Plans and Popcorn
After the events that took place a couple nights ago, Miguel was extremely exhausted when it came time for the active hours of the day. He chugged three full cups of coffee before deciding to switch to eating packs of chocolate-covered coffee beans while he worked for days. Sleeping only for a couple hours in a hammock he made of his webs before returning to his job.
Lyla made her expected remarks about his tired appearance before she informed him of the newest sightings of anomalies across the multiverse. Once he got to work on sending out spiders to all the universes in need of help, his mind shut off while his body did the mindless work of checking over reports.
He was deeply regretting the rule that he put in place, saying all mission reports needed to be checked by him before the anomalies were sent back to their home universe. All the reports quickly stacked up since most anomalies were an easy catch for one spider person. Most of the reports were written in a hurry; Miguel could tell by the main grammatical and spelling errors that he struggled to decipher, and after the delay with the "Go Home Machine" causing a back-up with the anomalies, he had a lot more on his plate than normal.
Working peacefully on his platform, tinkering with a prototype for an upgraded goober that he had been playing with off and on for the past few months, he could hear Lyla glitching around his office, helping him with monitoring the multiverse. The web-like projection of the "Spider-verse", as Miles called it, was the brightest source of light in the room, but it was dark enough that Miguel wasn’t extremely bothered by the light.
He barely registered the sliding sound of the door opening, too focused on connecting two very small wires together to test if his hypothesis worked and if adding this new part to the goobers would improve them. The process was extremely delicate; if one piece of the intricate puzzle was out of place, who knows what could happen to someone if they used it for multiversal travel? They could be ripped apart, split down the middle; their molecules could separate and—
"Hey! Earth to Miguel?"
He flinched as the silence was broken, his claws unsheathed, cutting through the wires he was holding and making a cut through the rest of the prototype. Dang it, that was going to take a while to fix. Who had the nerve to interrupt him while he was working? Haven’t they heard of manners?
Turning around from his previously hunched-over position in his seat, Miguel was met with the sight of Jess and Peter standing behind him. How long they were there? Lyla usually warned him if someone was at his door. He relaxed his face so he didn’t have the aggravated look and instead wore his normal tired expression.
"Lyla, I thought I told you to warn me when people entered." He hissed at his AI, who was currently projected as sitting crisscrossed on one of his many desks.
"I did, like twice, and you ignored me." She sassed, putting on a fake pout at the end, even going so far as to fake a sniffle of sadness before her upbeat personality returned with a glitch of her form.
Miguel huffed and turned his attention to his unexpected guests. "Is everything alright? Why are you here?" He questioned. If anything was wrong, it would just delay his work even more, and he didn’t know how long he could function on coffee beans.
"Everything's fine, Miggy," Peter said as he leaned back onto one of the desks. He either didn’t hear or ignored Miguel saying, "Don’t call me that," and just continued with talking.
"Me and Jess just finished helping move some anomalies, and we wanted to visit our favorite grumpy Spider-Man." He had a smile on his face as he waved his hands in the air as he spoke, gesturing to Jess when he mentioned her.
Said Spider-Woman was staring at Miguel like it was the most interesting piece in a museum, her eyes darting around his face and looking over to the cluttered desk he was sitting at. Her eyebrows were slightly pinched together, either in concern or confusion; he couldn’t tell. Jessica’s gaze returned to meet Miguel's red eyes; her eyes were tinted by the yellow of her visor.
"You look terrible," She stated. Miguel giving her a hurt look and opening his mouth to explain, but she cut him off. "How long has it been since you left your cave?"
He briefly considered what excuse or lie to tell; he really needed to keep working. The second day of training was tomorrow, and he wanted to get ahead on reports so there wasn’t a stack waiting for him when he returned.
The idea of training with the kids again gave him a little boost of energy, the training plan he had set out for the day was exciting. He had designed an obstacle course for the kids to go through, with different challenges and sections that required different skills. He made the course a bit longer than normal, which was fine because he didn't really mind spending more time training the kids. The corners of his mouth perked up in the beginnings of a smile.
Firstly, my office is not a cave." Miguel said while straightening his posture and brushing the damaged prototype into a pile of scraps he had laying around. "Secondly, the fate of the multiverse—"
"Ugghhh…" Peter dramatically groaned. Jess, he definitely hasn’t left if his excuse starts with that." He pushed himself up from leaning against the desk, Miguel finally noticing that the man wasn’t even in his Spider-Man suit, instead adoring his green trench coat, a pair of gray sweatpants, and a dull red t-shirt. Extremely unprofessional, especially since he had missions that Miguel sent him on today.
