Chapter 1
The room, Uncle Aaron’s room, exploded in a wave of blue. Miles briefly couldn’t see, couldn’t smell, couldn’t touch, all he could feel was the sheer power coursing through his veins and arching his entire body.
He landed on the balls of his feet. His counterpart and Uncle Aaron were each shoved a dozen feet backward, Prowler Miles bracing his face from the blast with his metal glove. The punching bag sat on the ground, the sand pouring out of a dozen holes the room’s only sound.
The two men stared dumbfounded at Miles for a moment. He wasn’t sure any of them breathed. Then, Prowler Miles flexed his glove with a mechanical whir, his mask snapping back into place.
For the second time that day, Miles leapt out a window.
Miles didn’t know how far he’d expected to make it. He could barely even swing, between the pain in his sides and the visions of those he’d let down dancing in his periphery. He yanked himself forward awkwardly, his body weight working against him rather than in tandem.
He made it to the rooftop before his counterpart caught up to him.
He felt the chill in his spine, but he couldn’t move far enough to the side to avoid the crushing blow the other version of himself dealt. Miles landed face down. He’d felt like his face cracked in half.
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” he choked out.
The other version of himself pounded his fists together and stalked back and forth. His mask peeled back to reveal a wicked grin.
“What, go easy on you?” he spat. “You think someone like you, someone like us, doesn’t deserve to lose his father? You think I could have stopped what happened to him?”
“No, that’s not what–of course not, but–”
“Nah,” Prowler Miles sneered. “No buts. I looked out for me. Aaron looked out for me. I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t help him. I picked myself up out the dirt, and I put me back together. Now, you?”
He wound up and kicked Miles in the ribs, eliciting a soft whimper from Spider-Man.
“You had warning. You knew. And here you are, begging for mercy?”
Miles flung a web into the Prowler’s eyes, momentarily halting the tirade. He webbed a wall across the way and slung himself under the Prowler’s legs, rising to his feet and running as fast as his bruised body could take him to the door.
Then, it swung open in his face. Aaron, who must have run up from the floors below, emerged and blocked his path.
Miles had the momentum. Aaron stood still for just a split second, and it was all the gap Miles needed. He could kick him in the chest, back down the stairs and keep running. He could sweep his feet, send him tumbling toward the ground. He could punch, web, anything he wanted.
Instead, Miles slid to a stop just a foot short, his chest heaving. For a moment, a single glance, the sharp edges and purple hues of Earth-42 fell away. Miles was back in his uncle’s apartment in his reality, Aaron’s hand on his shoulder as the two collapsed into a giggling fit.
Aaron-42 chuckled.
“What’s the matter, kid? You ain’t my nephew.”
Aaron’s punch was decidedly human, no super strength or technology behind it, yet it still sent Miles stumbling backward. The uppercut Miles-42 followed with made Miles’ vision grey and fuzzy.
Miles found himself on his stomach again, propping himself up on his forearms. He coughed. Were those flecks of red in the gravel his blood?
“You ain’t gonna run, man,” Miles heard in his own voice, the Puerto Rican accent sneaking through slightly. “We aren’t trying to hurt you. We just gotta keep you here.”
“Why? Why won’t you let me go?”
Prowler Miles knelt down next to him, grabbing a fistful of his curls and pulling Miles’ head back to look him in the eye. Miles winced in pain.
“Because,” he said. “The world taught me about consequence and loss, hurt and pain. And I never knew why. But now I do.”
He let go of Miles’ hair, and Miles’ chin hit the ground hard. That blood was definitely his now.
“It was so I could teach myself.”
The Prowler’s mask clicked back into place. He raised his right hand, his glove whirring again.
All the hair on the back of Miles’ neck stood straight up. The rocks under his fingers began to vibrate, hum, and slowly rise from the dirt, only a few centimeters.
He could tell the other Miles and Aaron felt it, too. They slowly turned and faced away from Miles, Spider-Man forgotten behind them. Miles lifted his head as much as he could muster and saw a portal.
Great.
