Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your days consisted of the same repetitive cycle. You’d wake up at the crack of dawn and get dressed in your uniform (if it could even be considered a uniform because at this point you would just wear whatever was comfortable). Afterwards you would head down to the headquater’s food court and pick up an everything bagel with almost an illegal amount of cream cheese, what could you say, you loved a good spread. After the bagel run you would head promptly to your lab to tinker with the multiverse watches and always try to improve them. By the time the sun was setting, Jessica would go on to check on you and tell you to stop overworking yourself, she’d say something like,

“Girl you’re not going to make any progress this sleep deprived.”

(Of course she was right and you knew this) So after a gentle reprimanding, you would pick up another bagel from the food court and head up to your room in headquarters. You knew you should try to get sleep to lessen the sleep deprivation symptoms, but you couldn’t help staying up watching horror movies. You couldn’t help but be a sucker for a good slasher film, the predictable behavior of the characters and their predictable outcomes. You enjoyed when life followed a specific pattern, it made it seem secure and nothing could go wrong, and in your line of work this was something that you needed.

You were a spider that was working at the headquarters of the multiverse Spider Society. You chose this job since you were a fairly new spider and weren't really gifted with any interesting abilities, nor were you as trained as the other spiders; and with a Engineering degree at your side it was pretty obvious what your role would be at headquarters. You didn’t hate your job, you enjoyed toying with the Spider Society’s inventions and coming up with new ideas for them. Though most of your time was taken up by having to fix other spiders’ multiverse watches which weren’t supposed to break frequently but because of the immense amount of spiders there were, you would get a lot of broken wristbands. Even though you liked your job, you couldn’t help but look at the other spiders go on missions and come back with anomalies. A small part of you craved that adventurous life, but was quickly shut down by your logical brain telling you that there were too many risks to that and to play it safe.

Though sometimes it seemed like all you did was work, everyone had off days, and on your off days you would either go to your room and continue to watch horror movies or spend time with other spiders. The list of people you consider to be your friend was short, but quality or quantity right? Miles Morales from Earth-1610, Gwen Stacy from Earth-65, Jessica Drew from Earth-404, Hobie Brown from Earth-138, Pavitr Prabhakar from Earth-50101, and Peter B. Parker from Earth-616. You guys didn’t get to hangout often, but when your days off did align you would hangout around headquarters and usually talk and joke about the missions the spider would go on (sometimes making you a tinge jealous). Then sometimes you, Miles, Gwen, Hobie and Pavitr would sneak out and use the watches to go to other Earths and hangout there. These small outings tamed your want to get out of headquarters while at the same time being relatively safe since you were with your friends. This though was something you guys didn’t do often because it was pretty easy to get caught; Lyla would often rat you guys out to Miguel and nobody wanted to get in trouble with Miguel.

Miguel O’Hara was the spider pretty much in charge of the spider society, it makes sense for him to be the leader: His aura was serious with an after taste of violence; he was extremely strong and anyone who had been in the same room with him could agree. Though when ratted out by Lyla and called into see Miguel, you wouldn’t get as reprimanded as the other spiders. Maybe it's because he knew your job wasn’t the same as the others and didn’t know the importance or weight of traveling to other Earths. He usually wouldn’t even bat an eye towards you, which honestly hurt a bit. You knew that you didn’t go out on missions like the others, but you were still a spider and he should still treat you like one. But fighting or talking back to Miguel was a death wish and you wanted to finish that trilogy you were watching so none of that.

However, today was going to be different in a way you would never realize until it was too late. Maybe this was forecasted by the unusually cool morning you felt while walking to get your bagel or maybe by the notable diminished amount of spiders there were at Headquarters. But none of this really mattered, for what type of cannon or non-cannon who knows? Your future would be altered forever.

You walked into your small workshop: the walls were full of random posters that you had taken from other earths on your outings, your desk was cluttered with different wristband parts and your laptop sitting pretty on top of piles on piles of multi-colored sticky notes. You sat down on your chair and put on your headphones to have some ambiance while working. With the start of the first track, you promptly started checking your emails and appointment board. It was regularly full of different spiders coming in at different times to get their wristbands fixed, because no one could fix them as quickly as you. But today when you checked your appointments, you saw that there were barely any spiders scheduled to get their wristbands fixed.

“Woah, maybe they all learned to not be so reckless on missions..” you said to yourself

You had more free time on your hands than you’d ever had, this was the perfect opportunity to try to install your new program on your tinkering watch. This watch had been through it, it was the sheep to all your experiments, with missing parts and the paint scratched off it was your one and only. This was your favorite part of your job, you were in your zone: you were uploading your program in progress to reduce travel time between dimensions. It could either reduce the travel time greatly and also reduce fatigue on arriving on the new Earth; or it could zap the user around endlessly at high speeds around the “spider verse” (you liked this name that Miles gave to the collection of Earth’s opposed to Miguel’s unmemorable name).