Jess nodded at Peter's outlandish assumption that it was an excuse. He hadn’t even told them what he was doing that kept him occupied for so long! And it was true, the fate of the multiverse was his responsibility; he kept everything in order, from the anomalies to the delicate canon events.
"What? I didn’t even—" he stopped in the middle of him talking, cutting himself off with a groan because it was no use debating with Jess and Peter; the two knew him better than anyone in the society and they definitely knew how to read his emotions.
"You need some fresh air; come on." Jess said, putting her hand on his arm and pushing him towards the doorway. He didn’t resist; there was no point getting some fresh air, and taking a break sounded nice after the endless hours of work he had been doing.
Before walking fully away from his desk, Miguel grabbed a pair of sunglasses that he kept on hand. After spending days in his dark office, the bright light from the rest of headquarters was going to feel like staring straight at the sun unless he had some sort of barrier for his sensitive eyes.
The trio made their way out of Miguel's office and out into the crowded lobby. The overwhelming sounds and bright lights bothered Miguel, and he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. It wasn’t even fresh air. It was quite sticky and slightly uncomfortable to breathe; having this many spider variants in one place made it sound and feel like a crowd train at times. He did enjoy talking to someone other than Lyla for a change, even if Peter's quips and rambling were annoying. You learn to live with it after a while.
"So, Miguel, you got any plans tonight?" Peter clapped his hands together and looked over to Miguel as he asked the question.
"I have reports to read over, then I have to—"
"No! Nope. Spider-Man-ing work doesn’t count as plans." Peter cut him off, waving his hand in front of Miguel. "Do you have any real plans, because if not, you do now!"
Miguel looked at Peter with an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by that?" he questioned. It was honestly a gamble to what Peter could mean. Last time he had agreed to the "plans" that Peter suggested, he found himself babysitting Mayday while Peter and his wife went out on a date night. So he wasn’t exactly jumping at the opportunity to be used as free child care again.
"Don’t look at me like that! I know the whole babysitting trick may have sparked some trust issues, but I promise it's not like that this time!" Peter quickly explained, obviously reading what Miguel was thinking about by just his suspicious expression. "You see, I have taken it upon myself to organize a movie night with the spider kids," he said, placing a hand on his chest and looking back over to Miguel, who still didn’t know where it fit into these plans.
"And why are you telling me this?" Miguel asked. Sure, the idea of seeing the kids again sounded pretty nice, and it wouldn’t be required like their training was. Maybe he could figure out if they actually enjoyed the training or were just doing it to pity him somehow.
"Well…." Peter drawled, his face twisting into something hopeful and nervous. The man tossed an arm over Miguel's shoulders before quickly asking. "We need a place to watch the movies, and you have the cool hologram display screens that would be perfect to binge watch action movies on!"
Miguel stopped in his tracks, Peter stopping alongside him with a hopeful smile that was way too wide. Jess, who was walking on the other side of Peter, looked up from whatever work she was doing on her watch before shrugging and saying a quick good luck as she continued walking across the bridge.
"Peter, are you seriously asking me to use high-tech hologram screens to use for a movie night?" Miguel was staring daggers at Peter as he spoke. It was honestly surprising Peter was even asking him; he normally just did the stupid thing, and Miguel was left to find out later.
"Yeah, that's what I just said." Peter jokingly looked concerned. "Maybe you are getting old; do you need me to speak louder? I SAID—"
"No. Nope." Miguel shut Peter up by putting a hand up. The duo was standing in the middle of the traffic of spider people using the bridge, and he could feel the stares of bystanders crawling all over him. He pushed Peter over to the side of the bridge, getting ready to start swinging to get away from the crowds.
"Come on, Migs!" Peter whined while swinging to catch up with Miguel. "It’ll be fun! Plus, you get to spend more time with the kids; they love you!" Peter swung beside him casually, using only one hand to shoot webs while the other was used for expressing his words in physical form.
Miguel almost missed shooting his web when Peter mentioned the kids; did they tell Peter that? Did they actually enjoy spending time with him?
He recovered from the trip-up begging that Peter didn’t notice; if the man did that, he didn’t comment on it. The idea of a movie night with the kids and Peter sounded pretty fun; it was definitely a good distraction from the non-stop work he had been doing for the past few days.
With a heavy exhale, he redirected his trajectory so he could land on an empty pillar, with Peter landing shortly after him with much less grace.
"Alright, we can have the movie at my place." He muttered, Peter's reaction was instant; the man's face broke into a bigger smile, and he cheered, throwing his arms up into the air.
