Fate is stupid
After a bit of swinging around, the duo finally reached their destination, Miguel stood on top of a building near the Babylon towers and used his accelerated vision to see if there are any flyboys around, when he made sure the coast was clear he gestured for Miles to follow him as they landed on top of the roof, and from there headed to Miguel’s apartment.
They were immediately greeted by a hologram of a yellow woman that struck a very strong resemblance to Marilyn Monroe for some reason.
“Welcome back Miguel” the woman spoke, “it is 10 pm right now, the outdoor temperature is at 50 degrees with the chance of rain tomorrow”
“Thanks Lyla,” Miguel says, and Miles is bewildered.
“This is your Lyla?” He said approaching the holo agent in amusement.
She looks back at him.
“Welcome to Miguel’s apartment, would you like something to eat? A beverage perhaps?” She offers, but miles declines.
“That’s fine! I’m not really hungry” he says, but his stomach betrays him immediately growling at the mention of food, he only laughs nervously as the holo agent keeps staring into his soul.
“Lyla, heat up the empanadas in the microwave” Miguel ordered from behind them.
Miles turned around to see that Miguel had taken off his mask, and to say that he was surprised was an understatement, because this Miguel looks nothing like the Miguel that was chasing him around half an hour ago.
Not only is he shorter and his shoulders are not as broad, but apparently he’s a redhead with paler skin, his hairstyle was a bit more messier than the Miguel he’s used to, if there’s one thing this Miguel and the Miguel that choke slammed him on a train share, it’s the deep dark eye bags under their eyes, he guesses that looking tired and having a resting bitch face is a Miguel trait all around the multiverse.
He only snaps out of his thoughts when Miguel finally speaks up.
“Are you gonna keep on staring forever or what?”
Miles finally realizes and cracks a nervous smile.
“Sorry! Sorry, didn’t mean to, you uh, you look different than I expected” he replies.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miguel looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What? Oh no no! Not what I meant! You uh, well, your counterpart doesn’t look like you you know? I just assumed you two would share the same face”
Miguel only hummed in response to that.
A ding was heard coming from another room that Miles assumed was the kitchen, Lyla appeared again in front of them and spoke, “Miguel the empanadas are ready”.
Miguel nodded in response before turning to miles, “listen I’m gonna go put something on, and you uh- you go grab the food and make yourself at home I guess, Mi casa su casa and all that jazz, just don’t break anything”.
With that he left the living room and retired to what Miles assumes is his bedroom.
Miles did as he was told and walked into the kitchen, finding a plate of empanadas at the ready on top of the kitchen table.
How has Lyla managed to put the empanadas on top of the table when she’s a literal hologram? He’ll never know.
He grabbed one before retreating back to the living room and just standing there, taking in the room and how messy of a state it was in, and to think this is the counterpart of the leader of the spider society, you’d think that his home would be a tad bit organized.
A few seconds passed and Miguel came out wearing more casual clothes, T-shirt and sweatpants and sunglasses.
“What’s with the sunglasses?” He finds himself asking.
“Well normally I have the lights of my apartment lowered because I’m very light sensitive, but given how you’re here I’d rather not have you sitting in the dark” Miguel explained walking in further into the room before pausing and looking around.
“Yeah… sorry about the mess, I didn’t expect to be having inter-dimensional guests anytime soon, I would’ve cleaned up otherwise”
Right, Miles was reminded that he’s out of his dimension with a literal deadline on his father’s life and his own life if he doesn’t get out of here before he glitches out of existence.
“Yeah, about inter-dimensional stuff, I really need your help getting out of here, you said that there’s things in alchemax that could help right?” He asked.
“Right yeah, come here I’m not gonna explain and set a plan while we’re standing up ” Miguel said, pulling a chair for Miles so he can sit down.
Once they were both seated, miles asked again.
“So? Alchemax?”
“Yeah, I’ll get there hold your horses” Miguel replied, “Alchemax had this dimensional travel project where they were trying to create a portal across the multiverse, didn’t end well, I got sucked in and attacked by a giant man, the project was then dropped ever since given the dangers it came with” he explained.
“Maybe if I could get my hands on the blueprints of that project it’ll give us a lead?”
At that Miles perked up.
“Then what are we waiting for?! Let’s go!” Miles exclaimed before being held back by Miguel.
“Woah, don’t be rash now, I don’t know how your dimension works, but here you can’t just go around swinging without ten flyboys coming for you, you’re gonna stay here”
“What?! Miguel, my dad's life is on the line here!”
