Ch 5 new Miles-stones
[BEEP] [BEEP] [BEEP]
Miguel slowly opened his eyes blinking a few times to adjust to waking up, silently thankful that his bedroom windows were electronically tinted so he wouldn't have to be blinded as soon as he woke up. Miguel took a deep breath and turned over to his right to reach for the watch that had the alarm set on it. He quickly reached for the pop up screen and pushed the ‘off’ option, before sighing and closing his eyes for a second and then he opened them once again and quickly threw his arms forward with enough momentum to make himself sit up.
He then grabbed the sheets that were on top of him and pulling them off of himself so he could easily swing his legs around to the edge of the bed to stand. After standing he gave a light stretch to his arms and legs with some pops and cracks. Giving a slight huff of breath he brought a hand through his hair pushing it out of his face briefly, but ultimately being useless as just fell back into his face like a birds nest. Giving a sigh of defeat he grabbed his watch from the bedside table, putting it on his wrist and re-opening the pop up screen to scroll through any changes or new messages that may have occurred overnight.
Thankfully no reports of any missions going haywire or new anomalies appeared and on top of that he was up to date with his messages from immediate contacts like Jesse and Peter B. Miguel smiled slightly feeling a little proud of himself finally getting on top of everything again.
“Morning Lyla. Could you read out the schedule for today?” And just like that Lyla materialised in front of Miguel with a content smile on her face. “Can do Miggy! First up is waking up Miles and then going through the normal daily routine as per usual. Then you have the rest of the day free until 3:30pm where you will start work on the computer here, then hopefully finish around 10pm but depending on the work that comes through during the day it might be later.” Miguel nodded thinking for a moment before deciding on an answer.
“What’s the weather like today? Do you think I could take Miles out for a bit to get some vitamin D? We haven’t had a chance to go outside for a while and I think it’ll be beneficial.” Lyla smiled brightly clapping her hands together. “I think that’s a brilliant idea! The weather is perfect for doing outside activities today. Though I’d definitely recommend bringing your sunglasses today otherwise I think you’d shrivel up and die like the vampire you are!” Lyla smiled sweetly at Miguel who only looked on with a dead pan stare. “Oh ha ha. You can go now thanks for the information”
Lyla crossed her arms and gave a fake gasp of surprise. “And miss out on waking up my favourite nephew? Never!” Miguel rolled his eyes and started walking towards the door the automatically opened sensing his presence before turning right and walking towards the door that’s directly next to his for safety incase anything happened. As he got closer to the door Lyla disabled the door alarm and protocol that protects the room, that him and Lyla had spent a good day on programming together, only being able to be disabled by Lyla herself or a very encrypted code that only Miguel knows off by heart, and if answered wrong even once would have the whole apartment go into extreme lock down and have Miguel and Lyla notified immediately.
Was it over kill? Yes probably but Miguel wasn’t taking any chances.
Inside was Miles still new-ish room the walls were painted a soft white colour, matching the rest of the apartment, while the furniture was also mostly white like the walls there were some accent colours of red. Miguel felt it was appropriate to honour the colour Miles was wrapped in by his loving mother before she and their universe disappeared.
Once in the room he was greeted by a very excited looking Miles who was jumping up and down on his knees hands holding onto the side of the cot that was facing the door with a blinding smile on his face. Miguel smiled affectionately at Miles while walking over to him to get ready to bend over to pick him up from the cot as was per routine, which Miles knew so he put his arms up above his head making a grabbing motion with his hands. Miguel quickly scooped him up with a laugh from Miles, and put Miles resting on his arm while the other one wrapped around his for support so Miles was level with his face.
“Good morning my pequeña araña (little spider) how was your sleep?” Miles started babbling about and moving his hands a lot, Miguel nodded seriously and acted like he was intently listening and knew what Miles was talking about. “Oh I see. That’s very interesting thank you for letting me know” Lyla materialised herself beside the two of them with wide open arms and a wide smile to go along with it.
“How’s my favourite little guy doing today!” Miles immediately looked to her and smiled and also opened his arms to mimic Lyla, as well as almost hitting Miguel in the face with his tiny little hands. But since this is how Lyla and Miles decided to greet each other each morning he’s become used to it and moves his face out of the way with ease.
