Golden Hour
THE FIRST THING GWEN was greeted with when she stepped through the portal and into MJ’s new house included emptiness. There was no one at the front hall foyer, or in the living room. There were red solo cups and mugs with tea bag strings dangling off the side scattered around the room, and she turned from the upturned couch cushions and ongoing TV station to saddle into the kitchen. MJ stood washing the dishes in her sink, humming a song under her breath and dancing for baby Mayday. The spider child herself was settled into a high chair, squealing and shoving cheerios and blueberries into her mouth as fast as she could. Gwen wanted to laugh, but her heart still hurt from the visit with the Morales family.
Jeff’s words were on repeat like a bad spotify scalper in her mind. ‘Not my son. Not my baby,’ those words made Gwen’s skin itch. Her heart hadn’t calmed yet, and she could feel anxious nerves crawling through her fingers and down her spine. Would he believe her, if Miles never came home? Would he willingly die so his son could live? Could he bear knowing the full truth to cannon events? Gwen might have told him ‘everything,’ but she couldn’t bear to look another police captain in the eyes and tell him he would die. If Jefferson was anything like her own daddy was, he wouldn’t listen to Gwen. And let’s face it, if there was such thing as cannon events and parallel universes, he would only lie to his family and continue on, despite knowing it would be his downfall.
But wasn’t that what a hero was supposed to do? Fight the good fight even when they knew it will kill them? But what about a good dad? Aren’t they supposed to always be there for their children? Don’t they dedicate the rest of their lives with a vow to cherish and protect what they brought into the world? Unlike marriage, there was no certificate to sign saying you would be with that child through sickness and health. Especially after they turned eighteen. Gwen might not be a legal adult, but she figured web-slinging had given her some of the same attributes that someone a scant two years older than her would have. Hell, she was probably more mature. She had murdered her best friend at thirteen-
“Little lost there, huh?” MJ asked, sidling up beside Gwen in the doorway. At some point she must have retreated back into the living room, because her arms were cradled with dirty mugs and half-empty solo cups. Gwen hummed. “Why don’t you sit down at the table for a minute?”
“I shouldn’t-”
“The others went out to get dinner. Sit.” MJ passed her, dumping her arm full into the sink and letting the faucet run. Steam wafted up past the little window, and Gwen could recognize the beginnings of golden hour. One more day. She felt like she was going to throw up or pass out, so she settled at the head of the table reluctantly. She couldn’t bring herself to lean back in the wicker chair, feet planted flat on the floor as she bounced her legs. Mayday made grabby hands towards Gwen and blew a raspberry, but MJ was quick to scoop her up and sit in the chair closest to Gwen.
“Where’d you go?” was the time old question that none of the spiders would have bothered to ask her, too concerned with their own efforts.
“His home.” She whispered, spinning a cheerio on the table. Mayday thwipped it up and munched it. MJ just frowned at her daughter's antics.
“Didn’t go well, huh? Let me guess, his parents figured out who, but not where or why?” Gwen shuffled in her seat. MJ hummed. “You can’t make everyone happy, Gwen. You’re allowed to be upset yourself, too.” Gwen went to open her mouth and refute, but MJ held up a hand before the words would come out. “You don’t have to be his parents to care about him, Gwen.”
“I promised I would bring him back. But what if-”
“ Oh you’ll bring him back, I’m sure.” Gwen felt blood dribble down from her bottom lip, and MJ was quick to grab a paper towel and hold it to the younger’s face. It only succeeded in making Gwen more unreasonably angry, if that was believable. (A lot of things made her angry. It was an easier emotion to handle than being sad all the time.)
“How can you be so sure,” she grit out, pushing MJ’s hand away.
“Typical teenager angst,” MJ sighed, and gave up the paper towel. The redheaded woman twirled her daughter’s hair around in her fingers, pulling the curls gently to let them bounce back dramatically. The baby laughed. “I’m only so sure because your little friend finished the uh, the. The gizmo?”
“The goober!?” Gwen jumped up out of her seat, slamming her hands on the table. This was her chance! Why hadn’t she gone to find the others faster. Mayday laughed, thwipping Gwen in the face out of meanness. MJ sighed and rolled her eyes as Gwen spit the web out of her mouth.
“Sit back down. Dinner first. Can’t fight crime on an empty stomach, huh?” Gwen grumbled. She didn’t feel very hungry, she felt more like puking.
Except this time, it was from excitement and fear, and not just the latter.
—------
Miles Morales officially and entirely hated himself. Any version of himself, for that matter. He hated his own self, the 42 version of himself, and any other reiteration he would hopefully never have the misfortune of meeting ever again. After the short embarrassing hiccup with him pretzeling himself on the floor Gonzalo heaved him up and out of the bedroom. “Can’t get any stains on the floor,” Gonzalo told him. As if. Miles knew for a fact that that’s all that was under the hide-your-paint-stains-rug that took up part of the room. Miles really felt as though he should have walked himself into the living room of the tiny apartment, but couldn’t bring himself to what with the pins and needles feeling and the dizzy spells that had overtaken him the moment he was above sitting height.