Between the loud music playing in your ears and the meticulous and attention grabbing work you were doing, you failed to notice the knock at your office door. You plugged in the usb containing the new commands for the watch and… It didn’t reject the usb. This was a shock since most of your ideas ended in the watch rejecting the commands or programs. Now the final test was to wait and see if it fully uploaded to the watch. If this worked, you would be able to show your value to the Spider Society and be looked at with more respect like all the other spiders. There you sat anxiously seeing the percentage increase slowly but surely: 34%, 39%, 45%, 49%-. But then you felt it, your spider senses had gone off, a spider had walked into your office but no weak spider, this spider had an incredible aura.

“Fuck, what if an anomaly broke out, no there was no way that could-” your thoughts were interrupted by your chair turning to face the faucet of said aura.

But instead of an anomaly you were met with somewhat familiar eyes.

“MIGUEL! Fuck you scared the living shit out of me” you yelled as you made eye contact with who you thought was an anomaly.

“I tried knocking but there was no answer so I let myself in.” Miguel said dryly as he took a seat at one of the armchairs you kept in the corner of your workshop.

His presence was enough to make even a lion put its head down. He was wearing his spider suit, the reflective red spider design sitting on top of a navy blue base; it didn’t help that he had the figure of a Greek god: his bulky muscular shoulders followed by his defined chest and small (slutty) waist. His hair was neatly put back but gave off the “I woke up like this and I put no effort into how good I look right now" vibe. His mask was absent but in place was his chiseled face, so beautiful yet expressionless, you wondered how different emotions would wear him and how he would react to different stimuli.

Wait… This was Miguel you were talking about. The vicious and serious leader of the spider society. These thoughts were unwarranted and completely inappropriate for you to be thinking. No, this makes sense, you had just never been alone in a room with him. Anytime you had seen him, he would be screaming at your friends so it was out of the ordinary to see him so passive sitting on your armchair in your office It made sense for your thoughts to wander a bit… before getting shut down. Now all you have to do is talk to your boss as if you were not fantasizing about the different expressions he could make and his incredible body-.

Shit.

Chapter Text

“Hey… HEY!” Miguel shouted, knocking you out of your trance. You also then noticed that you called Miguel by his first name when he walked in, that was probably so informal, “fuck”, you’ve never even had a regular conversation with him, you didn’t want your first actual interaction with your “Boss” to be disrespectful.

“Yes hello Mr. O’Hara..” you said, pretending like nothing happened

He looked at you with a somewhat confused face, probably questioning what caused your most visible trance, but with a small shrug, he seemingly disregarded it.

“Well anyways, I heard you’re the one in charge of fixing the multiverse watches and mine got pretty roughed up on my last outing.” he said with a hint of cockeyness but not enough that he would have noticed, more like “unconscious cockiness”

You didn’t like when people looked at you and only saw “that girl that can fix the watches”, that wasn’t your only function. You were a spider too, a spider just like the rest of them at headquarters and you felt as if you deserved at least some respect. Sure you weren’t on the front lines like everyone else but if it weren't for you, a lot of the spiders wouldn’t be able to reach the front lines. All those years spent studying physics and engineering just made you equate to a watch fixer, your job might as well have gone to Lyla; who is just a fucking program-

“So is spacing out a daily thing for you? Do you have narcolepsy or something?” Miguel said, staring at you, confused.

“Sorry… yeah I do fix the watches,” you said with a bit of a dejected expression. You turned around to stop the music that had been playing throughout your conversation.

When you turned back around to face Miguel, you found him still staring at you but instead of a confused face, he had an unreadable face, he looked as if he was trying to not show an expression and was doing a really good job at it. Anyways.

Reimbursing his icy stare and in a monotone, “Usually if you need to get your watch fixed you need to make an appointment through the spider portal, but I can take your watch now since my schedule is pretty clear at the moment.”

“Pretty busy schedule huh?” he said while taking his watch off and handing it to you.

“You’d be surprised with how irresponsible some spiders are with their belongings” You let out a small chuckle and turned around in your chair to start looking over the watch.

You were too busy checking out the watch and failed to notice that Miguel had never taken his eyes off of you. Even though he had no visible expression, his brown eyes never failed to take their sights off of you. You expected Miguel to walk away after handing you the watch but he didn’t leave, he made himself comfortable in the armchair parallel to your desk. Maybe he didn’t know that it would take a while to fix the watch or that you would call for him when it was done, regardless he decided to stay in your office quiet, as a mouse