“Remind me how, you both decided thats how you greet each other.” Miguel asked with a raised eyebrow looking at Lyla not expecting an actual answer from Miles. Lyla shrugged while leaning back. “I Don’t know. I put my arms out like that trying to mimic a hugging action, cause obviously I can’t touch anything and eventually Miles just started copying on his own accord. Guess I’m just that cool that he had to copy” Lyla then flicked her hair and smiled triumphantly.
Miguel rolled his eyes and started walking away to the bathroom that was connected to the room, Lyla appearing by the door so it could be unlocked and opened, as Miguel wasn’t stupid enough to leave a bathroom door open in a literal toddlers room especially when said toddler can climb walls.
Once reaching the bathroom Miguel goes to set Miles down on the floor in his waterproof baby chair to rest in while he gets his bath ready for him. Lyla goes beside Miles to talk and distract him so he doesn’t try to escape the baby chair, so Miguel can set it up in peace.
Miguel bends down to the bathtub to check that the baby bath was still secure and safe before turning towards the tap and turning it onto a warm setting and putting his hand under the stream of water while slowly waiting for it to heat up to a suitable temperature. Once Miguel deemed it a safe temperature he removed his hand and grabbed the shower head from the side to bring it over to the baby bath and slowly started filling it up which wouldn’t take to long thankfully with it being such a small space to fill up.
While it was filling up Miguel turned to see Miles being still occupied by Lyla still chatting away with him and making little holograms of pictures so Miles could follow along still not understanding a lot of words. Miguel smiled and went to reach and pick up Miles which immediately made Miles attention switch to him and started smiling and putting his arms up so Miguel could pick him up easier from the chair he was in.
“Ready for a bath pequeño? (Little one)” Miles nodded his head up and down always ready and up for bath time. Before Miguel put him in the bath he checked on his wrist where the still in testing baby gizmo sat that has gone through so many breaks and being remade that the current one is called ‘baby gizmo B’ Miguel and Lyla had both gotten so fed up with the zero point number system that they changed it to letters recently. This one had a cooling system as well as a type of Metal from a different dimension that could withstand the higher voltage of electricity that Miles could admit. So far this is the baby gizmo that has been able to last the longest but it can still be broken by normal means like banging it into a wall. But more on that later.
Miguel gently took off Miles toddler onesie that he sleeps in that is a dark red and blue suspiciously similar to Miguel’s own spider suit. Turns out Lyla had sneakily bought it once without Miguel’s knowledge and it ironically became Miles favourite thing to sleep in somehow. Once the water was high enough he turned the water off and then gently lowered Miles into the baby tub which immediately Miles was ecstatic about and started splashing around in and getting water everywhere, which Miguel chuckled at.
“And this is why I now get dressed for the day, after your bathing sessions.” Miles only smiled and laughed at him continuing to move the water around happily. “Okay, okay calm down. Te va a entrar agua en el ojo a este ritmo. eh niño? (your gonna get water in your eye at this rate. huh kid?)” Miguel reached to grab the baby safe soap from the little basket beside the bath to start making sure Miles was actually gonna be clean for the day instead of just looking like a drowned rat. While he was pumping the soap into his hand he saw Lyla appear in front of Miles who was still lightly playing with the water upon seeing Lyla he perked up again looking at her with a tilted head.
“You know what would make Miguel very happy today Miles? If you called him Papa~ yea? You gonna say Papa?” Lyla said with her hands on her knees at Miles face height. Miguel rolled his eyes but had a faint smile on his face, with the hand that didn’t have soap on it he swatted his hand through Lyla’s materialised body getting her out of the way so he could begin to properly wash Miles.
“Stop trying to get him to say papá or dad or any other version. He doesn’t have to call me that if he doesn’t want to, plus he’ll probably say something more along the lines of Mig or Miguel or shock even your name Lyla. Those are the names he hears the most in every day life.” Lyla rolled her eyes and appeared on Miguel’s shoulder with crossed arms and a pout.
“I just don’t understand what’s your issue with Miles calling you his dad. That’s what you are to him! You take care of him you always make sure his needs are met. You always go over and beyond to make him smile, that’s what a parent does!” Miguel sighed knowing they’ve had this conversation to many times in the last month or 2.
“You know I wouldn’t mind being called papá again. In fact I’d be ecstatic!” Miguel gave a happy but nervous chuckle before continuing. “But. I don’t wanna force it. I don’t know if he sees me as such and plus he’s still recovering from not having his original Mamá or Papá. Now is not the time to try and force him to say anything so please respect it, if it turns out his first word is that, then we will cross that metaphorical bridge when it happens” Lyla rolled her eyes annoyed and mumbled something under her breath something along the lines of ‘stupid timing … does see you as his dad … I have proof… big dumb oaf’ Miguel scowled and turned to her briefly.
