Chapter Text
Maybe reasoning will work.
“If I don’t get home...our Dad is going to die-”
“Your Dad.”
“Please...” Desperation housed itself where Miles’ voice should’ve been. “...you have to let me go.” This universe’s Miles - this other version of himself - raises his gloved hand into a fist, and proceeds to deliberately brush past the side of Miles' face with the gauntlet's angular knuckles. The armored plates so razor sharp that Miles feels a paper-thin cut slice open where the knuckle grazed his cheek. Once he rests the mechanical fist on the side of the punching bag Miles is chained to, his dimensional-self says,
“Why would I do that?” From the threateningly calm tone along with placing a wound on his prisoner’s cheek, Miles knows this was far from a rhetorical question, but rather an imminent threat. Message received.
Miles knows what he has to do. That same way he knew what he had to do to escape the Spider-Society’s HQ. The same way a tsunami somberly recedes in before the overwhelming wave. All of Miles’ fears, crises, and doubts become background noise, a terrible can-of-worms reserved for later. His eyes become focused and cold. The two boys stare at their self, and for the first time since Miles’ arrival in Earth-42, the two twins’ faces mirrored each other. Miles’ calmly places two fingers on a chain-link that confined him.
“Because you didn’t watch the hands.”
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BAM!
Miles crashes the door off its hinges with a kick like that. Pure adrenaline, no webbing fluid. Miles did what he does best, run. The alleyway from his Uncle Aaron’s - no, no, stop that - this other Uncle Aaron’s garage was filled to the brim with overturned cans, scrap tires, and bent metal. He hurtled them all with ease, but flung himself forward with a very panicked-sense-of-direction.
“Just get the street,” Miles thought. But another thought crept into his mind. He channeled everything into his Venom Blast back at that warehouse, it got him free while simultaneously knocking Earth-42′s Miles and Uncle Aaron clean against the walls. He prays that it only knocked them out. Thinking about that charged blast made him realize how exhausted he was. When was the last time he ate? Only one-and-a-half of an empanada from the HQ. And that was what? 24 hours ago, at least. His spider-metabolism could only keep him upright for so long. The burning in his limbs gave him a grim warning that he was running on empty, at best. He'd finally gotten to a street.
“Does the sun never come up in this dimension?!” Miles quietly screamed to himself. He looks left, he looks right. Everything around him simultaneously looks familiar and foreign. “Home, home, I’ve got to get back home,” he told himself. Find a way home, save his Dad, and then take a year-long nap. Miles randomly picks a direction and keeps running.
“Find a way home, find a way home, fin-”
“Hey Miles, where’s the fire?!” He stops dead in his tracks, he knows that voice. Even if he only met her for a minute. Miles turns his eyes across the street to see Spider-Byte lightly jogging towards him. Except she isn’t in costume, she looks like a civilian. Miles automatically activates his Spider-sense. How the Spider-sense worked when it encountered another Spider-person (at least to Miles) felt similar to how sound echoes back when hitting a curved surface. Miles stares intently at Spider-Byte, expecting that returning echo, but got...emptiness. An existential chill ran through Miles’ thoughts. There’s no Spiderman here. That’s not Spider-Byte over there. This is this dimension’s Margo, and she’s just...Margo. This wasn’t his Margo. But then again, even his Margo, wasn’t from his home-dimension! Does that mean there’s a Margo Kess back in his Earth-1610 he’s never met?
“Hellooooo, Earth to Miles!” She snaps her fingers in front of his face, having caught up with him from across the street. “Don’t you have the decency to answer my question?" She already asking him another question before he can answer her first one,
“Plus why’d you take out your braids?” Literally snapping him out of his quantum-based panic attack, Miles finally gets a good look at the Margo in front of him. It’s her expression that does him in. He can tell her faux-annoyance is all in good jest and from her little smirk, she’s genuinely happy to see him.
