Chapter 3
Peter took a deep breath, feeling the wind whip through his hair the minute that he stepped through the portal. He took a moment to admire the view from the balcony, watching the speeding lights of the futuristic city. It was odd, to him, how this could be so different from his dimension, and yet so feel so familiar.
Nothing here was understandable to him. He wasn’t a science kind of guy. Sure, he’d done fine in school, but English and history were more his subjects. He didn’t understand the technology, or the sports, or the governmental systems, or, hell, even some of the languages here in Nueva York.
It still felt like a second home.
Why was that? He wondered, watching a car whiz by, almost four hundred feet off of the ground. Maybe it was the people. If he’d just been thrown into this dimension on his own, he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have wanted to stay. But with people like Miguel here with him? It was a place he felt safe in. Happy, even.
The knowledge that he had people like Jess and Miguel backing him up was what made him comfortable enough to bring Mayday. There was something about this whole thing with Miguel, something other than the embarrassment and apprehension, that was making him so upset. Sitting down at the edge of the balcony, he let his feet hang off, swinging them back and forth.
He wanted to spend more time here. He wanted Mayday to know what it was like in a place like this. A place where anything, everything, was possible. Where some of the smartest people in the universe could make anything happen. But it was more than that. It was more than what he wanted for Mayday. He wanted this for himself.
He wanted Miguel.
What felt so wrong about this whole thing wasn’t the mortification of running away like a teenager, it was the worry. The worry that he had hurt Miguel. That he wouldn’t get another chance with him. Miguel had been a secret crush of Peter’s for over a year. At the beginning, Peter had been so scared that he would mess up, tell Miguel his feelings too early.
He’d been afraid to like Miguel, and now he was afraid to lose him. Isn’t it funny how the world works?
Jumping to his feet, Peter could practically feel the determination making its way into his bloodstream. He wasn’t going to lose his chance with the man of his dreams just because he was too much of a coward to apologize to him. No way, no how. He was Spiderman, for god's sake. If he could save the world, he could have a difficult conversation with his crush.
Every bit of his confidence faded the minute that he saw Miguel. As he’d expected, Miguel was still here, fiddling with his screens. It looked like he was working on something genetics related, which wasn’t a surprise. When he looked over, Peter immediately regretted how loud he had been when he walked in.
“You’re here.” Miguel’s voice was cold and emotionless, his eyes returning to his work. Peter flinched. This was worse than when he was yelling and throwing shipping containers.
“I think we need to talk,” Peter said. He cringed at how uncertain and shaky his voice was.
Miguel looked over again, this time catching Peter’s eye and holding his gaze. “You weren’t keen on talking yesterday.”
Peter grimaced. “Yeah, about yesterday. I’m sorry.”
Miguel raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? From the way you’re cowering in that corner, I couldn’t have guessed.”
Taking a step forward felt like he was moving through molasses. The next steps were easier, though, and soon he was standing only a few paces from Miguel, on the left.
“I’m sorry. I panicked, and I freaked out, and I was wrong, and-”
Miguel cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“Why did you run?” Miguel asked. His voice still held some of the indifferent quality, but his emotions were leaking through. He sounded upset. More than upset, actually. He was hurt.
Peter took a deep breath. “I was freaking out. I was worried that you wouldn’t- that I had done something wrong.”
Miguel frowned at his display screen. “You ran away without saying anything after you kissed me because you were worried that you had done something wrong? ”
Peter took another deep, steadying breath. “Yeah. I was worried, because I like you. I like you so much that I didn’t wanna mess something up and lose you.”
“And so, you being you, you messed something up anyways,” Miguel said. He was smiling. It was the tiniest, faintest of smiles, but he was smiling. And he didn’t sound as angry as before. At least, Peter hoped. Because the next part was the hardest part.
He scanned Miguel’s face, trying to read the other man’s emotions. He didn’t look as angry. He didn’t sound as angry. Those were probably good signs, right? Miguel raised an eyebrow at him, his message clear. Are you going to say something, or what?
“So, I was thinking, Miguel,” Peter said. He was stumbling over his words. It was embarrassing. He could feel the flush rising on his cheeks, but he persevered. “Since our first kiss was so bad, maybe I could make it up to you.”
Miguel turned off the display screen and took a step towards him. “It wasn’t the kiss that was bad. It was what you did afterwards.”
Peter nodded shakily. He didn’t realize that he had also taken a step forwards, but he and Miguel were only about a foot apart now.
“Can I kiss you?” He asked, reaching a hand up to Miguel’s face.
Miguel smiled at him. A genuine smile. It caught Peter off guard, and he could feel himself blushing. When Miguel spoke, his voice was full of humor, “Only if you promise not to run away from me this time.”
With their faces so close together that their noses were almost touching, Peter whispered, “Promise.”
Miguel kissed him, this time. He’d have to remember to tell that to Jess later. At the moment, he couldn’t remember much of anything. He couldn’t think of much of anything, except for Miguel, and how soft his lips were.
It was a breathy kiss, and an exploratory one. They broke apart for air, and then Peter smiled, and this time, he was the one that kissed Miguel.
After that kiss, Miguel stepped away. He muttered something about food, wiping at a nonexistent spot on Peter’s face, looking for any excuse to touch him.
Peter grinned at him contentedly. “So, what were you working on? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”
They spent the next hour like that, standing shoulder to shoulder, Miguel explaining parts of his work that Peter would never understand, but liked hearing about anyways. After that hour, Peter walked with Miguel to his apartment. They actually walked . Peter was trying very hard to pretend like he wasn’t running circles and screaming in his head, but he thought that the joyful smiles that kept forcing their way onto his face might have given him away.
He passed Jess, who was passing through on her way back to her dimension. With a gleeful thumbs up, she smiled at him. Back in his own apartment, he watched Mayday sleep, and recounted the day's events to her in a quiet, almost breathtaken voice.
He fell asleep like that, sitting next to Mayday’s crib. For the first time in a long time, his dreams were peaceful, even pleasant. Instead of horrific, dystopian nightmares of the world, the multiverse, coming apart, he dreamt of slow, lazy mornings waking up with Miguel. He imagined what it would be like to spend a day, just a regular day, doing regular things with the man. Taking walks in the park, going out for dinner, teaching Mayday how to swim. Together. That was the one common thing about the dreams. He was never alone. Everything he did in them, he did with Miguel.
Peter wanted to know Miguel's habits. More than that, he wanted Miguel to know his. He wanted the domesticity, however impossible, of living a normal life with Miguel. Even though his back would kill him for it, he stayed there the whole night, his head resting on the edge of Mayday's crib, a slight, joyful smile on his face.