Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

< RECORDING MESSAGE… RECEIVING FROM KWAN APARTMENT >

GABRIEL O’HARA
RECEIVED: MAY 19, 2099

Xina, you there? C’mon, I know you’re there. Your robo butler said you were gone, but I know you still have the message system set up so you wanna hear from someone. Got a feeling I’m the wrong brother but… anyway–that’s not the reason I called. Have you heard anything from him, anything at all? He’s not answering me anymore. And I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes and saying we got into some stupid petty fight. But I also know that you know that I know that I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t serious. Just… call me back, okay?

GABRIEL O’HARA
RECEIVED: MAY 22, 2099

It’s me again. Still the wrong O’Hara, story of my shockin’ life. But he’s not answering me or our mom and I know this isn’t the first time he’s done this but–wait, you aren’t in Nueva York, are you? You.. haven’t seen, oh shock me. Xina, I gotta go.

GABRIEL O’HARA
RECEIVED: JUNE 7, 2099

A HOLO DISPLAY, INCLUDING SEVERAL PHOTOS OF A LARGE, POINTED BUILDING IN THE UPPER EAST SIDE OF NUEVA YORK.

Xina, are you seeing this? It’s the old Valhalla building. But… the residents are a little different. Miguel tried to tell me I was seeing things, that the building’s abandoned just like it’s always been. But I saw… I dunno, Heroic Age Spider-Man…s. Plural, I think. He said I was crazy. Then he cut his hololine or something. I can’t get through, and the one time I did go up to his apartment, Lyla told me I don’t have clearance. How the shock do I not have clearance to go see my own brother?

GABRIEL O’HARA
RECEIVED: JUNE 14, 2099

… I don’t know if you’re even listening to these stupid recordings. I don’t even know if your Robo Prez Butler Guy is deleting all the holovids. But if you are getting them I just wanted to say I don’t blame you. For, y’know… what happened to Dana. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. It wasn’t you or Miguel or even Spider-Man, it was that Venom creep.

< ...LOGGING ON >

< INITIALIZING… >

< JUNE 14 MESSAGE DELETED. USER KWAN RECOGNIZED. >

GABRIEL O’HARA
RECEIVED: JUNE 16, 2099

I meant what I said. And you can keep ignoring these messages if you want. Sometimes I wondered what you ever saw in Miguel but you’re both so good at shutting people out… maybe you had more in common than I thought. If you wanna talk, I’m around. It’s just lonely. But I can take a hint. Just take care of yourself, yeah?

< LOGGING ON… >

< USER JACK RECOGNIZED. >

< ACCESSING DELETED MESSAGES… >

< SELECTED: SELF-CENTERED ARROGANT POMPOUS JERK >

POMPOUS JERK
RECEIVED: UNKNOWN

< TIMESTAMP REMOVED BY HOLOAGENT LYLA >

Are you ever coming home? Because the last time I ran away, you called me a coward. So it’s pretty shocking hypocritical of you to–

< MESSAGE INTERRUPTED BY HOLOAGENT LYLA >

–will you just let me talk? I’m good, Lyla. Yeah, I know that’s not how someone who's good talks. Can you just let me–

< MESSAGE DISCONNECT >

POMPOUS JERK
RECEIVED: UNKNOWN

So you just drove off into the sunset, leaving the rest of us forever? I can’t believe you.

< TECHNICAL GLITCH. AUDIO LOST. >

Yes, Lyla. I know. I was there. Well, she’s not the only one who lost someone! She didn’t even like Dana.

POMPOUS JERK
RECEIVED: UNKNOWN

I… shouldn’t have said that. It was out of line. Part of me isn’t that sorry, though, since it seems like you’re not even getting these. Or you’re just deleting them every time you see my name pop up. What, Lyla? No, she does not have me in her holo system as–whatever, I don’t have time for this. If you ever listen to any of these I want you to know it wasn’t… that day with Venom, when I–I mean, when Spider-Man couldn’t stop it–you can’t keep blaming yourself. Blame me, I don’t care. Neither of you would have been there if it hadn’t been for me. It’s my fault.

< ONE NEW MESSAGE >

<...RECEIVING>

<...UPLOADING FROM HOLOAGENT LYLA>

POMPOUS JERK
RECEIVED: NOW

I meant what I said. The apology, not… the other thing. I can’t let you think you’re at fault. Not before–

< MESSAGE DISCONNECT >

Please just take care of yourself. I know you still resent me, for things I did you know about and things you don’t. But this will be good for everybody, I think. Gabriel and my mother were always fine without… well, they get along. And you never really needed me. So, take care of yourself, Xina. You don’t have to do it for me… just do it because you can. Goodbye, Xi.

