Miles Morales
Tony’s face underneath the dark sky. His body torn apart. The look in his eyes as Miles held him, as Miles watched a founding member of the Avengers die like any other human.
“Miles?”
Kamala’s voice cuts through the din in Miles’s mind. He blinks. There is blood in his mouth. There had been blood on his hands –
“Tony died?” Kamala drops on her knees and he thinks I wish you had been there. “Are you -”
“He died,” Sam says. Miles feels a sudden, inexplicable rush of gratitude, then, because Sam had been there. “We – we saw him.”
“No,” says Kamala. “He couldn’t – Tony, Tony wouldn’t – Cap wouldn’t let him -”
“Cap’s missing,” Sam says. Miles had had to wrestle him to keep him from searching for Sam Wilson in all septillion corners of the universe.
Kamala’s words die in her mouth. This is the first time Miles has seen Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, Jersey City’s local hero, speechless. Gutsy, bright-eyed, Kamala Khan left staring at them with wide-eyes and an open mouth.
For the second time today, Miles wants to cry.
His hands curl into fists. No. He can’t. He won’t. He’ll be strong. He has to be.
Still, his eyes flicker to the sky. He knows what Iron Man, what Tony Stark, had meant to Kamala. He can’t bear to see her weep –
“Then Cap’s still alive.”
Surprised, Miles's gaze lands on her. Kamala’s eyes are still wide, but her chin is thrust upward and there is this look in her eyes that makes him shiver. It is the same look she had the week she charged into Thanos’s stomach, her hands enlarged – enbiggened – and her eyes full of endless determination.
“I don’t – we don’t – he isn’t responding to his calls.”
The excuse sounds feeble to his own ears.
“He’s in trouble.” Kamala’s voice is hoarse. “He has to be in trouble, if Tony is –” She stops talking again, mid-sentence, and Miles watches her jaw jump.
Dead. If Tony is dead.
Miles opens his mouth.
“Kamala! They didn’t have any chocolate-and-coconut doughnuts left – Kamala? Are you alright?”
A pregnant woman stands beside Kamala. Her dark brown eyes narrow into a glare as she looks between a kneeling Kamala and Miles and Sam.
“What’s going on?” She presses a hand on Kamala’s shoulder.
Miles gulps. “N – Nothing…we – we, we were –”
“They didn’t do anything, Tyesha.” Kamala lifts her head. “I swear – it’s just, it’s just, um, school stuff.”
“School stuff.” Her hand is still on Kamala’s shoulder.
“Yeah, school stuff,” Kamala echoes. Miles is starting to think they’re having a completely different conversation. He’s not sure, though. He’s never been good with subtlety. “Our…our mentor is.” She swallows. “Absent.”
“Oh.” Tyesha removes her hand. “I see.”
Kamala’s voice is weak. “Um, he was really, really important.” She gestures to Miles and Sam. “To…to us.”
“Okay.” Tyesha’s voice is calm, soothing. For a moment, she reminds Miles of his mother, who used to rub circles on his back when he had been afraid of the monster in his closet. “I’m sure he’s okay.”
Miles knows she doesn’t know what’s going on. He knows she doesn’t know about Tony, or about Cap; and she can’t know about what happened this morning. His shoulders still loosen. He still lets himself listen to her steady reassurance.
Sam speaks next. He rubs the back of his neck, like he always does when he’s trying to figure out how to talk to a person without messing up. Usually, how to talk to Kamala. (Miles would be a fool if he hadn’t noticed.) “Um, can you drop us off at the library? We’ve got shi – stuff to do.”
“School starts in fifteen minutes.”
Sam flushes. “Yeah, I just…uh, left my flash drive at the library. For the, uh, group project.”
Tyesha’s eyebrows rise. “Kamala never said anything about a group project.”
Kamala fidgets. “Um. Well, group project.”
“What’s it on?” Tyesha asks conversationally.
“Nebulas,” Sam says.