He was so quiet that after two hours of working on the watch and running through your favorite album twice, you hadn’t noticed that he had stayed until you turned around to see him dozed off. Instead of his face being all tensed up as always, he looked like jelly; his expression relaxed. It was interesting to see such a dangerous spider laying back on your armchair; like a grizzly bear taking a nap on a cloud. An impulsive part of your brain wanted to get a closer look at him, this would be your only chance to admire him so closely. “What no what am I thinking, this is an invasion of privacy, I would be creeped out if a stranger was looking at me so closely when I was asleep and unable to defend myself and-” All your thinking was promptly halted when you noticed that you had unconsciously leaned over him and you were only inches from his face. You noticed his pronounced cheekbones, not caused by malnutrition but by strong facial muscles. His jawbone seemed as if it could cut glass and his nose fit so well in her perfectly proportional face (I wanna rid-). His hair sat so nice, it looked so effortless when in comparison you had to take a good chunk of your morning to make sure your hair wasn’t so frizzy (which is usually futile because the weather at Headquarters is humid af). And his lips, there were so...

“Ok enough of that,” you thought as you backed up and tapped Miguel on his shoulder.

Miguel let out a groan as he came to, that may have made you feel something in the pit of your stomach for a second but who knows! He looked at you confused, almost like a lost kitten, but then a worried expression hit him. “Shit what time is it?” he shouted

“Um it’s 1:00 pm, Mr. O’Hara,” you said as you looked down at your actual watch, (not a multiverse watch.)

“AH COÑO, I’m gonna miss my meeting,”

“Well Mr. O’Hara, you didn’t have to stay while I fixed your watch, I would have called you in to pick it up later on, but sorry for not reminding you earlier,” you said feeling a bit bad, was he going to miss his meeting because you imposed the idea he had to stay while you fixed the watch?

“No it’s alright,” he exhaled, “I wanted to stay while you fixed it, to make sure you didn't … make it worse,” he said as he swiftly grabbed the watch and was walking towards the exit of your office.

You were shocked, he had the balls to think that you would break his watch further, so he wanted to look over you to make sure you didn’t make it worse!? What were you, a child? Did he think this was your first time fixing a wristband, there was no way he had just said that.

“Also, drop the “Mr. O’Hara” Miguel is fine” he shouted as he walked out and closed the door, giving you no time to respond.

“Today is so weird”

—

After Miguel left, you kept tinkering with your inventions and fixed other wristbands later in the afternoon. Suddenly the sun had set and you were on the way to your room. You were thinking about how exhausted you were and the movie that you were going to finish from last night until you heard someone call out your name in a familiar accent.

“Hi Hobie,” you greeted your friend with a forced smile to try and hide your exhaustion.

“How was your super fun work today, it seems like you got run over.” He said sarcastically and laughed; you looked at him with knives. Hobie was one of your closest friends, you had a lot in common which allowed for a lot of conversation. You were both music fanatics, though he knew how to shred on the guitar and you were just an avid listener.

“My work was actually pretty interesting until it was boring”

“Oh? What was so interesting about fixing wristbands all day, OH let me guess someone tried to download porn on it right?’

“No Hobie not today”

You breathed in, “Miguel came into my office”

Hobie stopped walking and looked straight at you. Hobie wasn’t the biggest fan of Miguel, he didn’t like his morals and how stuck up he was sometimes (according to Hobie)

“What did Mr.Stick up his ass want?” he said, waiting on an answer

“Oh he just had some trouble with his watch, but it was an interesting time,”

“How so?”

“He stayed in my office while I was fixing it up for him and ended up falling asleep, and then hsi reasoning for why he stayed was that he thought I WOULD BREAK HIS WRISTBAND? As if he would know more about the watches that I have to fix all day”

Hobie burst out in laughter, “Dam he really had balls to say that but… PLEASE TELL ME YOU GOT A PICTURE, DID HE SLEEP WITH HIS MOUTH OPEN, OOOO OR WAS HE DROOLING ALL OVER YOUR FLOOR, that would be such good blackmail.”

You let out a hardy laugh, there was something about Hobie’s laughter that was so contagious. “No I did not get a picture of Miguel unconscious, so we’ll never know,” you said smugly

“Aw what a shame, anyways,” he said while reaching down into his pockets
He took a rectangular piece of paper out and held it out to you.” Me, Gwendy, and a couple of other spiders are gonna do a little live performance tonight at my hometown. It’s gonna be super underground so no worries about going in your spider suit or messing up cannon events or whatever Miguel calls them.”

You look at the time and it’s 7:30; then you look at the time on the ticket and see that it starts at 9:30.

"Ughh I’m not sure Hobie, I’m so tired from today and it's probably going to run super late.”

“Yeah but come on, we’ve been working on some songs and you don’t have to stay the whole time, you can leave after a couple of songs if you’re soooo tired. Also, Miles, Peter, and Pavitr are going so you won’t be alone in the crowd,” he said convincingly

It was hard to say no to Hobie, and it had been a while since you’d hung out with friends so

“Ok sure I’ll go”

—

You had finished getting dressed: you were wearing some black military boots, black low-rise pants with a studded belt, and a rhinestone-detailed crop top. It was true, it had been a while since you’d gone out with friends and out in general, so this was a nice change of pace.

