s hearing, Gabriel reopens the door with an aggressive swing and he finds Miguel looking at him with his back facing him, about to leave.
They stood like that in silence.
“Gabriel?” Miguel asked again, and this time he was met with a response, although it wasn’t a verbal one, because he threw his arm and latched it at Miguel’s shirt before yanking him inside harshly.
Miguel stumbled into the house as Gabriel closed the door behind them with a slam.
Looking back at his brother, he was met with wide eyes, that very much were piercing through his soul.
“Where the SHOCK have you been!?” Gabriel finally spoke, without allowing Miguel the chance to reply, “do you have any idea how worried I was!? You can’t just disappear off of the face of the earth for three months and come back like it’s nothing!”.
“Gabriel, I didn’t mean to-“.
“How!? How do you not mean to leave unannounced all this time, you could’ve at least sent a message” he said before doing a gesture with his hand to resemble a call, “was a ‘hey Gabriel, I’m gonna go shock off somewhere and you’ll never hear from me again’ so hard to say!? What do you have to say for yourself?!”.
Miguel huffed then looked to the side, an obvious attempt at avoiding eye contact.
“Would you… believe me if I said that I was in another world?” He finally said, and Gabriel’s face fell in disbelief at his brother’s words, looking at Miguel as if he grew a second head.
“Get out.” He said curtly.
“Wait- wait hold on now-“
“Get. Out.”
“Listen Gabri, I'm not joking, I can prove it”.
“Oh please do prove it, enlighten me dear brother why won’t you?”
“Really, using sarcasm against me? I'm hurt” Miguel said before he pressed a few buttons on his gizmo.
Gabriel was about to reply when the orange portal ripped through the fabric of reality and started glitching things around it, Miguel stood there and raised a hand up towards it.
“See?” He said, “this thing can take me across dimensions, I was literally outside of the universe”.
Gabriel stepped closer to it and ran a hand through it, just to confirm that this isn’t some sort of light show, and it wasn’t, he froze.
“You’re serious?”. He asked without facing his brother.
“I am.”
There was silence for a bit, before Gabriel turned around to face his brother again.
“If you had the power to do that then why didn’t you come back?” He asked, his eyes showing genuine confusion and sadness, “did you leave? Was- was this universe that bad?”.
‘Was I that bad?’ He wanted to ask, but he left it hanging in the air, although judging from the way Miguel’s expressions shifted, the weight of that sentence was visible.
“No- no no, Gabriel it wasn’t that, it was….” He trailed off, not finishing what he was about to say, because how do you break to your kid brother that you almost died three months ago?
“It was what?” Gabriel asked, impatiens growing with the lack of an answer.
“A predicament…”
Gabriel’s eyebrows furrowed.
“No you don’t get to do that” he said, “you don’t get to dance around the answer- you don’t- what happened Miguel?”. He inquired further, desperation in his voice.
“Gabri, it’s nothing”.
“No, it is something! You’re obviously hiding something from me”.
“You wouldn’t like it”.
“Try me!”
“Gabri, No.”
“Gabri, yes.”
Gabriel was not gonna back down from this, oftentimes when his brother hides something from him, it’s never good.
Miguel attempted to get up and escape this situation but he latched into his arm like a Koala.
“Let go of me” Miguel tried as he attempted to push Gabriel away.
“Not until you tell me what happened”.
“I already told you, it’s nothing!”.
“And I already told you that I think that’s bullshit”.
Miguel looked frustrated now, this is all going wrong for him.
“Let go!”.
“Just tell me what happened!”.
“I almost died okay!?” He finally let it out, and Gabriel’s eyes widened, he took a deep breath, “I know that I almost die everyday I go around as Spider-Man, but this time… it was serious”.
He could feel Gabriel’s grip on him loosening, but it’s too late to run away now, he already spilled the news.
“How serious…” Gabriel asked carefully.
“Serious to the point of putting me in a comatose state for two and a half months?”
Gabriel is sure that his hair turned white at that second.
And upon seeing his expressions, Miguel sighed.
“See this is why I didn’t want to tell you-“.
“How?”he cut him off with the question.
Miguel leveled him with a look for a second.
“Are you sure you want to know?”.
He nodded.
“Well… a skyscraper may or may not have fallen right on top of my head” he let out, “and it took them an hour to get to me, so it was bad under there”.
“Who is ‘them’?” He asked, honestly he’s asking questions just to distract his mind from the bomb that was just dropped on him.
A coma? And he didn’t even know…
“Oh… well, you could say that it’s not only me and heroic age Spider-Man out there with these powers” he answered, “there’s hundreds of others just like me out there in the multiverse, it’s insane actually, I even met myself, granted he’s a dick but you know”.
“When is Miguel O’hara never a dick?” Gabriel said making fun of Miguel, getting a fake offended gasp from his brother.
“You wound me little brother” he said sarcastically.
Gabriel chuckled before a pause then out of nowhere he jumped at Miguel with a hug that took his brother by absolute surprise.
“Never disappear like that ever again”.
Miguel remained tense for a few seconds, before he lifted his arms hesitantly and wrapped them around his little brother awkwardly.
“I’ll try” he replied.
It took a while but then Gabriel broke the hug.
“Come on, you really got a lot to catch up on” he said, guiding Miguel further into the house, “a lot has happened since you disappeared”.
“I can tell,” Miguel replied. Eyeing the cyberspace equipment on the floor.
He’s definitely never ever disappearing like that again if he can help it.