Blueshift

Steven wakes up alone. It’s refreshing- if not a little lonely. This is still, wildly new to him. To all of them. He wants to lie to himself as he lays in bed and watches the sunlight move across the ceiling, say that they’re all handling it well. Like Jake isn’t struggling to just be human and Marc isn’t missing key parts of himself that he’s had since childhood. It's a good lie if not a little fanciful. He may as well lie to himself too, imagine he's a millionaire now. 

Scrubbing the sleep from his eyes he forces himself up and moving, laying in bed moping is going to do none of them any good. Someone has to be the responsible adult in the house and somehow that hat has fallen to him. 

Jake is up when Steven finally stumbles down the hall towards the kitchen, refreshed and feeling more awake now. He's sitting at the table and tinkering with something. His shoulders hunched up to his cap as he focuses on whatever is in front of him.

Guns. 

As Steven comes closer he scrunches up his nose at the literal armory spread across their dinner table. Jake is cleaning parts of one before returning them all together. Checking the weapon with a snap of his wrist that startles Steven. 

“Buenos.” Jake greets, glancing at Steven under his cap as he passes, eyes black as night under the shadow. He looks exhausted and Steven has no idea when he last slept, he has a feeling if he asked Jake, he wouldn’t know either.

“Morning to you too. You- ah, have a good night working?” Steven asks, unsure if that’s something he’s allowed to ask. It’s hard to try and talk to someone who’s been with you your entire life and never once tried to say hello, just showed up and killed when needing to before vanishing again. Marc’s last name may be Spector but Jake is the true ghost of them.

Filling the electric kettle with water and pulling a mug and box of tea from the cupboard, Steven busies himself. His morning routine has become one of his favorites now that he has the luxury of enjoying it without the stress of solving what his body did while sleeping. 

“Bien. Si realmente quieres-“

“You know I no habla español.” Steven says the words too thick and sticky in his mouth, a poor intimidation of Jake's fluency. 

“Si yo lo hago, tú lo haces. Estúpido. Así es como trabajamos.” Jake says leaning back on the chair till it rests only on the back legs. He squints one eye and points the gun in his hand at Steven, taking aim between his eyes.

Steven frowns, unimpressed. Marc would be shitting himself to see Jake pointing a gun -empty or not- at Steven but thankfully he must still be in bed. He doesn't think he has it in him yet to handle their fighting. Not before breakfast and his first cup of caffeine 

Letting out a soft ‘bang’ sound and tilting the gun up and back in mock recoil, Jake drops the chair back down to four legs and sets the gun on the table. Loading it with care, he checks the clip before sliding it home with a deadly click. 

“It went fine. Work is work. I’m sure you don’t want to hear the dirty details.” Jake says finally in English.

“I think the dirty details are all over our kitchen table,” Steven says, stepping close and picking up one of the guns with two fingers. “Marc will have a fit if he sees you with these.” 

“Marc always has a fit,” Jake says with a sniff, taking the gun from Steven's fingers. 

“Yes. But we don’t want to encourage Marc to have fits. It’s a bit rude.“ Steven nods and feels like he’s telling a child to be kind to another child. It’s a conversation they’ve had several times, at this point it’s not only repetitive- it’s clear that Jake just likes pushing Marc’s buttons. Steven just doesn’t know why.

Helping Marc with this is something they should all be working on. When the Annead first suggested the possibility of separating them Marc had nearly been in tears begging them to do it. To free Steven of his sins, to free them both of Jake and Khonshu. But in the end, Marc is why they exist at all because he couldn’t handle the world without them… and now he’s having to. 

Jake, asshole of the year or not, knows it too. He sighs a great heave of breath and starts collecting the guns, and a wickedly long knife, into a cloth roll. The one he had pointed at Steven vanishes under his jacket as he stands, collecting the bundle under his arm. 

Steven flounders and feels like he’s chasing Jake out of the kitchen, sending him off to hide like he’s so prone to do. Like he’s spent his whole life doing. 