After traveling to Earth-138, you swiftly tried to make your way to this underground venue while preventing yourself from being seen.

After almost getting lost, you finally made your way to the venue. From the outside, you could tell that you were a bit late since you could already hear the loud-ass music coming from inside. Standing outside the entrance was Spider-Man Noir, he seemed like the type to take the job of being a bouncer. After a brief conversation with Noir, you went inside and were met by a huge crowd of people all crowding against the stage, all of them seemed to be spiders (obviously). On the stage, as promised, were Hobie, Gwen, and a couple of other spiders that you didn’t recognize. The music coming from them was amazing, the loud drums, the electric guitar, amazing solos you were in heaven. After a couple of minutes in bliss, you remember that you should probably go look for your other friends

While trying to navigate your way through the crowd, you felt a presence tailing you. It was a very faint feeling (especially in a room full of spiders) but it was there, your spider senses hadn’t failed you before. You tried walking to an empty corner of the venue, planning on quickly turning around and seeing who was messing with you. But as you made your way to the corner, the presence disappeared.
“That was so weir-”

“Hey you, where have you been”
You turned around to see Peter and your other friends

“Hobie said you were feeling tired and might’ve not shown up, but here you are!” said Pavitr, greeting you with a hug.

“Yes, here I am,” you said, still looking around, still thinking about what could have caused your spider senses to go off like that. After some futile thinking, you decided to forget about it.

You and your friends then walked into the crowd to enjoy the show. After a couple of hours, Hobie and Gwen had finished their set and walked down to greet all of you and talk about the performance.

Peter then singled you out “Me, Spider-noir, and a couple of other spiders are going to go out for drinks, wanna ditch these kids and go?”

“HEY WAIT, why can’t we go?” asked Miles

“Miles you are literally 16, get out of here,” you said jokingly

“COME ONNNNnnnnn….” Miles yelled as he was dragged away by Gwen, Hobie, and Pavitr.

—

You, Peter, Spider-Noir, and some other mutual friends headed down to an empty bar and quickly filled it up. It had been a while since you had gone drinking with friends, it seemed like an activity that was normal for people of your age but not you. You were content with your work and hobbies (watching horror movies) but this was a nice change of scenery. Something else to note is that it had been a good amount of time since your college days (three years) and you weren’t used to this much liquor in your system. After a couple of drinking games with your friends and drunken conversations, it was apparent that you should be getting back home. All your senses were numbed and you felt as if you were in bliss, a bliss that your only memory from it would be a killer hangover in the morning.

Spider Noir (the only one who could hold his liquor) looked over at you leaning over, head down at the bar. He tried waking you up but the best you could do was turn your head over and mumble “What is it..”

“Would you like me to open a portal for you to get back to headquarters? Some sleep could do you good”

“AW Spider Noir you are soo soo soo kind, I would LOVE that,” your intoxicated state was obvious, and also that you were not conscious enough to open your portal.

He swiftly picked you up and opened a portal outside where he slowly pushed you through. You had never enjoyed traveling through the Multiverse, it always made you rather nauseous. So now being drunk didn’t help your nausea and you threw up in a potted plant the second you got to headquarters. It felt good to get some of the alcohol out of your system but you clearly couldn’t walk straight.

From here on, what was expected was that you would try to make your way to your room, slowly but surely. You would have been holding onto the handrails on each bridge leading to your building and held your mouth shut to prevent throwing up in the elevator on the way up to your floor. Then rummage through your pockets for your keycard to open your door and throw yourself on your bed. But today had started strangely, and that unexpected pattern would follow you till the end.

You passed out next to the potted plant that you had previously regurgitated in. But you didn’t stay there all night, instead, a pair of strong arms picked you up and threw you over their back. At that moment you came too for a moment, only a moment. You noticed the strong back your face was pushed into, the tight spider suit made the back muscles look like mountain ridges and never-ending. Unknowing exactly what you were doing, you further cradled your head into the neck of your supposed savior, dozing back into a deep slumber.

—

The next thing you remembered was a bright light hitting your face and a killer headache when you tried to get up. You then noticed you weren’t lying flat next to your favorite potted plant, but you were comfortably in bed wearing your oversized shirt and sweats.

You thought to yourself, still half asleep, “Did I not go out last night, did I stay in watching movies?” But your apparent headache quickly got rid of the idea that you hadn’t gone out. But how did you get back to your room; How did you change out of your clothes with no memory of either event? It took all of your strength to get up and face the window and face reality. Oh, and reality did you face when you heard a quiet snore coming from the opposite side of the room.

