What brings you to me
You open your eyes slowly. Your head is thumping with an aching headache. Your body feels sore, causing you to groan as you move. “Ow…” you sit up slowly. It’s night time and your room is dark except for light leaking in from your living room. You slowly reach for the lamp on your bedside table. You pull the switch and then the light causes you to wince. Your eyes squint while adjusting to the light. You rub your head that’s still thumping. You sit there in your bed while looking around. You slowly realize your room is tidied up. “What..” you scan the room. No messy floors, your books are organized and your clothes are put away. You steady yourself on the corner of the bed. You think this is all a weird aftermath of a crazy hangover. You stand but your knees feel weak and wobbly. Nonetheless, you attempt to walk and your legs almost immediately give out. “Ow…” you fall to the ground in a hectic manner. You giggle to yourself, “…god.” Tubbing your head.
You pull yourself up using your mattress. You stand for a little while before attempting to walk again. Your knees wobble a little but you manage the few steps to your bathroom. You plop on the toilet cover to regain strength. You rub your temples, trying to remember what happened. You look at the ground, noticing that your bathroom is also tidied up. You brush it off, thinking it was some middle of the night, 2 am, get your life together spurt of energy. You hold yourself up with the sink. You turn on the faucet and then splash your face with water. The cool sensation wakes you up a little. You stretch your back and extend your arms upwards before exiting the bathroom and heading toward the kitchen. You groan as your sore muscles remind you of their existence. You rub your neck as you walk out into your living room.
And there
You stop in your tracks. You turn slowly towards your living room window. You hesitate to accept what you’re looking at. That shady, looming figure you’ve just remembered you’ve encountered before. Things rush back to memory but before you can acknowledge that, you have to deal with the humanoid thing being caught halfway in your window. It’s stopped too, paused while staring at you. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You start to throw anything in your reach. Keys, then an orange. It dodges the keys while grabbing the orange with one hand. It moves fully into your apartment, as it stands up completely.
You freeze for a second as you see how absolutely massive it is. You can see it clearer than before but that doesn’t stop you. You grab another orange and chuck it at its face. Which it dodges but doesn’t dodge the dog toy you threw right after. The dog toy squeaks as it hits its chest. “Alright, enough.” The voice catches you by surprise. It’s deep but soft, “it’s okay I’m not going to hurt you.” It puts its hands up and you see it has a fast food bag in one hand.
“Get out!” You throw more oranges their way. You make your way over to your sink and start to throw utensils from the drying rack. “Woah woah!” They dodge a fork, then a knife. He places the fast food bag down and turns to the fallen utensils, “I just washed those,” Miguel mumbles under his breath. He has an annoyed expression under his mask. “Please just listen!” Miguel dodges a spoon and then another knife.
You ready yourself to throw a larger kitchen knife. Miguel's eyes widened, “okay, easy now.” He’s more concerned with you hurting yourself.
“What the hell are you?” Your breathing is heavy from the lack of stamina. “Some sort of cat thing?” You motion with your hand. “What?” Miguel’s voice is slightly annoyed. “Y-yeah because of the claws.” You nod.
Miguel shakes his head, “No no, I’m,” he hesitates, “Spider…man” Miguel pauses between words. Unsure of how that’s going to land.
“W-what, no you’re not. You're way taller and…” you scan him up and down, “..Buffer, Plus he’s..dead.” you examine him closely.
Miguel walks closer to you, “ Different Spider-Man,” he sighs, “it’s a long story, would you please just put the knife down?” Miguel extends his hands out and motions for the knife to be set down. You bring the knife down but hold your grip tighter around the handle. “Okay start explaining and if you come any closer, I will hurt you.” Your voice is serious.
Miguel nods, “Mhm yeah, alright.” He walks slowly towards you, “My DNA was spliced with spider DNA which changed my physiology-” You raise an eyebrow, “Is that why you’re blue?” Your knife is still tightly in your grasp. Miguel stops and his shoulders drop in defeat, “No I’m not blue, it’s my suit.”
You nod towards him and point the knife, waving it up and down, “It’s a suit?” You point to your eyes, "How the hell do you see in that thing?”