“Feminism,” Kamala says at the same time as Sam.
“Spider silk,” Miles says at the same time as the both of them.
Tyesha’s eyebrows rise even higher.
Miles heart sinks and he almost groans out loud.
Kamala blurts out, “Um, it’s, like, all three actually.” She beams. “Like there’s this, um, queen ant in Nebula…um, in Nebula –”
“Nebula T2-391,” Sam fills in, “In Nebula T2-391.”
“Right...and, um, we’re analyzing the...the matriarchal practices of the queen ant in Nebula T2-391.”
Slowly, Tyesha says, “And where does the spider silk come into this, Kamala?”
Kamala and Sam look at him, then, Kamala’s eyes screaming your turn and Sam’s screaming spider silk? Seriously? Miles groans. “Um, the ants in that nebula…have a symbiotic relationship with spiders?”
Tyesha stares at him for a few seconds. Miles manages to meet her gaze. He doesn’t know what else he can say – maybe the spiders are patriarchal? Maybe it’s a weird partnership that defies societal ideologies? Who the hell knows? He saw Tony die last night, and he’s too tired to play this game, whatever it is.
“Well,” Tyesha says finally. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze in the car.”
--/--
Tyesha had not been lying.
Miles had been stuck between Kamala, who half-heartedly responded to Tyesha’s questions, and Sam, who only stared out the window. It had taken fifteen minutes for them to reach the library, and another two minutes for them to pile out of the car and for Kamala to say her goodbyes to Tyesha. Now they’re at the back of the red brick building, hiding behind the marble pillars.
“Did you alert the other Avengers?”
“We tried.” Sam kicks a pebble. “No response.”
“Thor…Thor didn’t respond? What about the Vision?” Kamala’s voice rises. “The Wasp? Jarvis?”
Miles shakes his head.
Kamala’s mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again, then shuts again. Miles doesn’t need telepathy to know what’s she’s thinking. It’s the same question he’s pondering, too, along with Sam:
What do we do now?
“Amadeus." Kamala's voice is quiet. "He’ll help us, I know it.”
“He didn’t answer.” Miles feels another, gentler wave of grief wash over him. “He’s still. Angry.”
Kamala’s shoulders slump. Miles despises the unhidden shame on her face. It isn’t her fault, hadn’t ever been her fault, but no matter how many times Sam and he tell her that, she brushes them off. Sometimes Miles thinks she’s still living in that moment when –
“I…I know someone else that can help,” Sam says suddenly. “I mean – well, I don’t know her, but you guys do, and you guys keep telling me how smart she is so – ”
“Who?” Miles and Kamala ask simultaneously.
“The smartest person in the world. According to my mom, at least, and she reads the Times. So.” Sam notices their joint expression and scratches the back of his head. “Sorry, rambling’s a bad habit. I think her superhero name’s Moon-something?”
“Moon Girl,” Kamala breathes. “Oh my God, why didn’t I think of her?”
“I…don’t know?” Sam says. “But the thing is, I don’t know where she lives.”
“I do.” Kamala turns to Miles. Her eyes shine with newfound hope. “Have you ever heard of Public School 20 Anna Silver?”
--/--
Located in the Lower-East side of Manhattan, Public School 20 Anna Silver is a two-story brick building. It has a rusty playground filled with teetering metal slides and a street filled with school buses. Ivy hugs the walls, and mud puddles decorate the sidewalks. In the winter, the elementary school smells like pine and gingerbread. In the summer, it reeks of sweat and cotton candy. When Miles is in his Spiderman suit, the school kids will clamor for his autograph; it's sort of the highlight of his patrol.
Miles doesn’t take Kamala and Sam to P.S. 20 Anna Silver, though. Not at first.
Instead, he leads them to an alley between Bert’s Berrylicious Ice-Cream Parlor and a run-down arcade. It smells of rotten fruit and wet cat in here, but Miles shrugs off the smell: New York smells like New York.