He can't help but quickly flashback to his first meeting with the original Margo. It was brief, but Miles couldn’t deny he felt a tinge of something when he looked back. Kindred spirits, perhaps? The smirk he’s looking at now is identical to the one Margo had back at HQ when he fumbled his introduction and she said, “Wow! No way! Duh, all of us are Spiderman.” God, I’m like, something between a dork and nerd, Miles thought, a Derd. But like the city streets, the Margo in front of him, while familiar, is more foreign. Not being a digital-avatar aside, this Margo doesn't have Afro-puffs, but rather multiple long twisted box-braids that reach down to her waist. Her hair, even her outfit, seemed to be inspired by what the actress, Janet Jackson, wore in that old ‘90s movie, what was it called? Oh yeah, Lyrical Justice*. Except instead of white, her shirt and cloth headband are candy-apple red.
Still, his exhausted mind is just relieved to see someone who isn’t trying to kill him.
“You’re like, the seco- third person to ask me that today. Does my hair really look that bad?” Asks Miles, while instinctively patting the top of his afro.
“No, I like it! It’s just, I didn’t think you even had the time to take your braids out. Are you trying to let your new growth- ohmigosh what happened here?” Most of Miles’ adrenaline has burned out by now, so when Margo lightly traces the cut on his cheek he doesn’t mean to wince and pull back.
“Did you get clipped by the edge of a STOP sign, again?”
“Nah, nah...” He says, waving that notion off. Miles feels his guards coming down. He desperately wants to ask her if she knows a safe place where he can take a quick rest, so he can collect himself enough to keep his anxiety in-check and figure out how to get back to his actual dimension.
“So someone did this?”
“N-” Suddenly, Miles feels an icy-hot surge. His Spider-Sense tells him there is someone very dangerous nearby. Miles doesn’t have to hone it in to know who. He squints a little bit so the Spider-Sense can give him an exact location. He senses Prowler-Miles (Prowler-Me??) looming on top of the building he and Margo are standing in front of. Miles’ first instinct is to grab Margo and get her to safety, but his Senses signal to him that The Prowler has no intention of moving, he’s just watching.
Miles has to fight to keep conciseness against the whiplash of finally letting his guard down only to instantly be back on high alert again. His exhaustion is reaching a deliriousness he only experienced during a 48-hour-no-sleep-cramming for finals, and with his attention split between monitoring his counterpart above him, and to speaking to an alternate Margo; Miles can’t even attempt the focus to create a convincing lie.
Seeing the sweat forming on Miles’ brow, Margo tries to soften the worry in her eyes. She playfully gets into a fighting stance and starts mock shadow-boxing.
“Tell me who did it and lemme at ‘em! Just this once, coach!” She gives the air a few fast punches and even adds a couple audible ‘Wa-BAM!” with each hit. The sight alone manages to get a tired chuckle out of Miles.
“Ehhh, erm- nah, y’know. I mean, you-you should see the other guy. Hah. Hah.” Miles wipes the sweat from his brow, trying to appear nonchalant, more nonchalant . Miles notices how Margo instantly froze mid-punch and starts to relax back to her normal posture. Though he can’t be quite sure, but now her eyes seem even more concerned, maybe even disappointed?
“Ah, I guess that means the poor guy is on a stretcher with a neck brace by now, huh, Tigre? ” Miles feels another surge. The Prowler puts his foot on the edge of the building, he leans forward to rest his arm on his knee, watching intensely. Wait...what did she just call him?
Margo tries to wave off this sudden awkward silence.
“Anyway, if you’re still planning to...sprint down Ditko St., I’m going the same way. Walk me to Dad’s shop?” Miles’ heightened senses allow him to hear the whirring hisses and whines of The Prowler’s gauntlet, obviously flexing his hand inside of it. His Spider-Sense radiates to point of almost emulating white noise and by the look Margo’s giving him, he knows his face is scrunched in. He doesn’t want to give her that impression, and so without thinking:
“Yeah, ’course.”
