Thank You For Helping Me
Miles Morales was very…social. Margo remembered when he first came to HQ, how excited he was to meet other people like himself. Margo could relate to that, seeing as one of the reasons she kept coming to the society was to feel less alone.
Miles had certainly made an interesting impression. Interesting enough for Margo to want to do the best she could to help him save his dad.
Even if it meant traveling to another unknown universe with her avatar.
She remembered when she was asked to come help find Miles and defeat Spot. She was proud of how well she concealed her panic attack.
While fighting the panic attack and still trying to appear normal in front of the group, Margo forced herself to remember that she had transported her avatar to different universes before, to fight cybercrime. This was what she used to do, this is what got her recruited to the Spider Society, and now she couldn’t do it to help out a friend?
The group was still waiting for an answer. Margo began to hear that negative voice in her head again, the one that had been there for as long as she could remember.
‘Look at everybody else, they’re all ACTUALLY going to help Miles, THEY’RE actually putting themselves in the line of possible danger…while you’re at home. You’re not even actually coming.’ She- no, the voice, thought.
She mentally berated herself for taking so long to answer.
‘Get it together, it’s just one time to earth-42…you aren’t even bringing your physical body.’ She tried to hype herself up.
Overall, she was just glad that she didn’t need to wear a watch.
Margo could not believe that she had transported her avatar to another universe once again. Once the job was done, she wanted to finally believe that she was overcoming her fear of inter-dimensional travel, and making progress. But when she took off her headset at home, it hit her all at once, and she silently cried in the privacy of her room.
What was she thinking, of course she wasn’t over it. That would be asking too much.
- A Few Months After BTSV -
After the whole Spot-anomaly-canon nonsense was fixed, Margo didn’t think she’d ever see Miles again, let alone interact with him after what happened. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he never came back. The whole experience was traumatizing, and it didn’t even happen to her.
But, the thought of Miles not returning made her feel...weird, but she didn’t want to address why they did.
That is, until Miles started coming back to HQ regularly. And coming to talk to her. Regularly.
“Hey.” He said, one day.
“Hey.” Margo responded, a little hesitant, surprised to see him and unsure of why he came to see her.
“I’m uh…Miles.” He continued with a lopsided smile.
“Oh? Is that so?" She couldn't help herself. "Pretty sure everyone knows by now” Margo responded with a chuckle.
“Heh, yeah.” Miles rubbed the back of his neck before appearing to come to an internal conclusion.
“Thank you for coming to help me. It meant a lot.” Miles tried to convey just how thankful he was for her help. To him, it meant more than she could ever know, more than he could ever hope to convey. That day, it felt like the whole world was against him.
Maybe he was being dramatic. But in all honesty, it hurt to be faced with thousands of people who were just like him, and have nobody understand or support his need to save the people closest to him.
It hurt to be told that he actually wasn’t like them…That he wasn’t ever meant to be like them at all.
Of course. Of course he had to find out that he was an anomaly after finally finding a place where he wanted to fit in. Of course now he stood out. You couldn't really blame him for having a bit of an existential crisis. All his life, his mom had told him that he belonged, his uncle had told him that he embodied the best parts of all his family. Then it was all thrown back in his face in one afternoon.
It broke something in him, to be told that after trying so hard to be better, to protect people, that he was destined to fail to save someone that meant the world to him. And it hurt to be told that he was just supposed to be okay with it.
It hurt to be told to his face that he wasn’t supposed to save his dad.
It hurt to be told to his face that he was never supposed to be a hero.
Being a hero had already cost him so much. Only to be told that it- that he, was a damn mistake.
Even after discovering that he could change things, that he didn’t have to be chained by some algorithm, the situation had shattered him, and it was taking a while to put the pieces back together.
So yeah, he was thankful that Margo chose to be on his side. Even if all she had ended up doing was leaving the go-home machine on long enough for him to get away from HQ, he would've still been thankful. But she had done more.
“Oh…” Margo noticed how much her help meant to Miles. Clearly the wound was still fresh, so she was tender with her response.
“Of course, it was my pleasure to help you, and I’d do it again.” She said gently.
And as scary as the idea of traveling still was, she found that she meant every word.
A few moments passed where they both took in each other’s words. Then Miles continued.
“So, I’m just, y’know, getting to know more people around here now.” He said hesitantly. “I noticed that you don’t really do the whole, universe jumping/travel thing? At least, not until you helped me.” He said.
Now, Margo didn’t know what to say, this was the longest she and Miles had ever talked. Since he came back to HQ, she’d only seen him with some of his friends in the halls. When she was helping defeat Spot, there wasn’t really time for idle conversation. And when the Spot was gone, Margo wasn't ashamed to say that she teleported back home immediately…after making sure Miles and his dad were okay of course!
Nevertheless, Margo didn’t know how to address Miles’ question. Truthfully, she was embarrassed of her self-imposed confinement to the tech room. Years later, she was still scared to travel anywhere with her avatar, much less with her physical body, so she couldn’t help out with anomalies and disturbances in other universes.
But…she was fine with that. She was.
“I-well, we all have certain duties, I just…um, I just run the go-home machine, and, some stuff, here, y’know, tech, stuff like that.” She stumbled through an explanation. She tried to smile at the end but she was pretty sure she just looked constipated.