< END TRANSMISSION >

–x–

Scriiiiiiiiiiitch.

“I don’t think that’s good for the tires,” a lofty voice came from the control panel of the car.

Xina Kwan’s head whipped from the spot she’d abruptly stopped at to the image of a fur-coat adorned Lyla, the holographic AI looking skeptically at her through heart-rimmed glasses. She wasn't sure if it a good or bad sign that Miguel's personal AI had suddenly reappeared on her center dash.

“What did he mean, Lyla?”

Lyla frizzed out for a moment, and reappeared with a look of curiosity.

“What did who mean, Xina?”

Xina rolled her eyes.

“Sarcasm down 25% when you talk to me, remember?”

Lyla laughed.

“Yeah, well Miguel changed it back after he figured out you could change my simulated emotive settings.”

That sounded exactly like Miguel, and if she wasn’t so worried about the idiot’s current whereabouts, she would have found it at least a little funny. Or not. Her feelings for Miguel tended to change with the tide.

“I’ll ask again, Lyla: where is Miguel?”

“In Nueva York, of course.”

“Why’d you say it like that?”

“Because that’s where he is, silly.”

“Okay… if I went to his apartment, would I find him there?”

Lyla flickered out again, and reappeared with an inquisitive look on her face. She pulled out a miniature holo-tablet, rapidly pressing on the screen as if the answers were on the screen when they were really programmed into her.

“Lyla?”

“Technically speaking, Miguel O’Hara is in his apartment.”

“What does that mean?” Xina asked, an unfamiliar feeling beginning to settle in the pit of her stomach.

“Our Miguel O’Hara of Earth-928 is in his apartment, but it is not the apartment of Earth-928.”

Xina blinked, taking in Lyla’s words.

“Lyla… are you saying Miguel isn’t… on this Earth? And that there are other Earths and he went to one?”

Lyla glitched and reappeared with a whiteboard behind her, as if ready to give some sort of advanced college lecture.

“So–”

Electronic red tape covered Lyla’s mouth, and the words CLASSIFIED flashed quickly over the AI’s head. Xina stared at the silent Lyla, who shrugged, gave a half-wave, and fizzled back out of existence.

Xina stared at the spot Lyla had once been, her mind working overtime to connect the dots Miguel purposefully misplaces. It sounded like he had done something stupidly reckless, again. She thought of Gabriel's unanswered messages, the paranoia she had written off as him over-thinking every little thing his older brother did.

A picture was starting to form, and she didn't like it.

She gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and peeled back out onto the road. The speedometer went higher and higher, and she remembered the last time she had driven so recklessly. Xina could practically hear Miguel telling her to slow down.

But he wasn't here, and she needed answers.

A green, holographic sign whizzed by, reading NUEVA YORK: 200 MILES.

Chapter Text

Miles down the road, and Xina still hadn't gotten any closer to getting answers from the cheeky AI.

“Sorry, Xi. That’s classified!”

“Override Code: User Kwan.”

“Acknowledged, but not approved!”

Xina groaned, for once being on the other side of Lyla’s overly charismatic sass.

“Lyla, please. I have to know if Miguel is in danger.”

The holo-agent appeared, looking around once or twice, as if expecting Miguel to appear and scold her. She pressed a finger to her lips, and then she was gone.

A holo-vid appeared in the front of the dash.

Trying to keep her eye on the road, Xina gave it a quick glance. It was old archive footage from Miguel’s apartment in Babylon Towers. He was laying on his bed, lights off and talking to Lyla.

“...do you ever have any regrets, Lyla?”

“I’m a holo-agent, Miguel. I don’t have regrets.”

The holographic man sighed and Xina snorted.

“Pretend you have the ability, then.”

Past Lyla paused, as if deep in thought.

“Well, if I had your decision making skills, I’d have a lot of regrets,” Lyla shrugged.

The man stared at her, and Lyla laughed along as if they were both in on the joke.

Xina had to stop herself from smirking at the holo-vid. For as much grief as he gave her, the inventor had given him twice as much in the form of his artificial assistant. On her more bitter days, she still didn’t think it was enough for what he did.