Margo hooks her elbow in his, leading him down the street. Miles’ legs are on nothing but autopilot as he focuses on the Prowler. His foot is no longer on the edge of the building and his posture is crouched. But his head is cocked to the side. Miles noticed that, while tied up in the warehouse, the way his counterpart would tilt his head slightly while observing something. In that moment, heck even right now, it reminds him of the jaguar documentaries he used to watch on National Terragraphic *. That same tilt of the head jaguars always made while observing their prey, as if debating how many thousands of PSI they need to apply to crush their victim’s windpipe.
This day is already a mindscrew soaked in a fever-dream, but past his blaring Spider-Sense, Miles experiences a revelation. As he walks with Margo, his Sense alerts him to The Prowler following them, but only by the rooftops. Miles knows he'd do anything to protect his friends, and it’s clear that in this dimension Margo and Miles know each other well. To know himself, means he can figure out a close estimation of what Earth-42 Miles thinks too, maybe.
No matter what, Spiderman or Prowler, hero or villain, Miles is determined to do anything in his power to protect those he cares about. To know that this will always be a constant in his character throughout the infinite possible multiverses, Miles can’t help but feel a sad smile within himself. “No wonder he’s keeping his distance,” Miles thought, “I’d do the exact same if a loved one was near someone I perceived as dangerous but they didn’t know it. I’d wait for a window of opportunity to get them away without scaring them, if I could.”
An involuntary scenario triggers into Miles’ head. The thought of Miguel, knocking on his parents door, and pretending to a teacher from The Vision Academy. He speaks perfect Spanish to his mother. He’ll claim to be Miles’ Spanish teacher, then say he’s concerned about his absences, and just wants to talk to them about his whereabouts. His father will offer him a beer, then brag on Miles, while admitting that he truly does need to apply himself better. Then he’ll ask Miguel, please, please see the same potential he sees in his son. The two will exchange a firm handshake. Miguel looking at his father dead in the eye, says that he promises. The protective fury Miles just felt well up in him, the rage, and yet there’s nothing he can do to save them. Not all the way in another dimension.
“You buggin’, Miles? You’re acting really weird.”
“Huh?” Miles had involuntarily stopped in his tracks, and with his spider-strength, Margo couldn’t drag him along no matter how hard she pulled.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good! Everything’s all good!” Miles said, rubbing back of his head, “Just got a lot on my mind. That’s all, you know how it is.” Margo gives a caring nod.
“I know you do. Miles...I-” She stops, sighs then starts again. “I remember you said it in passing but, last week you said you and Uncle were having disagreements about how to run the garage and, well, I know you like to keep that stuff close to the chest and everything, but...you do know you can talk to me about that, right?” Another revelation, Miles thought, she doesn’t seem to know that this universe’s Miles is...oh, crap! Even his roommate Ganke, knows of Miles’ double-life. Miles chose to tell him. For Earth-42′s Miles to not tell his best friend means he has to have his reasons. And Miles had no intention of getting caught up in that.
“Yeah, no, yeah, I mean- It’s fine. ” Miles found himself putting his hand up defensively.
“Quit blowing me off Miles, you know I hate that.”
“I’m not! I’m mean, I-I’m trying not to! You’re right, we should talk about it-”
“And I’m glad we can. We don’t have to do it now, of course. Wait, hold up a minute.” Margo sees someone she recognizes and Miles exhales the heaviest sigh of relief as she walks away. His brain’s already in a spiral, all while trying to act calm and collected in front of such a cute girl like Margo, no less! Wait, did Miles just admit to himself that he found Margo cute?
She did look back when I looked back at HQ, Miles pondered, she even laughed a little. Wait, she wasn’t laughing at me, was she? Even if she did, it felt like she was still laughing with me. I can laugh at myself. Can holograms blush? Miles then remembered the look she gave him as he floated in the Go Home Machine, him pleading to her to not cut off the power.