Sam says, “This doesn’t look like an elementary school, Miles.”
“We need to change into our superhero getups first. Moon Girl isn’t going to help three random kids.”
“Lunella’s pretty nice, actually.” Kamala rummages through her backpack. “You’re right, though. We still need to keep our identities hidden.”
“Um.” Sam scratches his head. “Miles?
He shrugs his own backpack off of his shoulders. “It’s in here.”
“Right, I thought so.” Sam takes out his helmet. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” Miles grabs his own costume. “Are we all going to change in an alley?”
“Absolutely.”
“Hide behind the dumpster,” Sam advises.
Groaning, Miles follows his suggestion.
As soon as he puts his suit on, he wants to rip it off of his skin and shove it into the dumpster. The kevlar-spandex mesh has rips everywhere: the shoulders, elbows, knees, and chest. Miles runs a hand across the spider that once decorated the center of his suit; it's tattered, the cloth peeling off in bloody strips. Tony's blood. He already knows he won't ever be able to wash away the stains, no matter how much bleach he uses. He wants to burn this costume. But he can't. He won't.
Miles swallows the bile in his throat. “Ready?”
“I am. Sam?”
“My suit shrank,” Sam says disdainfully. “Miles?”
Miles turns around to face his friend. “You’re good...Mostly.”
Sam groans. “It’s the legs, right?”
“Yeah.” Miles coughs. “They’re a bit...tight.”
Sam makes a face.
“Hey, man.” Miles forces himself to grin. “I’m sure the girls will love ‘em.”
(He wants to say that a few boys might prefer them as well, but he isn’t brave enough. Zapping criminals with his venomous webs requires less courage than confessing whatever feelings he may or may not have.)
“As much as I hate to interrupt this bonding moment,” says Kamala, “we should figure out how we’re gonna talk to Luna.”
Miles flushes. “She’s in class right now. Do you think they’d let Spiderman pick her up from school?”
“Not the teenage version, no.” Kamala pauses. “What if I made myself taller via the Inhuman schtick? Maybe I could pass as a Responsible Adult Who Doesn’t Write Fanfiction?”
Miles bites his lip. Kamala looks every bit the spick-and-span heroine Jersey loves, but...Maybe he’s biased, but her unabashed, sweet-as-honey stare doesn't look Responsible or Adult. It looks like Kamala, plain, wonderful, high school Kamala. “Um...No.”
She sighs. “Any other plans, guys?”
“I could fly her out of the playground during recess," Sam offers.
“Sam, that's kidnapping.”
"No," Sam denies. "I mean, yes. But also, no, because what kid doesn't want to fly?"
Kamala shakes her head. "I'm already in enough trouble with the City Council. I don't want to add a felony to their list of excuses to throw me in prison."
Miles flexes his shoulders. They still hurt. Ganke would tell him to go to the hospital, but Ganke's not here. "I have an idea."
"I'm all ears," Sam says, tapping his helmet.
"Me, too," says Kamala. She actually grabs her ears.
Despite himself, Miles can't help but laugh. "What are you doing, Kamala?"
"I'm showing support for your idea, Miles." She nudges Sam in the shoulder. "We both are."
Something inside of Miles eases. Peter Parker, the original Spiderman, had once told him that almost everything in the world had a pair. The sky, the earth. Adenosine, thymidine. Structuralism, nominalism. Back then, Miles had teased Peter for sounding like an old man reciting folklore. But now, in this cramped alley in Manhattan, he thinks he finally understands. Pairs. Him and Sam. Him and Kamala.
"Do you guys know how to hotwire an ice-cream truck?" Miles asks.
--/--
Turns out, Google has 345,929 articles on hot-wiring an automobile. (Or, in their case, a semi-large truck.) With the help of Wikihow, Kamala starts lock-picking her way into the driver's seat. While she finishes, Miles places a wrinkly twenty-dollar bill on the street corner. He grabs a chipped piece of gravel and scratches a message on the sidewalk: we had to borrow your ice-cream truck to help save the world. Don't worry, though! We'll drive VERY safely and return the truck before ten PM. Also, we left you all the money we had in our pockets as compensation. Sorry for the inconvenience :( Sincerely, Spiderman, Nova, and Ms. Marvel.