But the woman who felt such anger and spite at Miguel and Dana didn’t exist anymore. It was hard to hold a grudge against a dead woman. And even harder to feel anything at all toward the man who never listened. So she told herself to stop trying. And even as much of a self-serving, entitled asshole he was… there was still a part of her that wanted him to be better. Because for whatever stupid reason, she still saw so much good in him. Even when he did everything in his power to make her question ever considering him her best friend.

So watching him trying to relate to a holo-agent, who isn’t real, who would never be real, struck something in her.

He had always been awful at answering the phone.

Xina, however naively, had thought an artificial assistant would help. The Towers were the nicest place either of them had ever lived, and he was at Alchemax. Of course, the Alchemax job was one of their bigger fights. Xina had watched for years as the company stripped away every part of the man she thought she knew.

“...I don’t think I can come back from this one, Lyla,” came the recorded voice of Miguel.

She had nearly forgotten Lyla’s video playback, too focused on trying to piece together when she’d lost her best friend. Again.

“Just when I thought I’d found the perfect wedding invites, too,” Lyla lamented.

Miguel glared at her.

Xina grimaced, remembering one of her last lines of coding in Lyla to make her a little more harsher on the subject of Dana. Holding grudges was one of her better talents, unfortunately.

“She’s gone, Xina blames herself, Gabriel knows it was all my fault and my mother won’t even look at me. What do any of them need me for? All I do is hurt them, over and over again. At first it was just because of the whole double life thing. But the longer I do this, the harder it will keep the two separate. First Venom... what if somebody else who hates Spider-Man goes after them? Am I just supposed to fail over and over again to save the people I love? Is there any point to all of this if I can’t even do that right?”

Lyla glanced down, as if taking a moment to consider his words.

But Xina was having a different reaction.

“Spider-Man? What’s that got to do with Miguel?” she tilted her head, her foot itching the gas pedal again.

“...it wasn’t you or Xina. It was Venom and the Public Eye, Miguel,” Lyla said after a moment.

Miguel scoffed.

“And who was the reason the Public Eye goons were involved?”

“Miguel–”

“Me. Spider-Man. If I didn’t have this stupid, overwhelming responsibility I wouldn’t be here. Dana wouldn’t be dead. Xina wouldn’t have gotten a one-way ticket anywhere but here. Maybe my little brother wouldn’t hate me as much,” he glared at the ceiling.

Xina swerved the car, her grip on the wheel gone as Miguel’s words sunk in.

“Lyla, why are you showing me this–”

The holovid kept playing, the aforementioned AI nowhere to be found.

“Well… we did finish the gizmo.”

“And what, use the goober to skip around the multiverse and ignore all of my problems?”

Lyla stared at him.

“That’d be a really stupid and irresponsible thing to do, Lyla.”

But Xina could hear it in his voice. He was considering whatever… the gizmo was. Did it have to do with him disappearing? Wait. Lyla had mentioned the multiverse–

“Lyla,” Xina started, “did you and Miguel tinker and poke at the multiversal theory until you found a way to potentially traverse it, and now Miguel is just joyriding the multiverse until he finds… whatever he’s looking for?”

The golden shimmer of present Lyla appeared, a look of near guilt on her face.

“He was so upset. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not like you or Gabriel or even Dana. I ran the numbers. It seemed like it would make him happier to get away from here,” Lyla said quietly, sliding one sneaker-ed foot across the ground dejectedly.

Xina sighed, knowing the holo-agent just wanted to help.

“I know I’m Queen of the Hypocrites, but running away from problems doesn’t lessen them. It just makes them all the worse when you finally get around to facing them,” she grimaced.

Lyla rolled her eyes, and a new playback started.

One Xina knew all too well.

The message she left for Miguel. The one she recorded half a dozen times, each version to get enough to explain away her disappearance. It had felt so surreal at the time, knowing she had lived in the same city as Miguel for years, even after their break-up. At first, she had considered moving anywhere else, worried Miguel would come after her. She thought he would try to debate his way out of Dana and the cheating.

But he didn’t.

And a part of her, however small, didn’t think he would come running after her this time, either.

The hope that he would chase her won out, and she left him a final parting gift.