“What was that. Wanna repeat that Lyla?” Lyla quickly changed her attitude and smiled sweetly “Nope! Not at all!” Before disappearing. Miguel rolled his eyes and turned back to Miles who was trying to put bubbles from the soap in the bath into his mouth and when he saw Miguel looking at him stopped with his hand mid air and mouth open ready to eat it said bubbles. Miguel raised his eyebrow at Miles with a eyebrow raised and a ‘you really gonna try that’ look, which made Miles slowly close his mouth and lower his hand back in the water all while still maintaining eye contact with Miguel.
Miguel let out a humorous chuckle before continuing to get the rest of the soap off of Miles. “I can’t take my eyes off of you for a second, can I?” Miles pouted and glared at Miguel. Miguel smiled at Miles with a tilted head, “ohh I’m so sorry I wouldn't let you eat soap, I’m such a bad person” Miguel swears Miles could already sense sarcasm even at such a young age cause all he did was just glared harder and slouched into the baby tub. Miguel rolled his eyes playfully and smirked going back to rinsing the soap off of Miles before the water could get a chance to go cold.
After demoing Miles suitably clean Miguel picks Miles up and out of the tub and wrapping him up in a big fluffy towel and slowly exited the bathroom to walk over to the white dresser, opening it up to get a black T-shirt, some dark grey shorts and some white socks for Miles to wear for the day.
Miguel put all the clothes up for the day on top of the dresser when we went to move away to sit on a chair to dry Miles off but as he went to turn around Miles managed to get his arm out of the blanket cocoon and was reaching for something on the far end of the dresser. When Miguel went to look at what it was, he saw Miles tiny red hoodie with dark green accents on it and raised his eyebrow at Miles. “Again? But you wear that almost everyday.” Miles turned around to face Miguel and then turned back to the hoodie and continued reaching for it. Miguel just shrugged and walked over to grab it, and put it with the rest of the clothes. “Alright niño if that’s what you want”
Miguel then continued his way over to the chair in the corner of Miles room and sat down with Miles in his lap and started drying him off gently, which Miles seemed content to let Miguel do.
After Miguel deemed Miles dry enough he went back over to the dresser where he had laid out the clothes, and started to dress Miles for the day.
Once done Miguel raised Miles in front of his face with his arms to look at him to see if he was properly dressed and nodded deeming him acceptable. “You wanna help me get dressed pequeña araña? (Little spider?)” Miles immediately brightened up and nodded his head. Miguel laughed and brought Miles into his arms properly and started walking out of the room, and started heading to Miguel’s room to get sorted for the day.
Miguel walked over to his wardrobe which was motion activated and opened when sensing Miguel’s presence as well as turning lights on in the wardrobe to illuminate his clothes in a better light. As Miguel was about to reach for his dark blue button up shirt Miles had other plans and decided to reach for the red T-shirt that wasn’t to far away and pull it off the coat hanger and holding it up in front of himself trying to show it off to Miguel. “Well guess I’m just gonna have to wear this one today aren’t I? What is your obsession with red” Miles after being able to choose a part of Miguel’s outfit calmed down a bit so Miguel plopped him down on a blanket on the ground as he chose out the rest of his outfit which was a black artificial leather jacket and black pants with the red T-shirt Miles had picked out for him.
“Lyla do you mind coming in here and watching Miles for a sec while I get dressed for the day.” It took a good minute to the point where Miguel was gonna message her on his watch gizmo but eventually Lyla did turn up. “Sorry about that Miggy slight issue with a new Spider-Man at HQ and needed some help navigating the high tech we use here in this dimension.” Lyla quickly went over to Miles and gushed at him. “Aww hello my little man! You look so cute in your little outfit I wish I could just squish you! Smile for the photo!” Miles immediately looked to where the hologram phone is that Lyla was holding and smiled at it cheekily.
Miguel rolled his eyes at them but just went into the bathroom to get ready for the day, which consisted of washing his face and brushing his teeth and changing his clothes and fixing his hair hair up so it didn’t look like an absolute birds nest. And once having a finale look over at himself in the mirror he’s reminded of how far he’s come in the last couple of months.