“Have you had breakfast- eh- dinner? I was going to make myself some toast, but I can whip up something more, I think there’s still some of that turkey bacon in the fridge, eggs. I know how you forget to eat and it’s always nice to share a meal.” Steven rambles regretting half the words the second they come out of his mouth, hands coming to rest on the back of one of the kitchen chairs so they don’t flutter about. 

Jake looks at him a moment, bundle of weapons under his arm and face unreadably blank, his head coming to tilt ever so softy to one side. He's learned that from Khonshu, Steven is sure. “I ate earlier.” He finally says, shifting from one foot to the other, another subtle retreating step back. Like just the act of being perceived has put him on retreat. 

Earlier, Steven has learned, could mean an hour ago- or yesterday. 

“Oh.” He says with a breath, nodding like his head is on a spring even as he lets the sadness settle in his chest. “Ok.” 

Steven watches him walk across the sitting room towards his bedroom, where he pauses in the doorway. Looking back to Steven and giving something close to a genuine smile. “Que tengas un buen día en el trabajo, Stevie. Hasta luego.”

“I have no idea what you said!” Steven says, loud in the quiet morning, and is rewarded with the sound of Jake's soft laughter through his bedroom door closing. 

Steven doesn’t make himself a fancy breakfast. It feels wrong eating like that alone, especially knowing Jake is just across the apartment. Probably not sleeping, probably continuing to clean his weapons alone. Hopefully not hating Steven for chasing him out of the kitchen by sheer presence alone. Instead, he makes simple toast and pulls one of his books off the shelf to occupy his mind.

Marc himself comes ambling out of his room across the hall from Steven's as Steven is finishing his toast, highlighting notes in the book with a yellow marker. 

“Morning.” Steven greets, glancing up from his reading to smile at Marc, raising both eyebrows at the sight of him padding barefoot and sleepy towards the coffee pot. 

Marc grunts, jabbing overly aggressively at the coffee machine to turn it on. Rattling loudly through the kitchen, filling the machine with water and fresh grinds. 

“Morning” He finally says, voice rough, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing his curls back only for them to flop forward again the second his fingers are gone. He yawns wide enough even Steven can hear his jaw crack. Steven can’t help the fond smile on his face as he takes in Marc’s sleepy sight. It’s welcoming to see Marc soft like this, no hard-edged mercenary, not weariness or guilt-laden. It’s not every day he sees Marc this relaxed- but it’s slowly becoming more often. 

Slipping a receipt into the book to mark his place Steven closes it and moves it aside, giving Marc his full attention as the coffee pot gurgles like a dying animal on the counter. “I have work in a bit- but I was thinking tonight I can get takeout at that Asian fusion place that you like. Maybe we can catch a movie?” 

“Jake-“ Marc starts, and already he’s crossed his arms over his chest and a frown is starting to pull his eyebrows down. Like just the slightest thought of their third has already ruined his day.

“Jake works- I’m talking about us.” Steven says, waving his hands up in a ‘whoa’ motion, stopping Marc’s annoyance before it can even start. 

Marc slowly shakes his head, floppy curls sweeping across his forehead. A sigh drains the tension back from his shoulders again and when Marc looks back to Steven the softness is back. “Yeah. Ok.” 

 -

Jake can hear them- Marc and Steven chatting in the apartment beyond his door. It’s better this way, like how it was, just listening to them from a distance. Familiar and calming. 

He’s struggling to adapt to all of this and Steven is starting to see it. It makes him want to hide, he was never meant to be seen by them.

That was always Steven's purpose though, to see their issues and smooth them out. To build everything back up whole again after he and Marc had crumbled down to dust and bone. It’s what’s happening now too, Jake thinks, only he’s not sure Steven will succeed. 

He finishes cleaning the last of his guns, folding and putting his kit away, and locking everything neatly into the safe in his closet. He glances around the room, the bare bones of personal space. Bed, desk, a single little bookshelf mounted to the wall that holds a few personal items he’s acquired through his relatively short life. 

It’s pathetic. He's pathetic... 