“... I meant what I said, Miguel. At the funeral. I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back. Not unless… not without a meaning for it all. First Angela in Nightshade, and now Dana? The universe is all happenstance until it isn’t. And it all feels too personal, too intentional. I know you probably waltzed past Jack, thinking I was just being overly emotional and hiding from you. And maybe that’s what I’m doing. How am I supposed to get over the moments of sick relief, that after everything, I still got out alive? And instead, someone I’ve cursed and scorned and hated for a year died. All I wanted, for so long, was for her to feel the pain of losing you the way I did. And instead she’s dead,” past Xina laughed, slowly turning to a choked sound.

Xina felt the air frizz by her shoulder, knowing Lyla was watching the holovid, too.

The first holovid ended, and a new one appeared. Past Xina wasn’t in her apartment anymore, long ago having set out on the road for answers that would never come.

“Your mom once told me you were hard to love. Not because of anything you did on purpose, but all those unintentional moments of selfishness and a tunnel vision for your own self-interest. I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time, still hopelessly head over heels. But I get it now. I’ve played back that day, Venom’s intentions and why it was so important to take Dana and me. And I think I… I know why Kron, even as a host to an alien creature, would grab the two of us. And it means I was harsher than you deserve, in some ways. You never were very good at juggling, trying to live two lives at once. Guess I’d know that better than anyone.”

She waved her hand through the holo-vid, wishing it away. Recording the messages for Miguel was one thing, but having them played back by her own artificial creation was another. Lyla understood Miguel, and even kept old deleted holo-vids like this one. Scoffing to herself, Xina only pressed on.

He wasn’t the only one filled with grief.

“Going through your archives and showing me deleted video messages won’t do anything, Lyla. It doesn’t tell me why he would just up and leave like this,” her voice wavered.

“... he never deleted it,” Lyla said after a moment.

“What, so he just kept it as a form of self-flagellation? On second thought, yeah, that sounds like him,” she rolled her eyes.

“You’re both so shocking frustrating!” Lyla exclaimed.

Xina blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Lyla dragged a hand down her face, her sunglasses lopsided.

“I’m really trying to be impartial here, but you’re making it pretty difficult!”

Glancing down at the navigation index, Xina saw that she was still making good time. Even if Miguel had started his little… joyride, she still might be able to find him. Or at least find Gabriel. Someone he actually might listen to… just anyone but her.

“He left to be happy. Because he’s all but decided here is a lost cause. Which, I don’t think he would believe if everyone in this stupid universe didn’t decide to leave when it got hard!” Lyla crossed her arms, an expression eerily like Xina’s own on her face.

“Lyla, you don’t understand–some things… they can’t be talked out. I couldn’t have stayed here. And it’s been months. All he had to say for himself he put in those holo-vids. If I was smarter, less sentimental… I never would have agreed to fix you for him. He could have found someone else. If I had never come back into his life, he would be fine. Miguel could have his wife and Alchemax and every other dream he wanted I didn’t approve of. Because we don’t work. We never did. And now, somehow, even after everything, I’m still breaking a dozen different laws to get back to him. Because if there is even the slightest chance of stopping him before he does something breathtakingly stupid–I just have to, okay?” Xina sighed, exhausted.

Lyla let out a low whistle, a near perfect mimic of the real thing.

“You really don’t see it, do you?”

Xina groaned, tired of Lyla skating around her big “gotcha!” point.

“Whatever you’re dying to say, just say it. We quite literally don’t have time for this.”

Lyla zapped away.

“This isn’t funny anymore–!”

“Can we run the diagnostic again, one last time?” Miguel appeared, donning the Spider-Man suit.

“Shock me,” Xina whispered.

When she’d all but accused him of being Spider-Man, she never thought she’d get any sort of confirmation. And maybe a younger her, a less damaged version would feel a spark of smugness at being right.

There was still a bit, to be fair.

Lyla appeared, fussing over data on a tablet.

“The findings are the same as last time, Miguel.”

He frowned, one of his eyebrows starting to twitch in irritation.

She was pretty familiar with the expression.

“And you're positive it’s this one?”

“...I am, Miguel. This version is gone. He… he sacrificed himself. About 15 minutes ago, actually. I’d say if you really want to do this, the window of opportunity is closing.”

Miguel hesitated, frowning at Lyla’s description of the alternate universe.

“He’s not–”

“No, he isn’t… er, wasn’t Spider-Man. The Alchemax Genetics division never tried to recreate the Heroic Age on this Earth.”

“Really?”

“Really. And there’s something else you should know, too.”

A dozen or so photos appeared before Miguel, all of him and a little girl and–

The holovid feed cut out.

“Lyla?”

Silence.