This one didn’t look right though. It wasn’t clean and crisp, it wasn’t the same orange hue as the one he followed Gwen through. This one was mismatched, mangled, almost like he was looking at a third-grader’s poster board.
It almost looked like…
“Oi!”
Miles heard something fly through the air, and Aaron stumbled backward and fell next to him. He was clawing at his eyes. Were those…webs?
Miles turned back, and he saw Hobie, guitar slung over his shoulder, braced into a crouch. Spider-Noir appeared over his right shoulder, adorned in the same fedora Miles remembered. The girl from Miguel’s headquarters – Margo? – popped out on his right.
“You want him?” Hobie sneered, the final word lilting through his accent. “You gotta handle us.”
Miles couldn’t stop the tears from welling in his eyes. They’d come back for him. They’d all come back for him.
He saw Aaron rise and stand next to the Prowler, but Miles’ arms gave out before he could see who threw the first punch. He dropped his head to the gravel, hearing a battle wage around him he was unable to join.
He suddenly felt a pair of hands on his side, rolling him over to his back, the purple sky of Earth-42 filling his vision.
“Don’t worry, kid,” a familiar voice said before a costume-clad pig popped his head into Miles’ view. “We got you.”
“Wh–How–how did you…”
Ham offered a little smile. “She didn’t need to say much to convince us.”
“She–who?”
Miles propped himself up on his elbows then, finally glancing down toward the webs and fists swirling through the air. He saw Hobie and Peni taking on Aaron, who was entirely outmatched without any enhancements. Noir, Margo, and Pavitr, on the other hand, had their hands full with the Prowler, who landed more blows than he took. He knocked Margo into a nearby wall, sent Noir flying backward with a kick, and held Pav to the ground. His fist whirred into place, and Miles felt his heart sink.
One final web shot out from the portal, yanking the Prowler’s fist backward and pulling him off Pav entirely. Miles watched as a familiar white suit, hood and all, flew out. She landed a kick square to the Prowler’s jaw and skidded across the gravel as he crumpled to the ground.
Miles watched himself rise to his feet again, taking in the spider-people circling him. He had Peni and Hobie’s attention now, too, Aaron safely webbed to the door behind them. Miles even caught sight of Peter B. – had he really brought Mayday? – as the group circled around the boy in purple.
The mask was still on, the purple outline rippling with energy, but Miles watched the Earth-42 version of himself move his eyes past them all and land square on him.
“Even now,” he warbled through the voice-changer. Miles could still feel the chill in his words. “You get help. Must be nice to have people to rely on, Spider-Man.”
Gwen shifted between them, breaking their eye contact.
“Don’t even look at him,” she said, an edge Miles never heard before skating along her words.
The Prowler chuckled, a dark sound through the mask.
“Trust me, he disappoints me more than you.”
Gwen flung herself forward, firing webs from both hands, but the Prowler dodged them easily and landed a solid blow to the side of her face. Gwen skidded away, her back thumping solidly into the brick of one of the walls.
Capable as he was, desperate as he was, Miles-42 stood no chance against so many spider-people. He whirled and spun, his gloves wreaking purple destruction in their wake. He caught Noir in the ribs and sent Margo sliding with a kick. But he only held his own for a few seconds. Someone kicked his legs from under him, another web sent him skidding backward. Before Miles could process what was happening, Hobie lowered his shoulder and shoved, and the Prowler backpedaled toward the edge of the roof. He hung in slow-motion, his eyes turned toward Miles, before he disappeared over the edge.
“NO!”
Miles felt himself surge toward the edge, adrenaline finally giving his muscles the courage to move. He flew his wrist forward desperately, connecting with the middle of the Prowler logo in his counterpart’s chest, and Miles’ entire torso hung in the open air. He felt a pair of hands, two, three on his legs pulling him backward, but he could only focus on the eyes of the suit below him, locked onto his in return.
Everyone eventually got both Miles’ back over the edge, quickly wrapping up the Prowler before he could continue the fight.
“What was that, mate?” Hobie asked, sitting down next to Miles.
“We don’t let people fall to their deaths, Hobie,” Peni chided him.
Hobie raised his hands above his head. “Oath, I didn’t think that through. Doesn’t explain my guy nearly following him down.”