Gonzalo hauled his twin up on the coffee table before throwing himself down onto the couch beside the very far arm. Miles could only groan as he sat on the edge of the table, holding his head in his hands. “Maybe if you had cooperated,” Gonzalo hissed under his breath when their Mami ran to get a few wet and warm towels, “you wouldn’t be in so much pain.”
“I did corporate!” Miles hissed back. “It would have been a hell of a lot easier if you had let me have my web shooters! I could have controlled-”
“Where you were going? Pfft, yeah. Like I’m foolish enough to let that happen.”
Miles was about to come back with another quip when his other mother came back in forcing him to shut his mouth. Damn it. Even he couldn't be bothered to fight in front of any reincarnation of his mother. Theoretically, he knew it wasn’t her. She wasn’t real. But she looked so close to his own mami and all Miles wanted in life at that moment was for her to hold him. And probably his dad, too. Even though he wasn’t so privy on all the touchy feely stuff. Miles groaned.
Rio took a seat on the edge of the couch between Miles’ legs, settling a bowl of warm water on the coffee table beside him and a med kit with towels stacked atop it between her and her real son on the couch. Gently, she began to dip a washcloth in the warm water and forced Miles to sit up so she could dab it on his front. Blood had crusted on the side of his face and conjugated on his chest. No matter how gentle she was the warm water burned viciously.
“Strip,” was the first word she had said since Miles had first landed eyes on her today. He muttered and puttered around trying to escape his suit, but it was damn near impossible without the use of one arm.
“Maybe you could do it around-” Rio smacked him atop his head. “Ack!”
“I said strip. Who is the nurse here, hum? Not you, that for sure. Meterse en problemas todo el tiempo. Ni siquiera sé qué diablos eres, así que escucha. Desnudarse.” Miles wraped his good arm behind him and unzipped his suit half-way, giving a high pitched whine as he pulled the top half of his suit off his arms and down his torso. Curse onesies, he thought to himself. Next time, there was definitely gonna be a two piece. To hell with a back zipper.
His other brother and other mother didn’t flinch at his yowl of pain, nor at the screwed up looking torso he bore. Miles was almost scared to look down at himself. Heavy purple and yellow bruising around his ribs, claw marks gouged into his shoulder and blood dribbled all across this chest. One arm had blood smeared across it, and he hadn’t even realized that somehow he had broken his wrist. Miles was positive if he didn’t have the accelerated healing factor that there would be ribs sticking out of his skin. It seemed the factor had been working overtime, but there was so much damage it couldn’t override all that had been burnt into him. He gasped as the fake mami took the rag across his front again.
“Miles Gonzalo Morales. Explain why I am having to doctor your twin, yes?” She demanded. Miles gripped the edge of the coffee table and grit his teeth. Wound care sucked. At least one thing was for sure, this version of Rio was very similar to his own mami when it came to the disappointed voice.
“Mami, es un poco difícil de explicar. Yo eh, bein? Dice que es de otra dimensión.” Miles was very output at this moment to their conversing being mostly Spanish, instead of the spanglish mix he was used to.
“Is that true?” She asked her fake son, wiping him down now with antiseptic wipes rather than the warm washcloths. Miles squeezed his eyes shut. He usually wasn’t such a baby when it came to injuries. Miguel really did a number on him.
“Yes! It’s- I’m from another world, another universe. I got chased here-”
“Perseguido? Por quien?” She asked him with trepidation. Gonzalo huffed at them, throwing his feet up on the coffee table by Miles’ hip. “The spotty one you mentioned?”
“Uhm, no.” Miles grunted as she began to run a needle through his flesh. “His name was Miguel. He’s like me, he’s a spider person.”
“Like comicscon? Mijo?” She turned to her real son questioningly, asking him silently if he believed what the clone was saying. Gonzalo turned to his mother with a sigh, hand massaging his temples.
“I believe him, mami. As much as I don’t want to. No comicscon. No clone. He’s real,” he gestured vaguely to Miles, sat shirtless on a coffee table in the wrong dimension with a half-done stitch sticking out of his shoulder. Miles was surprised this version of himself was sticking up for him. Even if he had beat Miles and drug him across the city on a convoluted roller-coaster zipline, here he was sticking up for Miles. “He’s Spiderman.”
The room was quiet. Rio turned back to her work. Miles chucked quietly.
“You know, you’re the first person to say that.” Gonzalo growled.
“What? Is it not true?”
“No no! It’s definitely true I just meant-”
“Don’t play with me cabron!” Rio smacked her son across the face and he yelped.
“Watch your language. If you really are a spider-”
“Spiderman.” Rio gave him a blank stare. The room was quiet again as she finished his stitches and wrapped his shoulder in gauze. For several minutes she took to her work like a well oiled machine, wrapping and bandaging and setting bones back into place.
“Anything else?” She asked with a soreness and tired voice that had Miles heart ache.
“Dizzy.” She hummed.