Miles found himself so caught up in his thoughts that he realized it’d probably be wise for him to take in his immediate surroundings. Earth-42′s New York, what could Miles even say? Everything looked familiar, but it wasn't. Miles felt that uneasy and liminal feeling everyone felt whenever they found themselves at their school while it was empty and during the night. When a consistent and stable environment feels slightly askew. It was night time (perpetually, it seems) and while the familiar skyscrapers and billboards were lit up in neon lights, it wasn’t his home-dimension’s red Coca-Kola* but rather a toxic neon green colored, Scorp Corp. The tint of that green light seemingly emanating out and infecting everything around it. Shops, bodega carts, and stalls that Miles recognized had either a letter or two in a change of name-spelling but, more likely, were closed down with an “Up for Lease” poster plastered over it. Even though it wasn’t currently raining, it felt like it had recently. The oil-black streets, still slick with rainwater that never seemed to dry, shined back the neon lights in a corrupted reflection despite the ever accumulating collection of trash in its gutters.
Miles turned his attention to Margo and the woman she approached. The woman appeared to be a canner, her shopping cart spilling with large clear trash bags of aluminum soda and food cans to be turned in at a recycler at 7¢ per can. A lot of soda can duplicates read Shockin’ Suga Rush in an electric font with a gray, blue & yellow color scheme. Miles assumes the woman is White, due to her sunburned skin (again, HOW in this dimension?), but he isn’t too sure. It was clear the elderly woman tried to keep herself as clean as possible despite being homeless. Miles notices a slightly opened purse, perched atop the bags of cans. It seems to contain nothing but travel sized packets of baby-wipes. He walks a little bit closer to them but maintains a respectful distance.
“...you’re sure you’ll have enough time to make it there before it closes?” Margo asks the woman.
“I just need to stop by the Marconi Market & Bakery, she almost always has some cans for me. That’ll still give me plenty of time before the Subway closes and I can make my way over there.”
“Good, good.” Margo nods, “And is your PalmPilot still working?”
The woman’s bubbly demeanor falters a bit, seemingly ashamed as she responds,
“It’s been a little on the fritz, I’m sure I bumped it somewhere or other. And I- Hmm, if it’s not too much trouble...”
“It never is.” Margo replies already taking off her JamSport* backpack and fishes out a compact toolkit. Miles watches her as she expertly works a miniature-soldering iron on the circuit board located on the back of the old woman’s PalmPilot. In two minutes, Margo is clicking the protective sleeve back into place and returns it.
“Thank you, sweetheart. I promise, this’ll be the last time I’ll ask you to repair it, Girl Scout’s honor.”
“No need for honor, Miss Rosemary. I’m happy to do it every time.”
The old woman lowers her voice to a volume no ordinary human could hear if they were Miles’ distance away, but he still could.
“And you trust that young man over there?”
Margo gives a half-hearted giggle, “Yeah, I do.”
“Because if you ever need me to, I’ll hit him with my umbrella for you.”
“Y’know, Miss Rosemary, I’ve never seen you or Batman in the same room together. Is there something you wanna tell me?”
Pulling out a large cane umbrella seemingly from nowhere, the old woman exclaims, “Better than a Bat-a-rang!”
Miles tries to hide his laughter as the two women chortle together. Margo then proceeds to dig into her backpack again and hands the woman a couple of finished soda cans as she makes her way back to Miles.
“Sorry for the road-stop, Tigre.” There she goes with that nickname again, thinks Miles.
“No problem. It’s really nice what you did there.” Miles offers her his elbow again and she hooks herself in.
“You know how it is, Karma and tryin’ to balance out the good of the universe and all that.”
“You don’t have to do it. That fact you choose to, makes it all the more...good? There’s a better word, I just can’t think of it right now.”
Margo giggles and Miles swears she just nudged herself closer to him while they walked.
“I know what you mean, Miles!” Her giggle dies down, and when Margo speaks again it’s much more melancholy.
“When I first fixed her PalmPilot, I asked her if I could help her phone any family to take her in, instead of going to a shelter. She told me her only adult son lives out in San Fransokyo*, he doesn’t even know she’s homeless and that she prefers it that way. She doesn’t want him to worry about her and that he’s got her two grandbabies to take care of. He thinks she still has her Senior Living apartment whenever she calls him.”