“Wait... DID I BRING SOMEONE HOME LAST NIGHT!?” you quickly turn around to either confirm or deny your suspensions. But oh, oh how you wish your suspensions were correct, why couldn’t you have brought home a stranger and not…

You got closer to make sure your post-drunken eyes were not failing you, and indeed they were not. There he was, laying back on your small couch, legs up on your coffee table, still in uniform, and still as handsome as ever.
There was Miguel.

Chapter Text

You kept blinking, thinking that maybe Miguel would disappear if you continued. But sadly the phrase “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me,” didn’t work out in this situation. There he was, peacefully asleep while you were freaking out and thinking about how he ended up here. What were you supposed to do now, wake him up, what would you say? Thousands of thoughts were rushing through your head, thousands of scenarios and how they could play out. But you let a little intrusive thought sneak past the logical part of your brain, “If I don’t remember changing out of my clothes last night, how did I wake up in my pajamas? Was it possible… no right? Could Miguel O’Hara have undressed me last night… I mean I’m not specifically opposed to the idea. His large hands undoing my belt, sliding my shirt off, holding my waist to keep me up, making contact with his-”

“NO!” You blurted loudly. You swiftly covered your mouth, maybe trying to undo the scream but it was too late, you had woken Miguel up.

Miguel shot up and looked around the room to see what could have caused the scream. Then his eyes slowly settled on you, and his nervous look evaporated and was replaced with a relieved look.

“Oh you’re up, great,” he said as he stood up and raised his arms over his head to stretch his whole body. It couldn’t have been comfortable for a man of his structure to sleep on a stiff couch with his legs on a coffee table. But you couldn’t help but keep admiring him as he stretched his visible muscles. Anyways. You were still shocked by the situation at hand and could think of a couple of questions to ask your boss.

“I don’t mean to. But..Um.. how did you end up in my room Mr.O’Ha- Miguel?” you asked, correcting yourself. As you were trying to get words out, he looked at you as if he was waiting on every syllable coming out of your mouth.

“Before I answer, just know that I didn’t do anything… improper to you, so please don’t worry about that,”

“Well thanks for the clarification Miguel, but I’d love to hear the whole story,” you said somewhat sarcastically.

He let out a dry laugh, “I was leaving my office late last night and saw you bent over a plant throwing up, it wouldn’t have been right to leave you there so I brought you back to your room.”

“Shit,” you said to yourself, you really outdid yourself this time, you let your employer see you drunk as a skunk? This whole situation was so embarrassing and all you could do was look down in utter defeat: like you had just gotten punched in the gut.

You sighed and inhaled before saying, “I am, SO SO SORRY, YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY TO DO ALL OF THAT, THAT MUST HAVE BEEN SUCH AN INCONV-” he shut you up by putting a finger to your mouth and shushing you. There it was, his arrogance was leaking again, it would have been weird if it hadn’t right?

“No te preocupes, I would have felt bad if I just left you laying there with vomit all over your clothes on the floor.” A part of you almost forgot that Miguel was Hispanic, the way that his words rolled off this tongue, Wait weren’t you just calling him arrogant?

“Anyway I brought you to your room I gave you some cold water because you kept throwing up in the sink and decided to stay to make sure you wouldn’t throw up in your sleep and choke on your vomit. It wouldn’t be good if my “watch fixer” was dead would it, no one could take your strenuous?” He said that last part with a small chuckle as if any part of this whole experience was anything but embarrassing to you. And to add salt to injury, he continued to only see you as the wristband fixer which cemented your idea of him being an arrogant asshole, an arrogant asshole that saved you from sleeping next to a potted plant and made sure you were ok throughout the night, but still.

“Wow, thanks, appreciate you for looking out for the ‘watchmaker’” you said, trying to hold yourself back from saying anything else and the vein in your forehead from popping.

“But in all realness, I appreciate what you did, and thank you again for everything Miguel.” while thanking Miguel, you failed to notice that he was wearing the same face from your workshop, an unreadable expression. He was hiding something on his face but it was covered by a weighted blanket. When you looked up at Miguel, he quickly turned away.

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I have to get going, I’ll see you around then,” Miguel said rushing and then walking out of your room without turning to face you.

“Wow, he probably thinks he’s too good to continue our conversation, dam,” you mumbled as you heard your door close.

This had been the strangest 24 hours you’d experienced while working at headquarters. Working here was usually predictable and you hoped that these past 24 hours would only be a hiccup in your regular everyday cycle. Your desire for things to return to normal was an impossible wish at this point, though; you were in too deep and didn’t even know it yet.

“Wait, how did he know where my apartment was?”

—

The next couple of weeks went by as expected. Everything seemingly went back to normal: wake up, bagel, work, movies, sleep, repeat. Nothing had changed since that odd day, you hadn’t felt that presence following you from the concert, which was great. but, you hadn’t seen Miguel around headquarters as much as you used to, as a matter of fact, you hadn’t seen a lot of spiders around headquarters. It seemed like everyone had suddenly become so busy, but it had you. With a noticeable increase in missions, there was an evident increase in broken wristbands. All of this decreased your free time from some to virtually nothing, and it had also been a while since you’d spoken with your friends. But you kept telling yourself, “This will pass,” would it?