He’s gotten a lot of color back in his skin he’s gained back some healthy weight and bulk again being around the same size he was before the incident occurred. The bags under his eyes have lessened considerably and his eyes look full of life. He still looks a little tired and exhausted but that’s the price you pay for raising such a young child, and running a superhero organization at the same time.
Miguel turned away from the mirror and opened the bathroom door to walk out to see Miles climbing on the wall that was touching the bed with a huge smile on his face with Lyla trying to gently try and persuade him back down the wall. Miguel sighed and shook his head while walking over to where Miles was and gently grabbed him trying to pull him off the wall but it didn’t work only making Miles back arch almost looking like an angry cat. “Can you try and relax your feet and and hands for me? Por favor mi pequeña araña. (Please my little spider)” Miles frowned his eyebrows in concentration trying to figure out how to let go.
Miguel smiled at Miles trying to figure it out. Miguel began to moved his hands under Miles arm pits and then quickly started tickling him with a huge grin on his face. Miles immediately bursted out in a fit of giggles and immediately let go of the wall and fell back into Miguel’s hands. Miguel stopped tickling him and brought him close to his face to cuddle him.
“Always works. Don’t worry my pequeña araña (little spider) you’ll figure it out eventually” Miguel started walking over to his bedside table and picked up his new sunglasses and placed them on top of his head before walking out with Miles towards the kitchen to get some food into them both before they went on there walk together.
Miguel put Miles in the high chair at the table with Lyla watching him, while Miguel went and got there breakfast ready he got Miles some fruit and dry cereal while Miguel started the coffee machine to make himself a black coffee, as he wasn’t much of a breakfast person not having much of an appetite in the morning. Once done preparing everything he picked all of it up and brought it over to the table where Miles was smacking his hands down on the table over and over again excited for some breakfast. “Alright ,alright settle down niño. la comida está aquí ahora. (food is here now.)”
Miles immediately started digging in grabbing the fresh fruit and eating it happily, Miguel smiled softest and started slowly sipping on his pipping hot coffee sighing pleasantly at the warmth of it.
After a few more sips of coffee it was finally empty much to Miguel’s disappointment. He looked back over at Miles who was almost finished with his meal but was still eating away slowly avoiding the bananas. “Come on Miles you gotta eat all of your fruits not just the ones you like” Lyla chastised with her hands on her hips, Miles stopped eating his cereal that he had and turned to Lyla to stick his tongue out at her and went straight back to eating his cereal.
Miguel bursted out laughing throwing his head back in amusement fangs showing and everything not even trying to hide how amused he was by what Miles did. Lyla on the other hand made a fake shocked and offended gasp. “You cheeky little thing! Miguel tell Miles off!” Miguel calmed himself down and put his hand’s together on the table before putting on a very serious face and looked at Miles. “Miles”
Miles quickly turned to Miguel with his full attention waiting for what Miguel had to say. Miguel looked at him for a second before smirking. “Great job” before promptly standing up with a huge grin on his face and walking to the closet in the corner of the room. Lyla gasped even more offended. “Miguel! You’re teaching him bad manners, we don’t want him to grow up and be rude like you!” Miguel only opened the closet door and got out the stroller that they would be using for the day still smiling.
“No, I’m just teaching him that he’s allowed to stand up to bullies” Miles immediately lost all attention on his food once seeing the stroller and started bouncing up and down on his seat excitedly. Lyla glared and crossed her arms at Miguel. “What! I’m not a bully! Name one time a was a bully!” Miguel rolled over the stroller near the high chair before grabbing his coffee cup and the now finished plate of Miles food and dropped it off in the kitchen while grabbing a baby wipe from the dispenser on the kitchen bench. While going over back to Miles and wiping his face off and his little hands as well so they wouldn't be sticky for the day.
“Just today you called me a big dumb oaf, and yesterday you called me an old nitwit which I had to look the meaning up of because it’s so old, want me to continue?” Miguel gave her a raised eyebrow while going over to the sanitizer bin and chucking the wipe in it.
“Okay maybe you got me there, but you ain’t no Angel either! You swear so much! In English and Spanish and some swear words that aren’t even from our dimension. At some point Miles is definitely gonna learn a swear word or two and it definitely won’t be from me!” Miguel did cringe at that, it’s true he did swear heaps he’s been trying to keep it down around Miles but if he’s being honest with himself, he’s not doing a very good job at it.