Sometimes there are injustices that punching bad guys doesn't fix, Miles knew this, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“Did she ever tell you how she lost her apartment?”
“One word: Oscorp. Moneybags bought out all the tenants, gave ‘em chump change to ‘re-locate’, and then bulldozed the complex to put up a multi-storied parking lot.”
“Geez, he’s literally the villain of a Saturday morning cartoon.”
“Right? Where’s Commander Planet* when you need him?”
Where’s Spiderman when this city needs him? Nowhere, because I robbed this city’s chance of ever having him, Miles thought.
“You’re the ORIGINAL ANOMALY, A MISTAKE! There’s a universe out there without a Spiderman, all because of YOU!” Miguel’s words range out again. The Miles his Spider-Sense was currently monitoring should’ve been the owner of the power Miles, himself, was currently using. A wave of nausea hits him so strong, he doubles over.
“Hey...HEY! MILES!”
He’d throw-up if he had anything in his stomach, but all he can do is stare at the cracks of the concrete sidewalk. Then Margo’s face comes into view, it’s slightly blurry, but he can tell she’s squatting down to become eye-level with him. She takes his head into her two hands.
“Tell me what’s going on. Talk to me.”
“It’s...all my...fault.” Miles forces himself to swallow his saliva to moisten his dry mouth, he can barely get any air. “Everything’s...my fault.”
“What? No, Miles, it isn’t! I know it feels like it, but please, believe me, it’s not. Look at me.” Miles weakly raises his head, his eyes locked with Margo’s big brown eyes. She didn’t cut the power. Back at the HQ, she could’ve but she didn’t. They only spoke for a minute, tops. He gave her a goofy wave, she laughed at him a little, and they both smiled back. He didn’t know her, she didn’t know him, but she didn’t cut the power.
“Oscorp, the rising cost of living, the Sinister Cartel, your father’s death, none of it, Miles! Hear me when I say, it’s. Not. Your. Fault.”
No, his father’s not dead, not yet. Not if he can help it. He’s not going to let that happen.
“Breathe. Try to match the same pace I’m going. In, now hold. Okay, exhale out. Let's do that a few more times, alright?” He does, and after a few moments, he’s able to stand tall again.
At this point, the constant tingling from his Sense is starting to aggravate him, he needs to be able to think clearly again. Miles looks back behind him, at the speck in the distance he knows is The Prowler. Yeah, Miles thought, I’ve known you’ve been following me this entire time. Now you know that I know.
The speck moves quickly, disappearing inside the building he was standing on. Miles’ Sense follows but the Prowler keeps disappearing down, lower and lower until practically under the street. It gets to the point when the Sense is unable to register him anymore. Good, he’s backed off, for now.
“Did you leave something back at your Uncle’s garage?”
“Nah, it’s just, y’know how he is.” With his mind less preoccupied, Miles tries to give her a smile. A cool one, the kind he thinks Earth-42 would do. From the raised eyebrows and covered giggle Margo does, tells him right away that he failed.
“Listen, I know you prefer to crash at your Uncle’s place more than your own, but if you’re having ‘disagreements’ with him, you can stay at my place tonight, if you want.”
“Really?” This is just what he needed, a safe place to rest. A place to get his mind right so he can figure out a plan to get back to his dimension. If he’s quiet enough, he’ll swipe some breakfast (Sorry, Margo!) and be gone before anyone in the house wakes.
“Yeah, though Dad’s going to anchor you to the Livingroom’s couch and then put a deadbolt on my bedroom door.”
“That’s fine.” He said. Seemed right on par with most protective dads who have daughters from Miles’ observations while growing up.
“It is?”
Miles catches that dip in her inflection.
“I mean, I don’t wanna make your Dad uncomfortable or anything.”
“Oh, I see you got jokes now, Tigre.” Miles ignores the comment because his attention focuses on what appears to be Margo’s place just a block ahead. It’s a fairly worn Brownstone, the lower level has been lightly renovated into a shop with a purple neon sign that reads: Kess Computer & Electronic Repairs. Miles assumes the second level is where Margo and her father live.