It was a Saturday morning, and you decided that today would be your self-care day. You had been overworking yourself and it was visible in your worsening dark circles. So you sent an email to Lyla that you were using your day off, the day off that you would get every 3 months (Thanks Miguel for that policy).

Anyways, after sending the email you decided to keep sleeping till noon, which was extremely deserved, it was amazing what sleep could do for the human body. After waking up around 12ish, you decided to get some breakfast or just lunch. Then you returned to your room and decided to lay in bed and scroll on your phone for about 2 hours. It might have been melting your brain, but this brain melting is what you wanted on your day off. You then started filling up your bath to get into the true “self-care” spirit. Should you pick eucalyptus or lavender Epsom salts, such a hard choice right? (no it's not, eucalyptus wins every time). Anyways, you then stepped into your bath and put on your headphones. You rested your head on the edge of the bath, the subtle scent of the salts infiltrating your nose and the warm water enveloping you, “This is heaven,” Suddenly, your spider watch started to vibrate, which brought you back to Earth,

“What the?” The wristbands were usually not used to send out notifications or reports, that was done by email. The only situation in which Lyla would send out an announcement would mean that something was up. You suddenly felt a pit at the bottom of your stomach, something else to note is that when they made announcements like this, you were never contacted, since you weren’t a spider who would go on missions. This had to be serious

—

You made your way to the courtyard where the announcement said to gather, it was clear that you weren’t the only nervous spider there. Everyone was whispering among themselves asking around if anyone knew what this was about.

“Hey girl,” you turn around and were met with your friend Jessica with her arm crossed, resting on her baby bum.

“Hey Jessi, how are you doing, I haven’t seen you in a while,” you asked

“You know, overworked with missions, Miguel doesn’t pity me even if I'm pregnant,” she let out an exhausted sigh.

“Wow, he continues to be an asshole I see.” You say

“Oh, so you guys know each other?” She asked, smirking, exhausted face nowhere in sight. You hadn’t told anyone about your interactions with Miguel that one night, it would be too much to explain and probably create rumors among the spiders.

“Well no not really, you know he has a reputation for being an asshole and he has popped by my workshop to get stuff fixed sooo..” you said as you yearned for Jessica to switch topics.

“Mhmm, I see, anyways, do you know anything about what we got called here for?”

“I feel like I'm the worst person to ask, I was planning on asking you the same thi-,” You got cut off by a holographic screen appearing midair in the middle of the courtyard and a blaring alarm to get the spider’s attention. The screen was buffering but you could see Miguel behind the frozen frames on the screen. Even though it wasn’t real, this was the first time you had seen Miguel since that day, he looked the same. The audio then connected and the video was live.

“Hello everyone, I’m sure you all have noticed an increase in workload and missions and it's all gone unexplained. But I’m here to explain what has been going on the past couple of weeks. Me and my team have been chasing after a spider that went rogue and has claimed herself to be the enemy of our organization. She has developed an ability to remotely control other spiders. This is an extremely serious matter and we are taking precarious to train our spiders to handle any interactions with this new threat,” You started to space out, it had been a while since there was such a large threat to the Multiverse Spider Society, the spot, but he had been dealt with a while back. Even when the spot was a problem, it all got solved pretty undercover to not alarm any of the other spiders. But making a public announcement about this new villain? This was not what was supposed to happen, everything was supposed to follow the everyday cycle, like throwing a wrench into a grandfather clock.

“Hey, are you alright?” Jessica was patting your back, you had been staring into the crowd zoned out. After being bright back, you saw a more worried crowd of spiders, this was serious.

“Yeah, yeah I’m alright, I’m more nervous for the other spiders since they are probably going to be fighting this threat head-on,”

“Babe, did you miss the entire last part of Miguel’s speech?”

“What? Well, I was a bit zoned out but,” Jessica looked at you with her mouth open, a bit shocked.

“You missed the important stuff girl, you’re going to have to start training.”
“What? What do you mean by that?”

—

Just as things were getting back to normal, everything was now deterring from anything considered normal. Everyone was now on high alert. This unnamed villain had joined the ring and all eyes were on her, and her ability made her next moves extremely unpredictable. If she could control any spider’s mind, she could easily infiltrate Headquarters and mess up everything the society had been working for. In addition to all of this, you were going to have to start training, which you almost feared as much as the new threat. You were not very agile nor strong, you were more brains than brawns. This enforced training would take up your mornings from 8 am to 1 pm, and afterward, you still had to work your regular job. This was going to suck because you would still have to fix the same amount of watches, in half the time, great! The only somewhat good thing that came out of this training situation was that Jessi offered to be your instructor/mentor. At least she wouldn’t go too hard on you and you would be in good company.