"Hey losers! Get in!" Kamala whisper-yells from the driver's seat.
Sam hops in the back and Miles calls shotgun. The seat is sticky. He grimaces. “This better be ice-cream.”
“Speaking of ice-cream,” Sam calls out, “do you guys prefer almond-tangerine or marmalade-peanut?”
“I’m a chocolate kind of guy.”
“Sorry, Miles. These are the only two flavors...unless you want a...a Vegemite popsicle?”
“Actually, we should save the treats to bribe the kids,” Kamala interrupts. “Also: did you guys overlook my Mean Girls reference?”
“Mean Girls?” Sam asks.
Kamala narrowly misses a pole before taking a sharp left on Rivington St. “Mean Girls? The iconic teenage comedy? The inspiration for my Wolverine and Thor fanfiction?”
“Um…”
“Wolverine and Thor?” Miles says. “Where’d you get that pairing from?” Still, he can't help but feel glad that she's starting to crack some jokes. Only an hour ago she had looked shellshocked with grief.
“From the depths of their love." The truck careens across Stanton St. “Almost there.”
Miles shakes his head and stops thinking about Thor and Wolverine falling in love. “Kamala, are you sure you can park the car?”
“Definitely. Yes."
Closing his eyes, Miles sends a quick prayer to God that Kamala won't crash into a parked school bus. Then, opening his eyes, he swivels in his seat to look at Sam. The other boy is clutching a mud-colored popsicle, tentatively tasting it. "Sam, you good?"
"Yep." Sam sets down the popsicle and rings the bell. "I ring this, you 'sell' the goods. We find Moon-Girl, ask for her help, and ta-da, we're good to go."
Miles thrums his fingers on his lap. "What if the kids aren't let out?"
"Um," says Sam, "we could...throw ice-cream at the windows?"
Fortunately, Sam's Plan B doesn't come to fruition. Seconds before the lunch bell rings, Kamala manages to snatch a spot on the right side of the building. Unbuckling his seatbelt, Miles makes his way to the back of the truck and gestures at Sam to hit the bell. Sam does, just as the kids swarm out of the back doors, like lions prancing toward gazelles. Miles starts sweating. These kids look hungry. Like, climb into the truck and steal all their ice-cream hungry. Oh, Christ.
"Vegemite Popsicles!" Sam cries, waving the offending items in his hands. "Come on, kiddos!"
"What's Vegemite?" a young girl with pigtails asks.
"Nutella," Miles improvises. "Fancy European Nutella."
"Australian, actually," Sam whispers.
Miles hands her a popsicle, anyway. "Do you know where Lunella is?"
"She's coming," Pigtails says. She rips open the wrapper and licks the dessert. "Yuck."
Twenty-five ravenous school-children later, Lunella Lafayette approaches the truck. She's wearing her usual outfit: khaki shorts, and a green-and-blue plaid, short-sleeved T-shirt. Her eyes are alight, but she holds her chin high, an aloofness to her that Miles now knows stems from nervousness. Lunella inches closer to the window and adjusts her gigantic, eggplant purple glasses. "Spiderman? This is the third time in approximately 17 days. You're off-pattern today."
Miles scratches his head. "There's a pattern?"
"You come every other Tuesday." Lunella shrugs. "Oh, and you have a propensity to visit on Fridays if you've also visited on Wednesdays. But today's Thursday, and you rarely ever come on Thursdays. I assume it's because you have an after-school activity on Thursdays. Chess, right?"
"Chinese checkers, actually."
"Oh. Is Ms. Marvel here?"
"Yes."