Then suddenly, a lone hand pulls Miles back into a nearby alleyway.
“But I’m actually really glad I ran into you today.” Miles found his back up against a brick wall and Margo pressing the palms of her hands and her body quite close to him.
“Uh?” Is all Miles’ brain registers him to say.
“I haven’t told my Dad the good news yet, and, obviously, I don’t want him to see when I tell you the good news...” Miles feels utterly lost. “... ‘Cause I wanted to tell you earlier, but you were acting weird. I mean, you’re still acting weird, but less weird, and now I’m rambling.” Looking down at Margo, she has an excited smile on her face. She bites her lip in anticipation for Miles to ask her about it.
But a glimpse in the stunned Spiderman’s mind would tell her she’d be waiting until the Fifth of Never, because the only thing his brain could scream is thAT A GIRL IS PRESSING HER CHEST AGAINST MY CHEST, WHAT IS HAPPENING? on repeat.
“ Whatdyahmean there’s, uh, good news?”
Margo’s smile instantly drops and she rolls her eyes.
“We have got to work on your cynicism.” Miles never felt so lost.
Margo begins to ideally play with the tassels of his hoodie,
“Remember what we promised each other? Whenever we have to tell bad news, we give the other a hug, because no one should have to go through something terrible alone...”
Miles wonders if she can feel his heart pounding while she casually plays with his strings. He just assumed Prowler and Margo were best friends. None of Miles’ friends -that just so happened to be girls- ever acted like this with him. Gwen (almost) never acted like this with him!
“...And when we get to share good news, we give each other something better.” Then Margo closes her eyes and leans forward.
Did this count as Miles’ first kiss? Technically, his first kiss was during a spin-the-bottle at an 8th grade Valentine’s Day party, and it landed on Betty Brant. But that one totally doesn’t count, it was a millisecond chaste peck on the lips. Angling her head to the side, Margo suggests initiation by gently biting Miles’ lower lip. He finds himself a bit perturbed and dare he say, proud at how automatically he took her up on it and followed through. This is no millisecond. He starts out a bit awkward, but soon he figures out the rhythm and is kissing Margo back with the same enthusiasm she’s giving him. It surprises him how audible kissing is, he certainly wasn’t this loud when he did practice-kissing on the back of his two fingers (alone in his dorm, after triple-checking that he locked the door). Speaking of fingers, Margo places her hands at the base of Miles’ neck, where the back of his neck and his hairline meet (also where the heck should he put his hands?!?). Her fingers get lost in the textures of his afro while she lightly massages his scalp. She smells like tea tree oil and baby lotion to him. He gently bites her lower lip, just to see if she likes it too. She laughs and goes right back to kissing him.
Miles hoped to experience his first kiss with Gwen. More like, actively trying to make it happen. He thought he was in while the two of them sat underneath the gargoyle spot he showed her. And then she commented that relationships between Spiderman and girls named Gwen, never ended well. And now here he is, losing his first kiss to a different version of a girl that he barely knows, who believes he’s a different version of himsel -
DEATH
His Spider-Sense only sends white-hot signals like this if death is near; when a bullet is headed straight for the skull if he doesn’t dodge it this instant. Except this Death-bullet is in the shape of a person, and Miles doesn’t have to hone it in to know who it is. It’s becoming increasingly clear to him that this Margo is not The Prowler’s friend who just so happens to be a girl.
“Margo, hold up.” Miles gently pushes her away by the waist (he figured out a place to put his hands), but the look she gives him is confusing. She looks offended, did he really sound that harsh? He didn’t mean to, he definitely doesn’t want to give her the impression that he thinks she’s a bad kisser.
“Miles, are you mad at me?”
“What? No! I’m so far from it! Hah, hah! What makes you think I’m mad at you?”