Miles dimly took in Peter B. and Gwen, masks still on, hovering near the edge of the group. He knew Gwen was staring at him. He didn’t return the gesture.
“Go ahead,” the Prowler spat through his mask. “Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em who you are.”
Everyone swiveled their heads toward Miles. The adrenaline was gone now, and Miles could finally process how battered he was. His head thumped, his ribs ached with each breath, he could taste blood. Every muscle felt like lead. He opened his mouth, but almost all the words died in his throat.
“I–He–” he coughed out weakly.
The Prowler mask let out another chuckle. “What’s the matter?” The mask clicked back, and Miles could feel everyone recoil at the sharp cheekbones and dreads of his own face. Gwen genuinely stumbled back a few steps. “Don’t like what you see?”
Nobody moved for a beat. Two.
“Nah, that’s creepy,” Hobie muttered next to him.
Miles felt the shiver return to his spine as his own eyes locked back onto him.
“How big you feel now, huh? Whole gang with you, needed a half-dozen more hands to get me on the ground. And I couldn’t save Dad. What makes you any different?”
“That’s enough,” Peter B. said, Mayday silent in her little pouch. Miles noticed his arm subtly extending in front of Gwen, whose fists clenched and unclenched. “We’re taking him with us.”
Hobie and Noir slung one of Miles’ arms over each shoulder and helped him to his feet. He shuffled forward, putting more and more weight on his own feet with each step. They moved past Gwen and Peter B. Miles noticed one of her hands rise, he heard her take a deep breath, but he kept his eyes on the ground as he passed. Whatever she’d wanted to say, she kept it to herself for now.
“What,” Miles-42 yelled as they approached the edge of the roof, “that’s it? You get to leave me behind and return to whatever little lie you live in?”
Miles pulled his arms back, standing on his own. He cast a look over his shoulder, looking at the ground more than his own face.
“I’m going to save our dad,” he said quietly.
The Prowler laughed.
“How different do you think we are?” He growled. “Really? ‘Spider-Man’? What a joke.”
He accentuated the last words with a wad of spit toward the ground.
Miles stood for a second, still glancing over his shoulder. Then, he stepped over the edge and swung away.
He felt more normal in the air this time, the natural sway of each swing coming back to him a little. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. He appreciated (almost) everyone who came back for him, but a not-small part of him wanted to be alone. He wanted to think.
He dove down alleys, tagged along on a subway car, and arched around street corners. He felt his friends behind him and heard a couple of them shout for him to slow down, but Miles kept going. Soon enough, he couldn’t see or hear any of them, and he found himself clinging to the side of a dome.
Who would have thought Earth-42 also had a Williamsburg Bank Building?
He slipped underneath one of the concrete slabs, the same place he’d sat with Gwen just that afternoon in his timeline. Was that today? It felt like a lifetime ago. He let himself cry.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there. One minute, five, twenty. He pulled his knees to his chest and felt his body heave with each breath. The advanced healing was already starting to numb his ribs and his head, but he didn’t think it could help the feeling in his chest.
Was that really who he is destined to be? Who he’s destined to become? He thought back to his time at Spider Society. He’d never seen another Miles Morales. He’d looked, every chance he could get, but he never saw another version of himself. Not as a hero.
He wondered how many other universes he was a villain within. How many times he’d excused his sins with tragedy. How many fathers he’d lost, uncles, mothers.
The anger in his own voice, the primal look in his own eyes. The more he’d looked at the Earth-42 version of himself, the harder it became to find a difference. Was that spider really the only reason he wasn’t that person?
Miles wasn’t sure what sound gave her away, or how long she’d been sitting behind him before he realized she was there. All he knows is one moment, he felt he was alone, and the next, he knew he wasn’t.
“I kinda thought you’d be here,” Gwen said, almost difficult to hear even with no other sound around them. There was no muffle in her words, Miles figured she must be unmasked.
“What do you want?”
Miles might not have meant for those words to come out as venomous as they did, but he wasn’t going to apologize. He could hear Gwen sway backward a little, almost physically affected by his tone. She sat down a few feet behind him, and they shared silence for a few moments.
