What’s Up, Danger?

Rio Morales thought of herself as hard to surprise.

Years of medical school and nursing had made her numb to most wounds and illnesses, from minor concussions to amputee level of injuries. Blood and vomit didn’t bother her anymore.

But this....this was new.

Her son, her beautiful Miles was-there was really no other way to say it- glitching.

She recognized the glitching from that night a few months ago, the appearance of the new Spider-Man and the take-down of Kingpin by Jeffery’s squad.

The collider thing Kingpin had been making hadn’t had any effects on the city as a whole, and no one else had reported strange glitching, so why was Miles effected?

All of this ran through Rio’s head in a second as she took in the scene in front of her.

The thermometer and Advil she’d brought in slipped out of her hands and she stifled a scream as her son’s pain-lidded eyes met hers before fluttering shut.

It took her a second to recover before she snapped into action.

“Mijo?” She shook his shoulder gently. “Miles? Que tal?”

There was no response, so she moved in to check his breathing and pulse.

He was breathing but his pulse was weak, just barely pulsing under her fingers.

I can’t call the hospital, she thought. They’d never know what to do.

A knock sounded and she turned too fast, worried and paranoid.

Rio opened the door to a kid wearing the Visions uniform, headphones hanging around his neck and a worried look on his face.

“Hi, are you Miles’s mom?” He asked.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Um, I just wanted to see if he was here? I’m his roommate, and he never came back so-“

She cut him off by pulling him inside. The door shut behind him and she ushered him to the living room.

“Do you know anything?” She asked desperately once they had privacy.

The kid looked at her like she was crazy. “About what?”

Rio stopped and took a breath. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit...como se dice...asustarse, freaked out. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but I’m Ganke Lee.”

Rio glanced over at the door to Miles’ room. “Miles isn’t...feeling well right now. Something weird is happening. Do you know anything?”

“Like-“ Ganke leaned in closer and whispered, “-nightly activities?”

“What is my son doing at night?” She snapped.

“Oh, then you didn’t know. Um, I really shouldn’t say anything-“

“What is my son doing that I can’t know about?”

“Nothing bad!” Ganke cried.

“Ganke, if Miles is doing something, I need to know! He’s like, glitching or something and ay dios mio, I went to medical school for 7 years and I don’t know what to do! I can’t help my own son.” She realized she was being a bit hysterical, but she had just about reached her breaking point.

“He’s Spider-Man!” Ganke yelled, panicked.

Rio stopped cold, taking in those words.

“What?”

Ganke started backing up, a fearful look on his face. “Uh, I mean- I didn’t say anything!”

“He’s Spider-Man?” She repeated, voice panicky.

She remembered all the times she’d seen Spider-Man hurt on tv, or tossed around by a villain. Hell, one time he’d been electrocuted by Electro! That was her son?

“We need to figure this out,” she said. “What has he done that would make him glitch like this?”

Ganke brightened. “We should ask Gwen!”

Rio started at him. “I don’t know who that is.”

Ganke ran into Miles’s room and started rifling through his backpack which had been discarded on the floor near the window where Miles had probably entered.

“What are you doing?”

“Miles has some friends in another dimension. They helped him with that collider and the while Kingpin thing from a few months ago,” Ganke explained. “They probably know more then we do. Ah-ha!”

He held up what looked like a regular watch, but when he pressed a button it changed.

“Well, What are we waitng for, then?” Rio asked, hope rekindling in her chest. “Make the call.”

—————
Gwen Stacy was back on the roof she’d seen Miles.

She was scanning the surrounding area for anything that could help. Her watch really was cool. Miguel has gone all out in it.

It was still pretty rudimentary compared to his, but it got the job done. Only problem, she’d have to upload any data she got here onto her computer because it wouldn’t work on the watch.

She was just finishing up when her phone rang.

The screen said Miles was calling from his watch, which was weird since they’d connected the inter-dimensional to all their phones.

“Wait a minute, Miles!” She exclaimed. Maybe he’d broken his phone and that’s why he hadn’t answered before.

“Miles!” She said as she answered. “Where have you been?”

“Uh, this isn’t Miles,” a slightly familiar voice responded.

Immediately Gwen was on the defensive. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” A different voice responded, this one a woman’s with a slight accent. “My name is Rio, I’m Miles’s mother.”

Gwen relaxed, but only slightly, because his mother probably didn’t pose a threat to Miles but if she knew he was Spider-Man something had to be happening. “Is he okay? We haven’t heard from him in awhile.”

“Not exactly,” Rio said. “You’re the friend from another dimension?”

“One of them,” She said.

Rio’s voice came through, sounding farther away. “Mi señor, different dimensions.”

“Uh, I think Mrs Morales is having a crisis,” the first voice said.

“And who is this?” Gwen asked.

“I’m Ganke Lee, I’m Miles’s roommate.”

“Yeah, I remember you. Hope we didn’t scare you too bad,” she said.

“Miles explained everything later,” Ganke said. “Uh, anyways, we were hoping you could help. Mrs Morales said Miles glitched in front of her. Uh, right now he’s not moving or waking up or anything.”

“We’ve been trying to figure this out too,” Gwen admitted. “It’s been happening for a few days at least. Peter- oh, he’s a Spider-Man from another dimension- he saw him first, then Noir, then me, and I just got a call from Porker.”

“This has happened before!” Rio’s entered back into the conversation.

Gwen put her phone on her shoulder and jumped off the building, thwipping out a web.

“I got some data from the spot I saw him. I’m heading home now to analyze it. This should at least give us some insight into what’s happening.” She said.

There was some movement on the other end. “What should we do?” Ganke asked.

“Just watch him,” Gwen said. “So far it hasn’t been permanent, but if he glitches into another dimension permanetely we need to find him as soon as possible.”

“Will do,” Ganke said. “Thanks, Gwen.”

The line went dead.

Gwen stuffed her phone in a pocket as she released and flew through the air before sending out another web.

Her house wasn’t far, so it only took a few minutes to swing back.

Once she’d slipped in her window quietly, making sure not to wake her dad, she changed out of her spider-suit into civies in case her dad walked in unexpectedly.

She flipped open her laptop and connected her watch to the HDMI port.

It would take a few minutes to download the data onto the laptop. Laptops of her dimension weren’t all that compatible with this dimensional tech.

She leaned back in her roller chair and waited, staring at the posters she’d stuck on the ceiling.

She had all the greats: The Ramonas, Destroying Watermelons, Red Night. Even some Fright! at the Prom.

A beep from her computer told her the download was complete so she did a spin on her chair and pulled into the desk. She pulled up the results and scanned them.

“Dimension E-1616, DNA, Miles…” she muttered.

She clicked on the code that showed the DNA the scan had picked up.

Gwen wasn’t the best at biology- science was definitely the subject she got best other than music, but she was more of a physics gal then a biology person.

So she fired up Geegle and put the data in.

What she’d gotten was a few DNA strands, lines of As and Ts and Cs and Gs.

The Geegle results came up with mutations in the DNA, but Gwen ignored that. The spider DNA was the cause of the mutations, she and Peter had determined that when she first had been bit.

Gwen was not a biology person, and it wasn’t Peter’s specialty, but he was way better at it then her.

“Okay, that was not helpful,” she muttered.

She clicked back to the uploaded data. She’d have to call Miguel or someone to figure this stuff out, or-

A flashing warning box popped up on screen, interrupting her thoughts. It took up only a little bit of the screen but it immediately took her attention.

Warning! It read. Dangerous chemicals present. Radioactive dimensions detected.

Gwen started at it for a minute. Then,

“Oh no.”