Today was your first day at training and you had already woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Your neck was sore and you had woken up later than you wanted to. Then on the way to pick up something to eat, they had run out of everything bagels, “My day can’t get any worse.” (Or can it?) After leaving the cafeteria with a pathic plain bagel (so sad), you made your way to the training building.

The building was made up of 2 story segments: the first story was made up of punching bags and things to practice hand-to-hand combat. The second story was far more interesting though, it was a virtual reality chamber where whoever was training could put themselves in “real-life situations” and practice combat. Along with the individual segments in the building, there was an immense recreation of New York City in the back of the main building. This model stretched for miles and served as a way for spiders to practice web-slinging and even sometimes real combat between spiders. It was all very grand, but sadly it would usually be empty. Many spiders already knew everything about their abilities and strengths so they didn’t need to train. You on the other hand had to make use of all the facilities available to you if you were ever going to become competent in combat.

You looked at the email you received regarding your training, “Ok, room 1-E,” As you walked by the other rooms, you could tell that they were much more lively than before. With the new threat, spiders were now starting to take training seriously, good for them. You reached your assigned room and typed out the pin for the door “7874”, the door opened and you were met with darkness. “
“I guess Jessi was running late,” you thought as you led your arm into the darkness to feel up the wall and look for a switch. After finding the switch and turning the lights on, you saw what had been described to you as the training room. Without that much thought or looking around, you decided to go to the locker room to your right and change into your spider suit. You were given this spider suit as more of a formality since you almost never used it. It had a black base similar to Miles’ but instead of red, it had green accents. It fits you like a glove and it accentuated every curve on you no matter the size. You weren’t used to feeling this exposed but training in your uniform would only help you get used to it. You left your duffle in the locker room and walked out with your phone in one hand and a water bottle in the other. You proceeded to text Jessica

You: Hey I’m on my way sorry for running a bit late (8:02)

You: I just got here, it seems like im not the only late one lmao, (8:07)
You: Ima change and be waiting for you here slowpoke (8:07)

You: You better be fashionably late or smth, hurry up <3 (8:16)

You kept your eyes glued to your phone as you sat on one of the folding chairs near the entrance waiting on Jessica’s response. You weren’t naïve but very unaware of your surroundings, this had been proven by the many occasions in which you would zone out and not pay attention to what was happening around you. So naturally, you failed to notice Miguel O’Hara leaning up against one of the punching bags parallel to you.

Chapter Text

Urm, so it's been a while, and I HAVEN'T FORGOTEN ABOUT THIS!!! Just like any other person I've been really busy but I have started writing the next chapter recently here and there. So whoever is still reading this I appreciate it and I will get back to this very soon! --xoxo

Chapter Text

As you were waiting for Jessica’s response, you took the time to play Plant vs. Zombies on your phone, you didn’t really have anything else better to do. You tapped away on your phone unknowing that you were being watched, your watcher waiting to be noticed. Even if you weren’t as unaware as you are, you still wouldn’t notice the eyes looking in your direction. Plants vs. Zombies was your favorite game, it was pretty predictable and there was always a way to beat each level, you would get lost in the game every time you played. Whether it be a different loadout of plants or different power-ups, each level had a different requirement and you loved it.

“Citron may not be a good one for this level, his sun charge is way too high.”

You jumped out of your chair and ended up falling on the ground, you looked up in confusion and made eye contact with an unexpected spider, Miguel. “How did my spider senses not go off? Did he just come in? How fast can he be?” It seemed that anytime you and Miguel met, you often left with more questions than when you came.

“What are you doing here Miguel!?” you said, still stunned and almost out of breath.

“Well, good morning to you too, it's been a while,” Miguel said dryly as he walked towards the punching bags. He was wearing a long-sleeved compression shirt and dry-fit shorts (He looks so..) You got up from the ground and walked behind him towards the punching bags for answers.

“Yes yes good morning, but what are you doing here,” you asked as you paced behind him.
Miguel looked at you, now also as confused as you were.

He turned around and you watched his confusion melt into a smug face.
“Did you forget about the required training?” Miguel said with his signature uninterested dry chuckle.

“Of course I didn’t, that's why I’m here,”

“And you assumed you were going to train yourself?” now he was actually laughing,

“What no, Jessica is helping me train,”

“Sorry to break it to you sweetheart but, you need a lot of training, and Jessica has too many assignments to spend her time on your case… and I myself have to stay here at headquarters to look over all of our spider’s missions and the safety of headquarter in general” he paused then continued.

“So you’re stuck with me,” he said, with a sly smile leaking out of his expression then turning back to the punching bags.