He itches to go out even though he knows he should try to sleep. He only got a few hours yesterday- less the day before, but it’s hard to sleep when he’s spent a lifetime doing it. Laying still and dead makes his skin crawl, and a scream bubble up from his chest if he sleeps too long. So he doesn’t.

Marc and Steven are still in the kitchen chatting, laughing. Marc's look of disappointment he can handle but he can’t the dough eyes Steven would make if he saw him slipping out the door. Instead, Jake pulls on his gloves and grabs his keys from his bedside table, moving to the window to push it open and slipping out to the fire escape below like a fucking teenager.

London is waking up just past the glass, someone shouts in the distance, kids playing. A car honks. It’s all so alive, while he’s so dead. 

He feels Khonshu watching, a prickle at the back of his brain but his god says nothing, just observes as he takes the steps down, moving like a shadow in under the dawn sun's brightness. Passing their lower neighbors' apartments without looking, and riding the spring-loaded ladder at the bottom to the street below. Here at least he feels a little more alive, walking, hands tucked into his coat pockets, down the block to the garage he keeps his cars in. Chasing that alive feeling like a hound after a rabbit, just like that hound knowing he’ll run for his master and run and run till someday his heart will give out. 

-

Meanwhile, across the multiverse. 

-

Jess has to walk twice as fast to keep up with Miguel’s long strides as he storms through Spider Society, everyone has enough sense to get out of his way, cutting a path to the large doors of his lab. He should slow down, but this is just proving his point.

“This is a class 10 threat to the multiverse. This Octavious is dangerous, he’s killed his dimensions Spider-Man, as an anomaly he’s going to be an even bigger risk. I do not want you there.” He says, jabbing the buttons on his dimensional control device, unbudging about this. 

Lyla floats at his shoulder, looking sympathetic at her and unimpressed at him. He ignores her and as the lab doors close she vanishes, probably pissed at him too. He's used to it. 

“Is this because I’m pregnant?” Jess says and it’s one thing to imply it- but saying it out loud has him flinching, a twitch of his shoulders that he hides by dropping his hands down to his hips and looking down his nose at her. 

“No” he lies.

“If not me then take Peter B. with you!” She says, throwing her hands up and he sneers, fangs catching on his lip.

“B? No. Hell no.” Miguel says far more casually than he feels, waving her off and returning his attention to his device. He’d rather catch himself on fire than take Peter B. Parker on this mission with him. He’s not throwing a father of a newborn daughter in front of a known Spider-Man killer.

His device locks onto the dimension the Octavious was thrown into and chimes from his wrist, stopping Jess from offering any other outlandish suggestions he'd instantly deny. 

"I'll be fine," he says as he opens the gleaming fractal portal, notes and bits of lab projects lifting as gravity shifts in the few feet around it, making a mess of his lab.

“Miguel. If you don’t either come back safe or call for backup in twenty minutes I’m coming looking for you.” She says, crossing her arms over the top of her small swell of belly. He shakes his head, looking away from her, a constant reminder of what he’s lost.

“Don’t. Trust me on this.” He says, letting his mask materialize over his face and stepping through the portal. If she says anything else it's lost to the wormhole. 

The anomaly known as Otto Octavius is easy to find in the pastel world Miguel steps into, the device planting him just a rooftop away as Octavius rips a path of destruction with violence usually reserved for symbiotes. 

Miguel doesn’t hang back but throws himself right into it, using laser-edged webbing to slingshot himself across the space separating them, launching himself fist first right at the anomaly’s face once he’s in range.

He doesn’t even make contact, one of the four mechanical arms strikes snake fast, slapping him away and off the building's edge. He doesn’t fall far, catching himself with his talons on the ledge with a shriek of metal tearing, jumping back towards the man with deadly speed. He doesn’t get any closer on his second try, the force the tentacle hits him leaves him breathless for a second, rolling to a stop against an industrial-sized air conditioning unit. 

“Who are you?” Octavius questions as he turns to glare at Miguel as he gathers his feet back under him, leaning a moment against the sun-warmed metal at his back. Octaviou's eyes are black as ink. It’s a freaky look. Miguel feels like he’s a spider under a microscope under that cold black stare, it's not a feeling he's comfortable with.