Margo internally face-palmed, Miles probably thought she was incompetent and couldn’t be trusted to be on active duty, so they stuck her in here to press some buttons.
Miles seemed to take the answer in stride though, and continued talking.
This went on for months. He just kept coming to see Margo, and she began to open up.
They talked about anything and everything. Before long it became normal to see the two of them in and around HQ, and even outside in Nueva York. Margo was happy to have a new…friend.
When Margo realized she had developed feelings for Miles, she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Even soon after she had first met him, she knew there was…something there, but she thought she could just keep the…feelings, at a normal level. Maybe they'd even go away, eventually.
But that's the thing about feelings, the damn things are always growing.
Margo was frustrated. One thing she did not want to do was delude herself. Why would Miles like her back? He’d never even seen her in person. He’d only ever seen her in pixelated hues of purple and blue.
All because she was too scared to use a watch. All her problems seemed to come back to that damn watch.
But Miles clearly had other plans.
One evening, they were sitting on the roof of HQ, watching the beautiful sunset in Nueva York.
Margo had never seen anything like it, she hardly ever saw stars in her own universe, because of all the light pollution. And other times, she went to bed even before the sun went down just to avoid hearing her parents arguing late into the night.
“I can’t believe I’ve been here for 2 years and I’ve never come outside to see the sunset,” Margo said aloud. “And look at the stars, they’re beautiful.” she continued.
“Yeah, they are,” Miles said absentmindedly, but he was just looking at Margo. She looked beautiful in the glow of the sunset. 'She should sit out in sunsets more often,' Miles thought to himself.
It seemed as if that was all he could do these days, was look at her. For months now, he found that she increasingly took up space in his head.
“Margo…” Miles started. Margo turned to look at him. She noticed his face had a bit of a darker tint, and he was avoiding her gaze.
“I, um…I like you. He said quietly, struggling to keep looking at her.
Margo felt herself blush and look away. She was genuinely in shock to find that her feelings were reciprocated, and it was during times like this where she was thankful for the fact that her avatar had a blue hue, at least Miles couldn’t see how red her face was turning.
Sure, she had felt their relationship slowly changing, but she had avoided entertaining thoughts of Miles liking her back.
“I like you, too.” Margo said, her voice shaking. “A lot.” She couldn’t look at him as she said it, though.
Meanwhile, Miles had a small smile on his face, because that’s all he had hoped to hear from her.
Margo briefly wondered what was supposed to happen then. Did people usually kiss after this type of confession? Or was it a dramatic hug with a spin as doves soared in the background? She watched too many romantic films.
On a whim Margo decided that she would hug Miles.
And then she crashed back to reality as she remembered that as much as she was here with Miles…she really wasn't. Rather, she was dimensions away.
Suddenly she was a little less thankful for her avatar.
She wanted to hug Miles, but it wouldn’t feel the same. In fact, she wouldn’t really feel anything at all.
Margo was reminded of the first time she’d touched a human person with her avatar…
- FLASHBACK -
Margo had just arrived at HQ for the day and found Peter B. and Lyla in the tech room.
Peter was sniffing around the tech yet again, trying to figure out how everything worked, despite Miguel banning him earlier after he caused a small (Big) explosion in the control room.
Peter had been leaning on the equipment whilst talking to Lyla, and Margo noticed that he was getting dangerously close to the ‘release’ mechanism for the villain cells. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and Margo didn’t really want to experience hundreds of villains running loose in headquarters, with interdimensional travel at their disposal.
Just as Peter was about to hit the switch, she quickly shot out her arm to stop him.
“Peter! Watch your arm!” Margo exclaimed.
As Peter felt Margo’s hand on his arm, he jumped about a foot back from the panel as well as from Margo. Then he started to laugh and rub his arm. Margo wondered if she’d accidentally hurt him, she wasn’t sure, cause she hadn’t felt anything on her end.
“Wow, that’s…different. Heh, feels like TV static.” He chuckled.
…
TV. Static. Wow.
- END FLASHBACK -
That’s what Miles would feel if Margo tried to hug him. Static buzzing until she passed through him. Because once again, she wasn’t actually there.
For as advanced as Margo’s avatar was, it still couldn’t replicate anything remotely close to human touch. Before, it had been convenient, as she’d never had to worry about getting physically hurt when she fought crime, the worst that could happen was her having to reboot her headset if it became disconnected. Knowing this, she threw herself into her work because she knew she’d never actually “get hurt.”
But now…she wanted to throw her headset across her room.
Of course. When she finally wanted to touch…when she finally wanted to connect with someone, she couldn’t.
She- she hadn’t thought this through. At all. What was she supposed to do? Bring her physical body to headquarters? Because that worked so well the last time?…As Margo thought about it, she began to absentmindedly rub her scarred wrist, so much that it started to itch and become irritated again.
What else? Was she supposed to invite Miles to her home universe? So that he could see just how cold, empty and unfeeling it was? How nobody interacted? What if he saw her parents? What if her parents saw him? He’d see how they fought all the time. He’d see how messed up her family was, and he’d realize that he didn't actually want to deal with all the complications that came with Margo Kess.