No way, this wasn’t happening. Things were already getting out of normalcy and Miguel O’Hara was a magnet to the unpredictable and the unexpected for you. There was no way you would let this pass. You didn’t even want to go to training in the first place, you thought this was going to be more of a gossip session with Jessi while you threw a couple of punches to the punching bags and or ran maybe a mile or two on the treadmill. But a part of you, a very coveted part, felt nervous. Not because of the new threat on headquarters, not because everything in your life would not start to change, and not even because you were going to have to start continuous training every day. It was that fact that you were going to have to spend the majority of your days during the week with a certain someone who had, in the past, saved you from unfavorable situations and looked at you in a different type of way. But this thought stayed in the pit in your stomach because you knew that you grew crushes way too easily and lost them just as quickly, so there was no point in even entertaining the idea.

“So are we gonna start, because you’ve already wasted time arriving late and asking too many questions?”

Fuck, why do I always overthink around this man? “Yes, sorry, let’s start,” you said trying to hold a straight face, but your real feelings couldn’t help but show.

Miguel, obviously noticed that you were nervous about this, but he never addressed it.

Your perspective on what training with Miguel O’Hara would be like was nothing like reality. Instead of regular training, one would expect your training by your side shouting words of encouragement and giving you tasks, Miguel chose to do said task alongside you. This man was a monster, literally. He was like a well-oiled machine with no faults, almost like a robot. A set that seemed borderline impossible for you, was merely a warmup for him. He always finished the set before you, and when he finished he would examine your every move and always find something you were doing wrong. “Engage your core more,” “You need to straighten your back,” “Is this how you actually run?” It wasn’t your fault that you ran like a baby deer!

The gym training continued for a little bit over an hour, but felt like you had been training since the sun came up. You were sitting on the floor next to a potted plant and Miguel loomed over you.

“I think I’m having Deja Vu,” you said out loud, Miguel looked at you and started to laugh, a type of laugh that you had never heard from him, a type of laugh that you couldn’t help but also break out into a laugh. In your mind, he was a cut-and-dry guy, pretty boring, but this new view of him, it was, well new. There was something about this new expression on him that made your stomach flutter, but no, you wouldn’t, this was a big no-no. There was nothing between you two right? But this laugh made it seem like you were two old friends, but you were probably overanalyzing the situation. How could you come up with all this information from one action, it's not like he laughed like this often, this is an independent action.

“I must admit, you’re pretty funny, are you ready to go up?” he said after the laughter died down.
“Go up, what do you mean?” now he laughed again, but this time you weren’t laughing

“To get to the real training obviously.” Miguel picked up his duffle and began to walk to the stairs. What. More training? What does he mean by “real” training, you had just done your training.

“Are you coming?”

“Miguel, didn’t we just train?”

“Oh wow, you are… wow, no y/n we need to do combat training”

“MORE!?” you yelled powerlessly, almost like a little kid when they are told they have to do homework. Miguel didn’t turn back and just kept walking towards the stairs. You couldn’t believe you were going to go through more torture for god knows how long. But frankly, the only thing you could think about when you ran to catch up with your coach was how well your name sounded coming from his mouth.

—-

When you got up to the second floor you examined your surroundings: there was only one room on this floor, and it was a lot smaller than the gym downstairs. In the middle of the room, there was a square made up of what seemed to be glass which took up most of the space in the room. There was a glass door to enter the box and within it, there was a black body suit connected to the floor with wires and a VR headset. You were a bit confused on how this whole thing would work but your thoughts were promptly cut off by Miguel’s instructions.

“So how it's gonna work is that you’re going to go in the VR box and put the body suit over your spider suit and put on the headset as well, when you put the headset on, you’re going to get put into a physical fight, but not that physical because it isn’t real. But something to note is that you will feel the hits you don’t block because the body suit can translate the punches into physical form onto you, so try to take it seriously.”

You knew that the spider society had access to pretty modern technology, but this was something completely new. A suit that would translate pain to the person? You had never heard of this type of thing, but you were honestly nervous because you had never been a fighter. You always called yourself “a lover, not a fighter” but now you were being put into a pretty real situation where those morals went out the window. You had so many questions, that you honestly wanted to learn more about the technology itself.

“Umm, I actually have a couple of questions-” your words were cut off though by the blaring alarm on the PA system.
“LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN” You looked at Miguel and saw that his calm and collected face was not replaced with a face of worry and shock. He immediately ran to the door to go downstairs but found it to be bloated shut, an automatic protocol for when there’s a lockdown. Miguel banged on the door, you weren’t sure if he actually thought that would do something or if he felt defeated. You put yourself in his shoes; if there was a lockdown that meant something was happening at headquarters, the new threat perchance, and Miguel was the head, he had to be out of here, helping the other spiders assist with what was going on; he was the society’s biggest assist and he knew that.

After banging on the door he fell to his knees and sat down with his head buried in his palms, you might be the only person who has seen him like this, utterly powerless and showing it too. He wasn’t saying anything but looked up at you for a second before he let out a sigh and leaned his head against the wall.

“Fuck, this is a shitshow,”