“That’s confidential,” Miguel says as he has so many damn times before. Same hat and dance- different day. Only today it’s with a known Spider-Man killer. 

Octavius scuffs and Miguel shoots webbing at the top right tentacle and makes a run for the left top, it grabs his ankle in a crushing grip and swings him out of the way. The right shaking itself free of the webbing as Miguel gets his feet back under him a third time, frustration coiling tight in his chest. He needs to put this Octavius down before he can kill another Spider-Man. Before he can destroy a whole dimension.

“Spider-Man? No- Spider-Man is dead, who are you, little bug?” Octavius says, voice curious as one arm comes close like it’s conferring with him. Communicating. He seems to come to some kind of conclusion, waving Miguel off with a human hand like he’s an annoying child, looking across the skyline with wide lightless eyes. The frustration turns to rage that boils just under Miguel’s ribs. 

“This isn’t my world,” Octavius says in awe. Just as Miguel tries again to leap for his face, letting his anger push him, fangs descend as instinct and rage kick in. If he kills- no world is going to miss this monster. 

He comes at Octavius with full force, faking left and instead going right, slipping under one tentacle, talons coming inches from Octavius's face before a second throws him back into the roof ledge and Miguel snarls under his mask in frustration. Throwing himself right back at the anomaly, Octavius doesn’t even take a step back in retreat. Hardly looking fazed at all at Miguel’s attempt to web him, claw him- anything. 

Miguel isn’t as stupid as Octavius thinks he is though, he’s testing and waiting and his window opens for a second as Octavius glitches. The man and machine double over in pain, tentacles writhing as the air around him dilates in colors and kaleidoscopic shapes. 

Miguel attacks. 

He doesn’t even land a single hit, one of Octavious’ bottom tentacles rising through the glitch, opening its wide metal mouth and grasping Miguels' chest in one singular moment. It’s like being hit by a bus and Miguel struggles against it like a toddler, tasting his own blood on his tongue. Talons scrape along the fragmented metal of the tentacle as it constricts around him, ripping out wires and tearing gouges into the casing as it crushes his breathing. He can feel his ribs grinding and fights not to panic. Shooting webbing for Octavius's face but the other three arms stop them before they ever make contact with the man himself. 

“This isn’t your world either- is it?” Octavius nearly purrs, a grin splitting across his face as spilled oil eyes take in everything about Miguel in comparison to the soft pastel world around them, coming to rest on his poly-multiverse device. 

One of Octavius’s metal claws grasps his wrist, just over his device, the grip crushing. The pulling pain is accompanied by ice-cold panic as Miguel realizes what Octavius is trying to do. 

“No!” He yells, voice cracking as he struggles against the other two tentacles grasping his free arm and pulling him in the opposite direction, the third around his chest squeezing till his yell gives out into a garbled wheeze. Octavius is trying to rip the device from his wrist or his hand from his arm- whichever gives fist. 

“Let it go bug.” The Octavius says, calm and dangerous as ice over a raging river. “Give it up to me.” 

“No,” Miguel says again with what little breath he can, tongue thick in his mouth, head swimming. The multiverse, all of them will come crashing down. Who knows the kind of distraction this Octavius could rain down upon them with this kind of power. So many lives would be lost, all because of him. 

Lyla flickers to life over the claw and makes a waving motion, mouth moving but he can only hear static, her body blurring and fuzzy as the device and Miguel’s body gives under the strain of the claw. Bones crunch and muscles tear, the device slipping over his hand in a spray of blood and white-hot pain. 

Octavius throws him to the side like a child done with his toy and brings the device to his body, already pushing buttons as Miguel rolls across the rooftop and stops himself with a one-handed grip near the edge. His other a numb static of agony, useless and bloody, suit impossibly torn. He tries not to look at it, taking gulping breaths of air to clear the spots from his vision. He has no time to baby himself, talons digging in and propelling himself forward as Octavius opens a gleaming fractal portal. 

He collides with Octavius' back, tumbling them both forward and into the multiverse stream.