"Woo hooo! Awesome!" Peter cheered, tapping a send all button on his goober that looked like a pre-typed message. Just as soon as Peter sent the message, Miguel felt a buzz on his wrist and opened up the notification from Peter.
"You had a message already typed out?" Miguel asked, looking over to Peter, who was smirking while looking at something on his goober. "What if I declined?"
Peter looked up, a familiar knowing look in his eyes that he had anytime he was going to expose Miguel in some way.
"You and I both know that you love those kids, Miguel. You just need to get it through that tough skull of yours that you are still allowed to care for people.
The layout of headquarters was extremely confusing.
Of course Miles already knew that; the main lobby consisted of pillars and bridges crossing around without any pattern to follow, but the hallways were a whole other problem.
When Peter said that they were having a movie night, he was so excited, hanging out with his friends was a great way to get away from the stress of school and Spider-Man. He had been better at getting his work done for school after getting some help with his Spanish homework.
The way Miguel explained it helped him a lot, after that, he had been getting way better grades on his homework, even to the point when his teacher questioned him if he was cheating.
Miles thought about that night a lot; it was strange. Not a bad strange, but he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t a bit on edge when Miguel approached him in the cafeteria. If he was honest, he had thought the man was about to kick him out or scold him for using the headquarters as a study space. Instead, Miguel just offered to help, even offering Miles a better place to study that was quieter.
After that, Miles found himself thinking about his relationship with his boss a lot more than normal. He had grown so used to thinking of Miguel as a terrifying leader that he stayed in his dark office, only talking to people when it was needed. But after their training, it was like seeing a different person.
The man didn’t yell at him for his mistakes during training; sure, he gave some criticism, but he also complimented Miles. Well, at least it was the closest thing to a compliment he had heard come out of Miguel's mouth.
That was an improvement, right?
At the moment, Miles was trying to find his way through the maze of hallways that appeared Miguel had an apartment somewhere in. He really wished that the watches had a navigating feature because he was 96% positive that he was lost.
The hallways had dim lighting and had an old hexagon-ish shape, every few steps there would be a door that had no markings or any sort of indication of what the door was for.
He was about to just give up and call Peter for help when he heard a yell that came from behind a door that he had just passed.
"Lyla! Don’t shocking call Peter!"
Well he found Miguel, but he certainly didn’t sound happy.
Great.
Backtracking his steps until he was in front of the door Miles took a deep breath, bracing himself to find an irritated Miguel at the other side. Maybe he should just leave? That would be fine right?
He wiped his sweaty palms against his jacket reaching his hand up to knock on the door. Three short raps echoed out through the hallway, it felt like an eternity before he heard the lock clicking and the door swung open.
Miguel O’Hara stood at the other side, wearing an aquamarine sweater with black pants, he was holding an ‘L’ shaped piece of technology in one hand and the other was still holding onto the door while he looked at Miles with an expression of surprise painted on his face.
Oh shoot.
Was he early? He followed the instructions that Peter had sent out, didn’t he?
There was a moment of silence where Miles just avoided Miguel's gaze. The both of them just stood there before the silence was broken.
"Hi Miles, um," Miguel stumbled, glancing at something behind him quickly before stepping around letting the door swing open by itself. "Come in."
The apartment was quite big, having a kitchen with a small island and farther inside was a lounging area with a medium sized couch. The lighting was still dimmed even inside the apartment and there were pieces of technology that were scattered around, looking like they were gathered into piles as a last minute form of cleaning.
He followed Miguel into the lounging room, looking around he could see that there was a hallway that most likely led to Miguel's room. There were a few throw pillows on the couch and two side tables pressed up against the armrests. One had a stack of books and the other had another "L" shaped piece of technology laying on it, along with a couple coasters.
"You’re the first one here" Miguel said as he grabbed the other ‘L’ and walked over to a blank wall that the couch was facing. "I ran into some issues with the screen set up as well, so it might take a bit"
"That's fine," Miles replied, watching what Miguel was doing. Upon further inspection, he noticed that there were two to other ‘L’ pieces stuck a quarter way up the wall with some webs and it looked like Miguel was thinking of a way to get the other two stuck on as well.
A familiar peachy glitch formed as Lyla appeared to be hovering above the couch, laying on her stomach with her hands supporting her head. "Oh hey Miles!" She chirped her form glitching to an upright sitting position.
"Hey Lyla!" He said, giving the cheerful AI a little wave as he walked over to the couch and took a seat.
"Hey Miles, you're sticky right?" Lyla asked, opening and closing her hands for emphasis.
