She Made Me Leave the Thrills at Home
Doctor Olivia Greta Octavius was not sulking, thank you very much.
No, she was...reflecting. On things. Yeah.
Okay, maybe she was sulking a little.
Her greatest invention, the thing she’d worked for her entire life, gone. Destroyed. Ka-boom. Crushed, just like all her dreams. Those stupid spiders bludgeoned it to pieces. Never mind that it was a miracle of science, going above and beyond what humanity had ever been capable of.
She glared at the laptop in front of her. She’d hacked into the prison security system (disappointingly easy, she had to say), and now she was watching Fisk.
You can call her creepy all you want, but she had a perfectly logical explanation.
The super collider was new technology. Hell, she’s invented most of the parts it took to build it. There was no telling what the effects could be on a human. Their very DNA could be altered. Atoms out of whack, cells changed. She was very curious to see if there would be any...consequences to this technology.
She settled back, grateful for herself having the forethought to put aside this safe house.
The man she was watching on the screen seemed uncomfortable in his new accommodations.
Good, she thought savagely. Just because those spiders destroyed her machine doesn’t mean she didn’t blame him for anything. He was the one who pushed it. She could have perfected it more, made it more stable, safer for dimensional travel, communication, there were so many possibilities lost because he just had to have his family back. It was his fault in the first place anyways.
“There’s no telling what this collider could do to a human,” she muttered to herself, maybe a bit too gleefully. “And I for one cant find out what.”
Once Miles stopped screaming, he pressed himself against the wall as if he were trying to get through it.
After a few seconds of panicked breathing, he looked at them.
“Mom? Where am I? What happened?”
“Oh, mijo,” Rio pulled Miles into a crushing hug. “Gracias Dios, you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He asked. “Did something happen with Kid Arachnid?”
“Who?” Ganke interrupted.
Miles looked at him. “Wait, who are you?”
Ganke froze. “I’m...your roommate? At Visions?”
“Mijo, ¿tu no recuerdo?”
“What do you mean?” Miles asked, going up against the wall again. “I never went to Visions, remember? After dad…” he trailed off.
“What happened to Jeff?” Rio asked, now more worried than ever.
“You don’t remember?” Miles asked. “Dad died?”
Río stood up abruptly. “What? Now? Why didn’t anyone call?”
Simultaneously they remembered the phone ringing in the kitchen.
“Oh my god,” Ganke said.
Rio didn’t wait a second before running to the kitchen.
It was ringing again.
Ganke left Rio to deal with that and turned back to Miles. He was worried, of course, but his biggest priority was the confused (delusional?) spider kid in front of him.
“Miles, are you feeling okay?” He asked
Miles looked at him like he was crazy. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“What did you mean when you said you never went to Visions? Because you’ve been my roommate for the last six months.”
Miles shook his head. “No, I didn’t win the lottery and we couldn’t pay for it, so I never went. I’m sorry, man, but I’ve never seen you in my life.”
Ganke realized something. “Wait, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”
“I was talking to Spid-a friend, I mean. And then there was this weird...I guess portal thing? It was weird.”
“You we’re talking to Spider-Man?” Ganke asked. “Peter Parker? And he was alive?”
“Oh man, that’s complicated. You might not believe me.” Miles tapped a finger on his knees as he talked, purposefully not meeting Ganke’s eyes
“Dude, I’ve known you were Spider-Man for at least a month. Or...this universe’s Miles.”
Miles looked confused. “You know about…” he put out his hands in the classic thwip thwip pose. “...all that?”
“That’s also a long story.” Ganke said. “Okay, long story short, my Miles got bit by a spider, watched the first Spider-Man die, teamed up with a bunch of Spider...people from different universes, and took down Kingpin.”
“Yeah, Uh, that was not me.” Miles looked away. “My story happened a bit different.
“Alright, let’s take it from the top.
“My name is Miles Morales. Got bit by a radioactive spider 8 months ago and I’ve been Kid Arachnid ever since.
“The first Spider-Man, Peter Parker took me under his wing and taught me how to do this whole vigilante-hero-thing. Then one night he was fighting Green Goblin, and… I didn’t get there fast enough.
“So I took over and I was doing okay for a bit. Then a different Green Goblin shows up and he’s trying to get my blood. And a different Peter Parker is following him, trying to stop that. So me and Pete team up and take down my Goblin, but his Goblin got away, so then he was about to follow his Goblin so he could take him down, and then this weird glitchy portal came out of nowhere and I think I blacked out. And now I’m here.”
Ganke stared in shock. “Dude, that is so dope! The Green Goblin here died when…” he trailed off for a second, then perked up. “But he was really scary! You had to fight him?”
“Yeah, multiple times,” Kid Arachnid said, moving so he wasn’t pressed against the wall. “Can- or, could he breath fire here, too?”
“I don’t think so,” Ganke said. “But, wait, why did he want your blood?”
“Uh, Pete never really got around to explaining that. Something about experiments, I think. Either way, it’s bad news.” He was quiet for a second, eyes darting around the room as if he were afraid to say anything. Finally, he took a deep breath. “So, my dad is alive here?”
Hoo boy, Ganke was not prepared for this. “Yeah, he’s alive. Is he...not alive for you?” He cringed at his wording.
Kid Arachnid- and he really needed another name for him because that was too long and Miles would be too weird- leaned back and curled in on himself. “It was a police thing,” he said. “He was on patrol and got a 10-32. Active shooter. Right before I got bit.”
“Dude, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Ganke said.
“I’m fine,” Kid said, raising his head with an obviously fake smile. “It’s just a touchy subject.”
Rio came back into the room, a determined look on her face. Ganke saw pain there too, but she made a valiant attempt to hide it.
“It’s Jeff,” she said in a strained voice. “He’s glitching too. They didn’t know if they should take him to the hospital or what, so I told them to bring him here.”
“Glitching?” Kid asked.
“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know about that,” Ganke realized. “Uh, before Miles blacked out and you took over his body or whatever happened, he was glitching. It was like that one streetlight during the Fisk incident- oh, you wouldn’t know that either…” he trailed off.
Kid still looked confused, but shook it off. “So, dad’s gonna be here?” his voice shook, and Ganke was suddenly very aware that this was a personal family moment he was intruding on.
Suddenly he sat up. “Oh my God, we’ve gotta update Gwen!”
Kid’s confused ‘who?’ was drowned out by Ganke’s scrambling to get to the communicator that he’d dropped when Miles-Kid- had started screaming.
It only took one ring before Gwen was on the other line, breathless. “Did something happen?” She demanded. “Please give me good news. I’ve gotten multiple spikes in the multiverse, and nowhere closer to why.”
“I don’t know if it’s really good news, but it’s definitely news.” Ganke looked up at Kid. “Uhh, Gwen, say hi to Kid Arachnid.”