Miguel went over to where Miles was reaching for the stroller almost falling out of the high chair seat at this point so Miguel gave pity on him and lifted him out of the high chair so he could be in the stroller. Miles already extremely excited to go outside was smiling brightly and swaying back and forth in the stroller trying to get it to move. “Okay we both have our quirks. You need to be less insulting and I need to swear less. deal? Great. Glad that’s sorted” Miguel didn’t even give Lyla a chance to agree even if she wanted to, as Miguel had finally started moving the stroller towards the front door.
Lyla rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything and hoped on top of the shade stroller cover, with her legs dangling over the edge of it.
Miguel flipped the sunglasses down from the top of his head and on to his face before Lyla manually opened the front door for him, once he got through the front door he waited for the door to shut before waiting for clicking sound to happen signaling that it had been shut properly. After hearing it and looking down at Lyla who nodded in confirmation of everything being secured and locked, he moved on towards the elevators, and hovering his hand in front of the scanner to confirm that he wanted to call the elevator to his floor. After waiting about 3 seconds an elevator appeared to take them to the ground.
Miguel walked in with the stroller in front of him and said “ground” the elevator immediately picked up his voice and started its descend to the ground level.
Once the doors opened Miguel walked out of the elevator and headed for the front door Miguel took a deep breath and opened the front door immediately being blinded by the sun even with his sunglasses that are double tinted, Miguel blinked a couple of times to adjust to the brightness before finally being adjusted enough to continue on the walk.
After about 10 minutes of walking peacefully Miles being calm and happy about being outside in the sun. Miguel was continuing walking when out of the corner of his eye he spotted a fruit and vegetable store, and decided while he was out if there was any mundane jobs to do this would be the time to do them. “Hey Lyla is there anything I need to do while I’m out, like fresh food shopping or anything along those lines.”
Lyla was currently looking like she was sun backing on top of the stroller even though she definitely couldn't feel the sun or could get tan from it. She hummed to confirm she was listening, “yea I mean you could. We aren’t running low on anything really but I mean it couldn’t hurt kinda thing to get more”
Miguel nodded and turned the stroller and himself towards the fresh food store.
As Miguel enters the store he grabs a tiny basket near the front to be able to put the fruit in, and slowly starts making his way around the store. About halfway around the store he’s picked up a few bits and pieces and is about to reach for the strawberries when he hears.
“Aww What an adorable kid” Miguel quickly turns around to see two girls who are bending down to see Miles who is happily kicking his feet happy to meet new people. He looked around for Lyla to see that she must of disappeared upon seeing the two girls. One of the girls looks up at him and smiles, “your kid is so adorable, and so well behaved!” Miguel blanks for a second and then turns his body around fully to face them. “Um yea he’s my kid, is there something I can help you with?” Miguel felt a bit awkward doing just casual conversations. Being used to just talking to Miles or Lyla or just strictly work.
The girl who spoke earlier stood up to talk to him better while the other stayed down to keep talking to Miles. “Sorry, it’s just I remember when my child was at around that age and he was a little terror. It’s nice just to see a kid spending time with his parent you know? Instead of just putting a screen in front of them and calling it a day, or getting a robot to take care of them” Miguel nodded trying to be polite but honestly just feeling really awkward and not knowing what to say.
When Miguel was looking after Gabriella, she could already talk for herself and took charge in a conversation so Miguel could just add a bit of information here and there and that would suffice but now. Miles is a baby, barely toddler and can most definitely not speak for himself or Miguel. He groaned internally at having to entertain this apparently mother about this stuff.
“Yes I can totally understand that, I do enjoy spending time with Miles he loves going outside and is a very calm child all things considered”
‘All things considered’ being a child from a different universe and being able to climb on any surface, turn invisible and electrocute stuff. All things considered yea he was a great kid.
“Aww, we’ll be seems to love spending time with you as well I bet his first words were dad” Miguel rubbed his neck nervously.
“Well he has yet to say his first word yet he’s still mostly just talking baby gibberish right now you know?” The lady looked at him a bit confused.
“Oh really? How old is he”
Miguel sighed. “He’s just about 1 year and 3 months or I guess 15 months however you’d like to say it”
The lady’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? At that age he definitely should’ve said his first word, are you sure he hasn’t said it in front of your significant other?” The other girl who was playing with Miles looked up at her friend a bit nervous and then looked back at Miguel with an apologetic look.
Miguel sighed again being annoyed he was stuck in this situation. He should’ve just ordered the fruit to his door like he always does. “It’s actually just me looking after Miles. I’m not interested in pursuing a relationship, and I’m very capable of being able to raise and look after my kid by myself.”