Lyla blips next to you, “It works like a one-way glass.” Lyla smirks and blips to the other side of you. She leans in and whispers, “He’s sensitive to light.”
You jump and wave your knife in her direction, “What the-“ with Lyla as a distraction. Miguel holds your wrist with one hand and takes the knife from you with the other. His hand takes up a good portion of your forearm. “H-hey, let go!” You swat your wrist away. Still feeling his grip. You look up at him as he towers over you. His stature makes your heart escalate.
Miguel looks down at you. He’s caught up in your eyes for a second. “Um, okay.” Miguel sets the knife on the counter. “What you need to know is, I mean you no harm. I'm human, like you.” He reaches up to take off his mask. Miguel hesitates. You watch as the mask is slowly pulled off, revealing a man with defined features. He has red eyes and dark brown hair.
You watch as he steps back, “I brought you some food. In case you were hungry.” He looks back for a second while walking. “You know your fridge is basically empty. There’s like one thing of juice in there.” Miguel rambles as he picks up the bag and walks back toward you.
You examine him with your eyes, moving them up and down. “It’s a quesadilla, no tomato, extra salsa on the side.” He hands you the bag.
You look up at him, “How did you-“ Miguel looks away and walks towards your living room window. After a small pause you sigh, “You saved me from those bad guys on the street.” Miguel puts his mask back on, “Yeah,” He sits on the windowsill and turns his body to leave. “Thank you,” you mumble. Suddenly, after another small pause you remember.
“Wait.” You call out, “Last night, everything that happened... You were there” Your tone is serious. You clutch the bag in your hand. Your eyes widen in remembrance. You sit the bag on the counter and walk towards him. “My friend, Naya. She was there at the shelter when that spooky lady showed up.” You pause, “Oh my god. The dogs,” you turn in a panic and head towards your room, “oh my god, Pepper! He was missing!”
Miguel watches you walk away and sighs, “Y/N, come back,”
You stop in your tracks as he calls your name. His tone of voice was soft. You turn around, “how do you know my name?” Miguel panics a little, “I saw it…somewhere. Look, that-“ he signs, “that wasn’t last night.”
You shake your head, “What are you talking about, yes it was.”
Miguel steps back into your apartment, closing the window behind him. “Lyla,” Miguel’s voice is low.
Lyla blips you and shows a larger screen, “Hm, you were out for about, 32 hours. My predictions of your awakening were pretty much correct.”
You scoff, “What? 32 hours? How…what?” Lyla continues, “You were poisoned by a type of restrictive venom. It stops functions like hunger, regenerative abilities, respirational functions, etc. Luckily the amount you had was itty bitty and after injecting an antidote into you, it took a while for things to get back to normal. So expect the hunger to hit a bit harder than usual-“ You interrupt Lyla, “Okay so, what? I've been asleep for that long and no one has looked for her?” Miguel sighs, “the police department is looking into it,” Lyla glances at Miguel as Miguel glances at the ground.
You scoff, feeling helpless, “And what about you? Aren’t you a hero? I mean you saved me from those men and the super venom lady.” Miguel sighs and pauses. He looks up at you. “It’s complicated,” his voice is sincere and gentle. You shrug, “I’ll just look for her myself.” You turn towards your room without hesitation.
Miguel props up at the suggestion, “You need to rest.” Lyla smirks in amusement.
Miguel follows you into your room as he removes his mask once more. “You have to regain strength. Your body took a tremendous hit.” You ignore him as you pull out a coat from your wardrobe. Tossing other clothes on the ground. Miguel groans at the sight, “You’ve gotta be kid- okay, I will help you look.”
“Fine.” You snap, “ But I need you to tell me who the hell that shady venom lady is because as far as I can tell, you two are pretty similar.” You shuffle your coat on and walk towards your door. Miguel rubs the back of his head, “god, you’re stubborn.” Miguel watches you walk away. “Well?” You turn around and place your hands on your hips. “I can’t say,” Miguel’s voice is serious. You squint your eyes at him.