"Sticky? Well yeah aren’t all—" He started, cutting himself off when he heard Miguel clear his throat. Miles looked over at the man, a jolt of fear quickly running up his spine, ready to utter a quick apology but Miguel was glaring at Lyla not him.
"Lyla. Stop bothering him." Miguel growled at the AI before looking over to Miles. "Sorry" he said, turning back to setting up the screen.
Whoa. He didn’t know what he was expecting Miguel to do but it felt so strange to hear the man apologize for something so small.
Lyla made an exaggerated grumpy expression, glitching her form to show her miniaturized and hovering above Miles’ shoulder. "Stop being so stubborn. Look at him! You think he’s going to make fun of you?" She held her hands out as if she was presenting Miles to Miguel, who currently had an annoyed glare fixed on the AI’s form.
"Wha–What? I’m so confused, make fun of you? Why would I do that? It's like a death wish." Miles remarked, stuttering slightly. He looked at Miguel for his reaction, hoping for an explanation and that the man didn’t get offended by his quip.
Miguel's eyes were darting between him and Lyla, it kind of felt like the two where having a conversation only with looks and he was just an observer but by the defeated sigh from Miguel he is guessing that Lyla won.
Miguel took one of the ‘L’ pieces and held it up so Miles could see it clearly. "They way the screen works by these four little projection pieces." He pointed to the others as he spoke. "I’ve already positioned two of them but the other two need to be placed closer to the ceiling."
The man pointed at the ceiling, which was quite high for just an apartment if he had to guess he’d say it was about nine feet.
"However," Miguel hissed, shooting a glare at Lyla. Which definitely didn’t make Miles flinch a little. "I don’t have the ability to stick to surfaces, I normally just use my claws but the idea of having multiple holes stabbed into my walls isn’t optimal."
Is Miguel asking for his help?
If that was true he was funnily bad at it.
Miles stood up from his seat on the couch, taking off his jacket and hanging over the armrest, and walked over to where Miguel was. Shooting the man a quick smile before he held out his hand for the piece.
Miguel visibly relaxed, his gaze reflecting a feeling of relief when Miles approached. He handed Miles the piece before pointing over to where it should go.
"That should go right over there, a little light should come on when it’s in place." Miguel instructed as Miles jumped up to stick onto the ceiling.
Once he had got it into the correct placing a little orange light came on and Miguel used his webs to stick it in place. The process repeated itself for the second piece, Miles giving light-hearted complaints when the light wasn’t appearing and that Miguel was giving the most vague instructions on this earth.
After he had unstuck from the ceiling Miles gave a thumbs up to Miguel before clapping his hands together to get the dust from the ceiling off.
"How does it turn on? Does it have a remote or something?" He asked, flopping down onto the couch once more.
"It’s touch activated" Miguel answered, waving his hand in the middle of the pieces the orange screen regenerated. Each of the ‘L’ pieces was acting as a corner for the screen.
Miguel turned back to Miles, the man's face as slightly twisted like he was fighting with himself in his head. His eyes looked almost pained, not his usual thoughtful stare, this one made Miles want to ask what's wrong but before he could speak Miguel beat him to it.
"Miles, I’m s—" Miguel started, looking away right before speaking but being cut off by the door slamming open and multiple voices making themselves known.
"Miguel, we're here!" The unmistakable voice of Peter rang out through the room as he entered with Hobie, Pavitr, Gwen, Noir, and Peni following behind. "Hope you don’t mind, we let ourselves in."
Miguel looked over to Miles, that same pained look in his eyes, before walking over to the rest of the group.
Hobie and Pavitr had a bunch of pillows and blankets in their arms that they promptly tossed in front of the couch to make a blanket nest. Gwen sat next to him taking the seat by the armrest, the two exchanging smiles and discussing their movie of choice that they picked. Noir sat in front of the couch leaning back to talk with Miles and Gwen. Peni passed out snacks that the bubbly girl had brought, saying how she picked them out with everyone in mind.
Peter and Miguel sat next to each other on the couch, Peter taking the seat with the armrest saying something about needing a place to put his snacks.
After snacks were distributed evenly, Hobie and Pavitr started a small pillow fight over candy, and everyone was comfortable. The first movie started, an action movie from Hobie’s universe.
Everyone quickly found out that Pavitr had the best reactions to movies, the teen would gasp and tense up during intense scenes and cling onto whoever was near him if something bad happened. Peni was always quick to add fun facts about topics that were in the movie, Noir would lean over to ask someone a question about the plot, and everyone smiled when Miles and Gwen would both hold onto each other during a big finale.
And Miles saw out of the corner of his eye, Miguel smiling, not just the corners of his lips a full smile.