The lady immediately tried to back track and apologize, the friend of hers rolled her eyes and stood up in front of her. “Seriously stop” once the woman stopped talking the other girl sighed and turned to look at him with a soft smile. “Im so sorry about this, it was very inconsiderate what my friend here said, please accept my apology we didn’t mean to cause any harm” Miguel shook his head putting on a fake smile.
“It’s all good, I can realize that you were just asking questions and were trying to be nice and strike up a conversation.” The girl nodded at his words. “Thank you for being understanding, for what it’s worth I think your doing an amazing job, all I could ask for, for my kid is for him to be happy and healthy, and I can tell by your kid, Miles was it? That he’s extremely happy and comfortable around you, I don’t think you need to worry about anything everyone goes at their own speed parent and child. Again thank you for being understanding, I’ll leave you to the rest of your shopping have a great day!”
Just like that the lady quickly grabbed the other girls hand and forced her to walk away to not make a fool of herself anymore, Miguel sighed and continued with his shopping which only took around another 10 minutes with check out as well, as he was walking back to there apartment. On the way Lyla appeared again by his shoulder.
“I can tell your worrying about something Miguel”
Miguel sighed and ran a hand briefly down his face in defeat. “I just… what if that girl was right? What if I’m doing something wrong, he’s not speaking or walking yet. He’s started standing by himself and will walk tiny steps if I help him and hold his hand but as soon as I let go he just goes to the floor and continues to crawl, and he’s not giving me any indication he wants to talk.” Lyla crossed her arms with a small frown.
“I’m sure he wants to, just give him time he’ll figure it out don’t be to disappointed”
Miguel shook his head continuing to walk. “I’m not disappointed at him, I’m disappointed at myself, so I need to spend more time with him, am I stunting his mental growth by not challenging him enough?”
Lyla sighed. “No Miguel you’re over thinking it you’re doing great just like that Second Lady said. Miles understands heaps already and looks when his name is called nods or shakes his head to answer some stuff and he’s already being cheeky like this morning he poked his tongue out at me! You can’t tell me he doesn’t know what he was doing when he did that he totally smirked after doing it! He’s actually extremely smart for his age who cares if he hasn’t spoken to you yet or started walking! Don’t let that mean know it all kid mum bring you down, you’ve been doing so good lately”
Miguel thought for a moment before nodding his head. “You’re right, I’m overthinking it. I’ve got this I just need to keep on top of everything. Also Miles doesn’t need to rush he will say his first word when he’s ready, and he’s just obviously not ready yet right?”
Lyla nods without making eye contact with her arms behind her back. “Uhhh… yeaaa, right”
-1 month ago-
Lyla was looking after Miles while Miguel was at HQ sorting some stuff out usually Miguel likes to do his work from home recently because of Miles but sadly he had to go in and manually fix it and talk to the other spider people to make sure everything would be working and in order.
So in short Lyla was baby sitting.
Lyla was going through some of her old photos on a big screen in front of her and Miles and deleting the bad ones with him just having a little bit of fun.
“Oh we look good in this one. Oh that ones bad let’s get rid of that. Ooo that ones really good” and so on, it went on like this for a while until one where Miguel was in the photo with them. Miguel was holding Miles beside his face smiling with Lyla being the one taking the selfie smiling along with them.
Miles then perked up and pointed to Miguel in the photo and said with full clarity.
“Papa!”
Lyla stopped what she was doing with a mouth hanging open in complete shock. Almost having to reboot herself she quickly collected herself and appeared in front of Miles with beaming excitement.
“Can you say that again!”
Miles smiled up at her “Papa!”
Lyla squealed and immediately went in for a hug, even though Miles couldn't feel it the gesture was there. “Oh my! This is so exciting I can’t wait for Miguel to get home! You said your first word and it was Papa no less, oh I’m so proud of you!”
After a while of praise and Lyla explaining the plan to Miles, which Miles most likely didn’t understand what she was saying. Miguel finally came home, “sorry I’m later than I said I would be, I didn’t think it would have been as hard as it was to explain and teach spider people, shock was I wrong.” Miguel looked slightly irritated and tired but immediately calmed down upon seeing Lyla and Miles mostly Miles.
Miguel went to pick up Miles cuddling him and chucking him up in the air a few times to see Miles laugh and have fun. “Miguel! Miles has something to say to you~” Miguel stopped playing with Miles and looked at him with his full attention. “Oh? And what do you have to tell me pequeño?”