“I know this is probably no consolation now,” Gwen began. “And I know you don’t want to hear it from me, or anything from me for that matter…”
“Yep.”
Gwen sucked in a deep breath, screwing her eyes closed. “I only started working with Miguel, I only wanted the watch and wanted to travel between dimensions because I wanted to see you. I wanted nothing more than see you and hang out with you and talk to you.”
“I could tell.”
Gwen kept going on, ignoring his bitter remarks. “And, at some point, I lost that. I got so wrapped up in my dad and not wanting to face him, and Miguel was going to send me home, and…”
A pause. Miles kept his eyes on the burning skyline.
“I just needed you to know that this started for you. That was where my head was at. And I won’t forgive myself for losing that.”
The silence returned. Miles’ eyes had dried by this point, his face feeling drained more than anything else. He let the quiet linger for a moment before he spoke.
“I wanted to go to Princeton to study quantum physics,” Miles said.
“You totally should, you’d be great at it,” Gwen replied, an eagerness creeping into her voice as dialogue began.
“No, Gwen,” he said, casting a glare back toward her. “I was going to study interdimensional travel. I was going to devote my entire life to finding a way to see you–to see you all. On top of being Spider-Man.”
Gwen’s hands fell to her lap, and she began to pick at the fabric of her suit’s leggings.
“I was getting like three hours of sleep a day, and my parents hated me, and I could barely function,” Miles’ voice grew sharper with each word. “But I wanted to do that for you. I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to find you. And you could have shown up the whole time.”
She made no sounds, but Miles could see a steady flow of tears running down her face. A part of him felt vindicated by that. A rising voice said he should feel guilty for feeling that way. He turned his eyes back to the buildings.
“So yeah, forgive me if you saying you wanted to see me but couldn’t just isn’t enough of an effort to sway me much.”
Gwen crept forward to sit next to Miles, the same way they’d sat earlier that day. Miles scooted as far to the edge as he could. Gwen didn’t follow him.
“You have every right to hate me,” she said meekly. It took more willpower than Miles expected to not look at her when he heard the emotion in her voice. “In fact, that makes two of us right now.”
Gwen crossed her legs and her hands fell to her lap again. Miles spared a quick glance and noticed her rubbing her thumb furiously against her index finger.
“It wasn’t just that Miguel would send me home,” she continued. She took a deep breath that came out like a hiccup between her silent sobs. “He showed me the same stuff he showed you. My canon.”
“But it’s not like the other stories. Gwen Stacy isn’t always Spider-Woman. Obviously, she usually isn’t. But she’s always involved, and it…”
She shuddered.
“It always ends. I die, I get my heart broken, I lose my father, I get left behind. Gwen Stacy never gets a happy ending. And I should have fought it, trust me, watching you made me realize how pathetic I am. But for some reason, it just made sense in my head. Every version of me loses something crucial. My life, my father, my love. And it just made sense that I’d lose the thing I cared about most, too. That I’d lose you.”
She let those words settle for a few seconds. She hadn’t looked over at Miles once. He wasn’t sure if she was giving him time to process her words, or if she was giving it to herself.
She finally looked up from her lap toward the skyline.
“I don’t know if I’ll get a happy ending here, Miles,” she said. “I know I don’t deserve one right now. But I’m not going to not try. Not anymore.”
She stood and walked a few feet back before she spoke again.
“You don’t have to forgive me. I’m not asking you to. And if you never want to see me again when this is over, I’ll live with that,” she said. “But I abandoned you when you needed me before, and I swear to you, Miles, I’m never doing that again.”
She pulled herself back up to the observation deck above, leaving Miles with his thoughts.
He didn’t want to talk to her right now. He definitely didn’t want to forgive her right now. But he didn’t have a shred of doubt that she meant every word.
He looked down at his suit. The Spider-Man logo he’d airbrushed on his chest was ripped to tatters now, slashed in multiple ways.
What do I become?
Slowly, as he sat taking in the police helicopters and torment of Earth-42, Miles felt his anger begin to ebb away.