“You saved me three times in a row, brought me to my apartment, you know my real name- which the only person who calls me that is my Grandma and you knew my go-to order at my favorite restaurant.” You lean in while looking up at him. “Who exactly are you?”
Miguel’s heart beats faster at your proximity. His heightened senses make your closeness much more intense. He has to back away. “My name is Miguel O’Hara.” He clears his throat. “Miguel O’Hara?” You step closer as he backs away, “So what brings you to me, Miguel O’Hara?” you cross your arms. The sound of your voice saying his full name makes Miguel’s heart skip multiple beats. He lets out a small smirk showcasing his smile line. Seeing him show some emotion other than annoyance makes your stomach do a flip.
Now that you think of it, Miguel is very good-looking. You’ve just been distracted to really notice. Not to mention starving. His red eyes seem to dial in on you and you can’t look away. “My line of work requires me to get rid of people like super shady venom lady. That’s why I’m here.” Miguel crosses his arms to tease you. You plop your arms to your side. “Doesn’t explain how you know those things about me.” You side-eye him. “ID has both your address and your full government name, Y/N,” he answers as a complete bluff. Hearing him say your real name makes you wince, “Please don’t, you can literally call me anything else.” You walk away and sit on a small bench by your door to put on your shoes. “Anything?” Miguel teases as he walks behind you. You roll your eyes, “Easy now, you just met me.” Miguel scoffs softly, “Right, we just met.” he watches you put on your favorite, comfy pair of sneakers. “I’ll call you,” he pauses, “Queso.” he nods at his idea. “Queso? Like cheese?” you look up at him while tying your shoes. “Yeah, cheese.” He looks down at you meeting your eyes. He’s towering over you. His tall and built stature is right in front of you which makes you blush. Miguel fights the urge of placing his hand on your chin and caressing your face. Miguel has been in plenty of painful and stressful situations. This one is by far the worst. He’s had you once and now that isn’t the case. Part of him wishes everything could just end here. No more Reign, no more multiverse, and no more of this need to have you. You look down to place your last shoe on. “What about the quesadilla?” you comment to distract yourself from the warmth now coming from your cheeks. “Coincidence.” Miguel looks up at the ceiling. He misses you as you sit right in front of him. You sigh, “I might as well tell you this now but that night, Salty Shady Super Venom Lady said some things to me.” Miguel looks down, “what things?” You stand up while adjusting your coat. “‘A lot of bad things happened for you to exist in this universe’ Everything else is kinda a blur.” Miguel’s heart sinks. Lyla appears and she turns to Miguel. Miguel studies your face which is now looking up at him. His eyes scan your face and suddenly he’s reminded. The sounds and the helpless feeling bombard his senses. He winces and looks away quickly. He hasn’t had time to properly grieve. His mindset has just been action, action, action.
Miguel grits his teeth and groans under his breath, “Her name is Reign.” Miguel’s wristband opens a screen, showcasing Reign’s file. “She’s…” Miguel hesitates, “She’s come a long way. Traveled a long distance to get to you.” Miguel turns his head to see you fully invested. He continues, “And..” Miguel takes a long breath “She’s here for you.” Your heart beats faster, “why?” your voice is full with worry.
Miguel shut down the screen, “don’t worry about that, I’m here to protect you.” Lyla nods in reassurance. Your brows furrow, “Why is she trying to hurt me?” Miguel shakes his head, “Don’t worry.” you shake your head now, “No, I am going to worry, that Reign lady knows where my friend is.” Miguel groans slightly, “Right.”
You nod, “so we’re going to find her right? And Rosy? And Pepper?” Lyla blips in front of you, “its best we stay put. That way Miguel is with you at all times in a safe environment-”
You groan, “Okay, what even are you?” you motion with your hands.
“She’s an AI named Lyla and she’s right.” Miguel beeps her away. Miguel places his hand on your arm and it catches you by surprise. “Listen to me, Reign is not a rational person. I’m not sure why but she..” Miguel sees your concentrated look as you hone in on what he’s saying, “She wants to kill..you.”
“Kill me?’’ You shake your head, “what the fuck? why?!”