Lyla looked extremely excited basically bouncing up and down waiting for Miles to speak up and getting a recording feed up. Miles smiled and said-
“Bwa Bwa!”
“Huh-?” Lyla stood there dumbfounded. Miguel just chuckled. “Oh is that so?” He started walking away towards the kitchen to go fetch Miles a snack. Lyla followed along, and when Miguel put Miles in the high chair and went to the kitchen. Lyla quickly appeared in front of Miles face arms on hips. “What was that? You were supposed to say what you said before when you pointed at Miguel in the photo.” Lyla whispered shouted, Miles tilted his head and said in a whisper voice copying Lyla “Papa?” Lyla lit up again and nodded her head vigorously. “YES, yes that word. Now say it when Miguel comes back okay?” Lyla stood back and started the recording again.
When Miguel came back with a snack for Miles, and sat down in the chair next to him, Miles looked up at Miguel smiling and open his mouth to say-
“Ba La la”
“OH COME ON-!!!”
In short that went on for another 20 minutes until Miguel got mad at Lyla trying to get Miles to do something he had no idea about, and she gave up trying for the day. every couple of days she tries to get Miles to say the word again in front of Miguel but he never does it thinking of it as a game now and smirks at Lyla every time he doesn’t do it. Lyla is pretty sure he knows exactly what he’s doing. It has now been over a month of this game.
-Back to present time-
“Yep! totally right” Lyla repeats more confidently this time.
Thankfully around this time they had reached the apartment complex, which was good because Miguel was tired out cause of that social interaction, as he got in the elevator he turned to Lyla. “Remind me never to join a parent group, cause I think it would kill me. Elevator go to floor 28” Lyla laughed at that as the elevator took them up to their floor.
The rest of their day went on as normal Miguel and Miles had lunch together they watched and played together until 3:30 when Miguel had to start doing work in his lab for spider HQ. But he was kinda zoning out the whole time still thinking about what the lady had said earlier, Miguel sighed in defeat and stood up to go get a glass of water from the kitchen.
Once stepping out into the kitchen and living room area he saw Miles in the ‘baby jail’ that he could now just climb out of if he wanted to by the way.
Lyla materialized herself next to Miguel and frowned. “Hard day of work?” Miguel sighed and rubbed the bridge of his eyes and eyes, “yea something like that.” As Miguel got his glass of water he slowly started making his way back to his lab, when on his way past the living area, when something grabbed his pants he looked down to see Miles frowning up at him probably sensing that he was upset.
“Papa?”
Miguel sighed and put down his cup of water while picking Miles up from the floor and smiled softly. “It’s alright pequeño, papás okay-” it took him a second to process with being so tired but his eyes immediately widened and his mouth opened in complete shock, he quickly whipped his head around to face Lyla who was also standing there in shock looking back at him and than at Miles before going into a massive smile and clapping her hands together in utter glee watching.
“Papa?”
Miguel quickly looked back at Miles who’s head was tilted in confusion, Miguel’s eyes started watering slightly and he smiled with joy and sadness at being able to be called a papá again he sniffed slightly and brought Miles into a hug holding him tight.
“Yea. Papá is right here niño, I’m right here” Miguel had some tears falling down his face he slowly lowered himself to the floor with Miles and put him in his crossed legs so he could wipe away his tears, Miles immediately looked up at Miguel upset to see his now papa crying. “Papa”
Miguel chuckled finishing wiping his eyes. “Oh I don’t think I’m ever gonna get used to you saying that to me, don’t worry kid these are happy tears I’m just really overwhelmed right now, but I’m happy promise.” Lyla appeared next to the happy two and took a picture. “Miles do you realize what this means? You have so much power over Miguel now! Just flutter your eyelashes at him and call him dad and you’ll get anything you want!….. actually thinking about it now you could’ve done that before you said your first word.” Miguel rolled his eyes playfully not denying the fact he’d definitely do anything to make Miles happy.
-3 weeks later-
Miguel was working in his lab with Lyla he had been working on different ways to be able to stabilize Miles cells in this dimension more permanently, because as great as the bracelet is it’s not reliable especially with a kid who’s most likely gonna be care less or clumsy it will break and if Miles isn’t around to help or fix it he doesn’t wanna think of the outcome. Plus it’s an extremely difficult thing to explain to a kid even if he wanted to but that’s a whole different story. So far the chip idea was still on the table Miguel had built a tiny robot with all the tools and arms to be able to make something of that size and programmed it so Lyla could link herself up to the machine itself to manually make the chip, that is also now being made out of the same metal the current baby gizmo is out of just in case it fails to withstand Miles electricity when he grows up.