Lunella bites her lip. She looks shy now, and Miles knows that Kamala has become Lunella's idol of sorts. "I was going to call her via the Avengers Communicator, but my science teacher confiscated it. Where is she?"
"Front seat," Sam says. "She drove."
"She only has a permit."
"Well...that explains a lot," Miles says. "Lunella, we're here because we need your help."
"It's because of the sky, yes?" Narrowing her eyes at his expression, she says, "I thought so. Anyway. We should talk about it in my lab. I have some data to show you three, if you want it."
"We want it. But...Don't you have class?"
Making a face, Lunella says, "Science class is dumb, Spiderman. I don't learn anything. Trust me, it's not hindering my education if I miss it."
A part of Miles wants to disagree. School is important, he wants to tell her, because that's what his parents told him growing up...And it sounds like something a responsible mentor would say. The other part of him knows that he doesn't need to tell her that. She has a lab, for Christ's sake. She has a giant dinosaur. She's more intelligent than Amadeus or Tony or any other genius Miles has ever met. If she doesn't like school, it's probably because school doesn't like her. So, he only nods. "Okay, got it. Where's your lab?"
--/--
"As you can see," Moon-Girl says, "something is warping the space-time continuum." She pushes several buttons and a map of New York City appears. "I managed to engineer the Omni-Wave Projector to measure the amount of 'warped' time-space energy that exists within our world. Said energy - for clarity's sake, let's call them omnis - collect in small amounts. Usually, 0.5 plancks worth of omnis for one square mile."
Miles stares at the map. "Is the black stuff the warped energy?"
"Yes. See how there's barely any black on the map? That's because this map was from yesterday afternoon, before the sky turned black and the Tower fell."
The Tower.
Miles's chest constricts.
"Today, however..." Lunella pulls up another graph. "Half of Manhattan is black."
Sam slides closer to Miles. He presses one hand on Miles shoulder and asks, "What do you think this means?"
Lunella hops out of her fuzzy pink chair. She adjusts her glasses - a nervous tic of hers - and starts pacing the floor. If this was a cartoon, a flickering light bulb would be hanging over her head. "I don't have enough data...I don't..." She takes a deep breath. "The Omni Wave Projector doesn't tell me how something happens. Or why. I haven't cross-examined enough Kree technology to know how time and space intersect."
"That's okay," Kamala says. She leans on her knee and takes Lunella's hand. "We're not asking for the secrets of the universe. We want to know what you think."
Emboldened by Kamala's kindness, Lunella straightens. She continues pacing before she whirls around and heads toward the monitors. "Think of it like this: space-time is a liquid, okay? It's like oxygen in the atmosphere or water in the ocean. It surrounds us and creates the expanse of the universe itself." Lunella looks Miles in the eye. "My guess is that the omnis I've recorded are a result of cracks in the glass holding the liquid."
"You think our universe is breaking?" Sam asks faintly.
Lunella hesitates. "It's cracking. But what if..."
"What if?" Kamala prompts.
"The rate at which the omnis are appearing is diminishing. Irregularly, yes, but..." Lunella wrings her hands. "If our universe is breaking, then we should be slipping away like water out of a glass. But in the epicenter of Manhattan, where I first noticed the darkening, there are now a few specks of...green."
"Green?" Miles's brow wrinkles. "I thought there was only black and blue."
"Different energy emitting from a different space-time. It's improbable, but possible. Miles, what happens if a cup of orange juice cracks, but there's another a glass of lemon juice underneath it?"
Miles blinks, confused by the change of topic. "Um...the orange juice flows into the lemon juice?"
"Yes," Moon-Girl breathes. "That's what I think, too."
"Erm," Sam says, "I'm lost. Why are we talking about orange juice?"
"It's an analogy, Nova." Moon-Girl inhales, then exhales. Her cheeks are flushing from excitement. "My hypothesis is that another space-time is flowing into the cracks of our universe. Like the orange into the lemon."
Miles's stomach sinks like a rock thrown in a pond. "A universe is colliding into ours."