“Then why’d you call me ’Margo?’“
“Because that’s...your name?” Panic sets in. She has to be this dimension's version of Margo, she looks exactly like her! Does Spider-Byte have a secret twin he doesn’t know about and made a mix-up? Maybe she isn’t named Margo in this univer-
“Margo. Jeanette. Kess!” A man’s voice with a thick Jamaican patois booms just out of view from the two teenagers. “I saw yuh disappear behind dat corner with dat delinquent, come out, now!
Margo(?) buries her face in her hands as she hears, what Miles assumes, her father’s voice.
“I have, uh, a feeling your dad won’t be cool with me crashing the night.”
“No, no, he will, trust me. We’ll have better luck here than if we went to my Mom’s place. I just gotta talk with him first, you stay here, then come in after five -no, actually- fifteen minutes.” Margo(?) turns to walk away but then swivels back realizing she forgot something,
“Oh man, the good news! I got one of the two acceptance letters for the Alchemax internship!” Oh no, thought Miles, no, no, no!
“You proud of me?”
“Alchemax is...wow.” Miles doesn’t know if it’s his place to warn her, heck, how could he warn her without sounding like a crazy conspiracy-theorist nutjob? Hey Margo(?), the company that’s the front-runner in technology is actually a super-villain-hideout that most likely houses a collision-collider that can split entire dimensions in half.
“I know, right?!” Margo(?) places her hands atop her head as if she can’t believe it either. “This is huge . Having Alchemax on my college applications will have me set!”
“M.J.! What I tell you?! Don’t have me repeatin’ myself! I got tickets ta-do!” Suddenly, Miles’ throat plummets to the soles of his feet. He did not just hear Margo’s father call her ‘M.J.’
“God, lemme go do this.” M.J. says while rolling her eyes and jogging off, “Dad, I’m coming! Why are you yelling for the whole street to hear!?” The noise of M.J. 's back and forth with her father fade to the background as Miles’ entire worldview shrinks to his sinking realization.
“She’s not just this dimension’s Margo...”, Miles whispers to himself, “...she’s this dimension’s M.J.”
Before Miles became Spiderman, when Earth-1610′s first Spiderman was still alive, it was public knowledge that he could not overstate how much he loved his wife, Mary Jane or M.J. as he often called her. When he died, after Miles was bitten, and he found Peter B.; Miles remembered when Peter looked up at the mega-screen in Times Square playing a recording of the recently widowed M.J. 's eulogy.
“M.J.?”
“Hey man, we gotta go! The cops are still looking for us after we trashed that gravestone!” Miles pulled on Peter’s trench coat, but it was no use.
“We got married in this universe too, huh?”
“I will LEAVE you, dude! I’m not joking, c’mon!” Peter slowly started to turn his body to follow Miles, but kept his eyes glued to the screen for as long as he could.
“She looks like an angel.”
At the Spider Society HQ, as Miles was just learning about ‘Canon Events,’ (before ish hit the fan) he noticed some medium-sized weavings that were titled: ‘Most-Likely-To-Happen Events.’ While not certain for every Spider-person in their universe, there was a high possibility that they would meet, fall in love, and marry a person who’d have their first two initials be M.J.
Miles even remembers seeing a little asterisk after the Events’ description that read: Almost all Spider-people who fall in with an ‘M.J.’ considers them to be their soulmate and vice versa.
Despite not becoming Spiderman, Earth-42 Miles and M.J. still found each other.
DOOM
And Earth-1610 Miles just open tongued kissed her for twelve whole seconds. Miles doesn’t even need his Spider-Sense when he hears someone drop from above and land less than two feet behind him. Miles swallows, but doesn’t turn around.
“Ay, Mano...” The Prowler’s gauntlet crackles to life when the gloves’ talons extend out. “... it’s just you ‘n me, now.”
Peter B. told Miles a while back about a superstition he had called, ‘Parker Luck’, and Miles is certain it’s been rubbed off on him.
“Well, shi-...crap.”
END
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Bonus #2: What would actually happen if you put Miles, Miles G. and M.J.!Margo in a situation together