“You aught to be. You’ve lost a lot of blood it seems.” She felt around his head, teasing the crunchy curls and half fade. She frowned deeper. “You probably have a concussion as well. This… spot? Spider really roughed you up, mijo.” Miles and his twin grumbled at the word choice. Miles didn’t want to be this woman’s anything.
“That’d be his fault,” he settled on, pointing out his shorter counterpart. Gonzalo shot up on the couch already starting in.
“¿Mi culpa? Estabas tratando de huir de mí, ¿cómo se suponía que iba a saber que eras real? ¿Ves esas criaturas que salen de Alchamex? Abominaciones. no te puedes quejar -” Gonzalo was cut off by another wack on the head from his other, this time with the medical kit in her hands.
“Mijo!” She called, offended by her son’s actions. Gonzalo grumbled as his mother scolded him, and Miles was sure he was ready for a nap. He watched his not mother clean up the mess around the living room.
“Best cure for a concussion is to rest. Chico, stay with him and make sure he doesn't die in his sleep. I have a shift in,” she checked a clock on the wall beside the TV. “Dios, two hours. Stop causing each other so much trouble.” And with that she left, without so much more than a questioning glance.
“So uh,” Miles started, tapping his hands underneath the table. “How often you bring people here for Mami to patch them up, huh?”
“Don’t call her that,” Gonzalo grumbled. Miles rolled his shoulders despite the way they protested.
“Would you rather me call her Rio? I don’t particularly want to call her that, either, but Rio feels wrong.” Miles shivered. His parents would have his hide for calling them by their first names. “Besides, she didn’t seem to question me too much. This must’ve happened at least once or twice before.”
Gonzalo stood up from the couch popping his joints back into place before grabbing his twin by a leg and uninjured arm, hoisting him into the air. Miles gave a confused, slightly pained but mostly annoyed and overall, just, uncomfortable noise at the ministrations. The Prowler could easily make a re-appearance in his clone and take over to kill Miles in just a moment, if he wanted to. Or better yet, drop him on the dizzying hard-wood floor. Miles hardly felt like walking let alone fighting his evil twin, but was once reminded by the view out his bedroom window that the time frame for saving his father was growing shorter every second. He flailed in his alter’s arms, successfully landing himself a short fall onto the bed rather than being set down. It was getting closer and closer to sunset and that left one more day.
One more day before the Spot killed his father at the Captain award ceremony.
“You’ve never lost anyone, have you?” Gonzalo asked, sitting down on the bed beside Miles and urging him to lie flat. Miles growled and yanked his twin’s hand off of his chest, fighting to get back to his feet and out the open window. They devolved into grappling and wrestling on the bed like siblings or young cats, the prowler making an appearance to twist Miles’ injured shoulder above his head and lock it into place around the headboard. Miles gasped at the backhanded move, giving Gonzalo the rest of the upper hand to tie Miles hands above his head and sit across his middle. Maybe Miles had overestimated how much of his ribs his healing factor had worked on. The weight of his shorter self was enough to make Miles feel like he was going to suffocate. Despite that, he managed to get a few words out.
“Of course I have! Where I come from my tio gave his life for me!”
“Pfft. An honorable way to die.”
“No I-”
“Did you kill him? Really? Did you? Answer me,” Gonzalo growled, holding Miles’ face between his hands.
“No! I didn’t kill uncle Aaron-”
“Then you don’t know what it feels like. To hold someone you love, as they take their last breath. To watch them pass, and be the reason they die. No viste la luz desaparecer de sus ojos mientras maldecían tu existencia. Sus últimas palabras no fueron 'Miles Morales, ojalá nunca te hubiera conocido'. “ Miles gasped to get air back into his lungs. The Prowler pressed harder. “You didn’t bring your girlfriend home to meet the family for the first time only to murder her in cold blood two hours later. You didn’t shove that knife down that man’s throat and hear him gurgle and scream.
No mataste a tu propio padre para salvar a tu tío.”
Miles tried to buck the Prowler off of him viciously, only for the boy to hop off the bed himself. Gonzalo paced the room as Miles gained his breath back, muttering unintelligibly under his breath and pulling on his braids with each step he took. Eventually he shoved a foot into the wall underneath the window and cussed his existence, throwing his head back to pray. “Querido Dios. Por favor, dame la fuerza para tomar la decisión correcta en estos tiempos difíciles. Dame paciencia-” He slammed his fist into his drawing table, sending pens and pencils scattering. It seemed to Miles they were both in differing places mentally, but struggling to contain their own panic.
“You have a spark in your eyes, that I have not seen since I was young.”
“You are young,” Miles deadpanned, and Gonzalo stopped his huffing and pacing with an angry and blank stare.
“Your eyes should not go dark like mine have. But only!” The evil alter stalked up to Miles sprawled across the bed, chests heaving up and down and a few tear tracks staining both of their faces only vaguely. He grabbed at Miles’ hair, pulling his head up to look the Prowler in the eyes. “On the condition that you help me first.”
The room was silent, aside from Rio peddling in the kitchen to get ready for her midnight shift at the hospital.
“Oh. You have a plan, don’t you?”
“When do we not?”
—------------------------------------------------------