“Okay just finished with this chip wanna take a look Miguel” Miguel stood up from his chair and looked over at the tiny piece of equipment with interest. “How compatible with Miles is it and how effective is it” Lyla sighed and rubbed her eyes underneath her glasses. “Compatibility with Miles 89% effectiveness 72% including electricity fail safe.” Miguel hummed in acknowledgment and thought for a second.
“Compatibility went up by 5% and effectiveness went down 7%. So an improvement and a step in the right direction on one hand and on the other-“ Lyla groaned knowing what Miguel was gonna say. “I know, I know! Yet ‘and on the other hand not close enough and we need to keep finding a different solution!’ I know alright! We both agreed that it shouldn’t go anywhere near Miles until it was at least 99% on both things. If not 100%” Miguel sighed also slightly frustrated as they had been at this for months now with different materials different methods even at one point giving up on the chip and going in a different direction entirely before giving up on that one and going back to the chip.
“Okay back to the drawing board I’ll try to figure out something else do you think we need other materials again?” Miguel asked heading back to his desk. Lyla sighed. “I don’t know maybe? I mean it doesn’t hurt to have a look for different materials right?” They went back and forth for a while trying different ideas maybe some old ideas now that they know a bit more.
But in the corner of the room watching them was Miles, he was on his play mat with a few toys but was slowly getting bored and wanted attention. So Miles decided to get himself some attention, problem one how to get over there. The issue with the lab was, is that it was cleaned by robots to regularly that the floors were quite slippery against skin so crawling on hands and knees doesn’t work cause of the skin and Miles just ends up falling flat first into the floor or just slightly sliding around.
Miles looked down at Miguel’s feet and saw shoes and then looked back at his feet and also saw that he had shoes as well on today.Miguel was trying to get Miles used to wearing shoes for longer periods of time. So that set in plan the motion of Miles trying to get over to Miguel with how Miguel makes it across the lab without slipping meaning- walking.
Miles dropped his toy he was playing with on the mat and slowly got on his hands and knees to crawl towards the wall his mat was next to and put his hands on the wall for support, while slowly bringing his knee up from kneeling position into a lunging position before quickly getting his other leg up from underneath him into a squat kinda position before standing up on two straight legs.
Miles smiled to himself proud and then took one hand off the wall while taking small steps away from said wall until his other hand was forced to come off as well now, as Miles was to far away from the wall now to hang on to it without falling now standing with no support Miles was a bit more unsure now wobbling a bit, Miles then looked up though to see Miguel and Lyla still chatting. So Miles took a little breath before taking a small step without help wobbling slightly but not falling before he took another not wobbling as much on the second one but still being a bit unstable. But after a few more steps Miles slowly got the hang of it and even made his way off the Mat area and was now making his way over to Miguel and Lyla hands out reaching for them.
“Papa! Lala!”
Miguel and Lyla quickly both turned around to see Miles with decent speed all things considered making his way over to them by walking. They both immediately lit up in surprise before Miguel got out of his chair to quickly kneel on the floor making grabby hands towards Miles, encouraging him to keep coming over to him. Lyla was on Miguel’s shoulder doing the same thing both having huge proud smiles on their faces.
“Come on mi pequeña araña (my little spider) you can do it. Come to papá“
“Come on Miles you’re so close! You’re doing so well keep coming! You got this Miles!”
Both Miguel and Lyla shouting encouraging words to Miles which only made him smile more and speed up slightly before finally reaching Miguel’s arms and falling into them, Miguel immediately picked him up and held him up high spinning him around in celebration.
“Oh, mi pequeño (my little boy) I’m so, so proud of you. You did such an incredible job. Your first steps, and you were practically running not even walking. My smart little boy excelente trabajo (amazing job)”
Lyla sighed happily dreamily “I’m so proud of you Miles you’ve come so far! You still can’t quite say my name right but we will work on that!” Miguel chuckled slightly holding Miles close giving him praise for a job well done. Lyla appeared on Miguel’s shoulder again leaning against a nonexistent wall. “You know we will never know peace again now that he can walk right?” Miguel nodded, not even taking his eyes off of Miles.
“I’m well aware.”