“And that’s exactly why we need to tread carefully, I work at Alchemax, I can sneak may way through the archives and get my hands on what we need without getting any suspicions, you can’t”
Miles sighed in annoyance, “Fine.”
“I’ll get moving tomorrow at the job hours” Miguel said, letting go of Miles as he sat back down, “in the meantime, how about you explain to me what, why, and how you’re here, and what is this whole spider society thing about?”
Miles looked at him for a second, wow, he’s really gonna explain to the Miguel O’hara what the spider society is? Well, it’s not like he’s the same Miguel that leads the society, but still it feels weird, in fact everything about this Miguel feels weird.
He seems more… chill? Is that the right word? Probably because he doesn’t have the weight of the entire society on his shoulders, he’s more hunched compared to the straight intimidating posture Miguel always had, his smaller shoulders and height made him look less opposing than the other Miguel, and just the way he acts in general.
Still, this is still a Miguel, he might share the same ideals and goals with the Miguel he knows, he can’t get too trusty, he has been betrayed enough for a day.
“Well, the spider society is an elite strike force of spider-people like you and me, they hop through dimensions and catch anomalies”
“Anomalies?”
“People outside of their dimensions”
“Oh, so like you?”
“You could say that…”
He is definitely not gonna bring up the whole ‘original anomaly’ thing Miguel was talking about, he does not want to dwell on the thoughts of the fact that he might be the reason his Peter Parker died, and that his mere existence is causing distablisation to the multiverse, or how a whole dimension is suffering with no Spider-Man to help the, all because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Anyways… you’re kind of the leader there” he said, “your counterpart is at least”
Miguel's eyes widened a bit under his shades.
“Oh wow, that sounds stressful” he says, “wonder why he’d take a job like that, I mean, I hate taking charge of big and important things”
“Oh really?” Miles can’t help but wonder, “why?”
Miguel went quiet, a bit too quiet that Miles started regretting asking, but then Miguel broke the silence with a sigh.
“Yeah, I’d rather not talk about it, all you gotta know is last time I was in charge of something it didn’t end well”
Okay, ominous.
“Wait, earlier you said that you were escaping from a guy called Miguel? Is it this guy? The leader?” Miguel asks, deterring the subject away from his ominous past.
“Right, yeah, it was- it was him”
“Why?”
Miles didn’t respond for a minute, what should he tell him? He can’t tell him about the whole canon events thing, if this Miguel turns out to be like the other one then he might try to stop him, he should say less, and not give off too much information.
“Well… I’m uh- he doesn’t want me to save my dad…” Miles said, and he isn’t lying, Miguel really doesn’t want him to save his dad, he’s just leaving a bit of information out, just in case.
And at that, this Miguel was taken back.
“Come again?” He asked
“My dad, he’s been predicted to die in two days, and I’m trying to save him, but Miguel doesn’t want me to do it and has chased me around New York just to stop me!”
Miles could see Miguel’s brows furrowing in confusion.
“Is there any particular reason he’s not letting you do it? I mean… has your father ever been… y’know, awful to you?”.
“What!? No!” Miles exclaimed, “My father is not like that, he would never!”.
At this Miguel seemed much more puzzled.
“Are you sure?” He asked again.
“Yeah!”
“Then what’s the reason?”
“ ‘fate’ apparently” Miles answered, doing an air quotes sign with his hands.
Miguel went quiet for a second taking the answer in before speaking again.
“What the shock? What kind of reason is that? Since when do I even believe in fate? That does not sound like me, are you sure that’s everything to it?” Miguel said, starting to sound doubtful, “there has to be more to this, you’re not hiding anything right?”
“Nuh uh” Miles replied, praying to god that Miguel would just believe that.
Miguel only continued to eye him suspiciously, obviously wanting to ask more questions, but before he could do that, a coloured lights filled the room and miles started glitching again, forcing Miguel to back away from him.
When the light show was over, Miles fell on the ground again.
Miguel only sighed.
“Okay, we need to get you out of here before you evaporate, go and try to get some sleep . It's getting late, I’ll see how I can get my hands on those blue prints tomorrow”
Miguel then proceeded to show Miles the guest room where he’ll be sleeping tonight.
Well it’s not like miles managed to sleep good with glitches waking him up at night, but he tried.
The next day when Miguel woke up and headed to work, he was unaware of the invisible Spiderman that was following him around