The Nueva York skyline drew closer, but the pit in Xina’s stomach only grew. Lyla was connected to Miguel. She went where he went, even sometimes to his own detriment. If she was gone, that could only mean…

“Miguel O’Hara, I’m going to kill you,” Xina declared, wiping her cheek.

-x-

Xina Kwan stood rigidly outside an apartment door, her nerves ticking away at what little patience she had left. She would have gone to Miguel’s apartment first, but for all she knew she’d be waiting outside that door until the end of time. Sighing, she started to knock again, only to be met with a swinging door.

“Hello? Xina, what–”

“Have you seen Miguel?” she started, cutting off the younger O’Hara brother.

“...no?”

Xina glared at the younger man.

He blanched, and it reminded her too much of his brother.

“If you listened to any of the messages I’d left you, you’d know that.”

Xina bit her tongue.

“Okay, fine. What about your mom? Has she said anything about Miguel?”

Gabriel guffawed, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Are you sure Miguel’s the one we need to be worried about, Xina? Have you met my mother? Hell, have you met my brother? There’s no way on this world or the next he’d talk to her if he’s not talking to me.”

He had a point.

“...well, has he left anything? Any messages? Anything to explain–”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her, and gasped.

“You saw it!”

Xina paced the entryway, trying not to let her irritation flood through her. She didn’t know what Gabriel was talking about, she had listened to his messages once before deleting them, on the floor of some dingy hotel room weeks ago. At the time, she had all but considered herself out of the O'Hara's lives for good. So much for that.

“Saw what?”

Gabriel stared at her as if she had grown an extra head.

“The building? With all the Spiders?”

Oh, shock.

“Wait, he brought other Spider-Man…Men… people, here?” Xina walked past his kitchen and bee-lined for the living room, pulling the curtains away to see one of the tallest buildings in the city.

“...yeah. I mean, I don’t know what totally normal CEO of Alchemax Miguel O’Hara would be doing with somebody like Spider-Man but–” Gabriel started.

“I know, Gabe.”

Gabriel let out the deepest sigh she had heard him possibly ever let out, and fell back on the couch.

“Thank God. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to keep Miguel’s stupid secrets from everybody?”

She stared at him, a bit of indignation rising up at the younger O’Hara.

“Wait, how long have you known about this?”

Gabriel froze.

“Uh…. pretty much the whole time?”

Xina felt the world spin on its head for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

“The whole time?! From the jump you knew?”

“Yeah, but Miguel didn’t know I know. I mean he does now, but that’s not the point. Why do you know?”

Xina stared out the window, trying to get a glimpse of any sort of movement in the Valhalla building. It was nearly impossible, too far away but close enough to make her wonder.

“Since I left. I think if I had connected the dots sooner… I don’t know what I would have done, honestly. Spider-Man is just so different from Miguel. But I guess whatever happened to him would change a guy. I definitely called him a coward to his face. A lot,” Xina shrugged.

“What do you mean you would have figured it out sooner?” Gabriel frowned.

“Oh, come on. Miguel leaving the same moment Spider-Man shows up? Spider-Man showing up in the city of Nightshade? Venom going after Dana and me?”

The room stilled.

They hadn’t talked about it. Not in person or over holo-vid or anything. Xina had attended the funeral, spoken a few words, and tried to find a purpose for herself.

She didn’t know how to face Gabriel after that.

Because she knew he had still held a flame for the dead woman, even after Miguel had all but set a wedding date.

“Yeah, well Kron Stone was always a piece of work,” Gabriel muttered.

The pounding of her heart was felt all around her, in her hands and face and–

“You didn’t do it, Xina,” he said after a moment, watching her carefully.

“No, but it shouldn’t have been her. And that’s not the point! Or maybe it is. I don’t know. But whatever is going on has to do with Miguel being Spider-Man and his stupid belief that everyone would be better off without him!” Xina snapped.

Gabriel’s eyes widened.

“You don’t think he–?”

“No, I don’t. Lyla showed me a few old recordings and some archive footage from his apartment. I think he figured out how to jump universes and he decided this one was too painful to stay in, so he left,” she grimaced.

“He just left? Like that?”

“You said it yourself. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. I mean, yeah, this is a little extreme, even for him. But it’s not out of character,” Xina sat down beside him on the couch, holding her head in her hands.

“What about the Spider people?”

“I barely understand why Miguel left this universe, why on earth would I know what those guys want?” Xina clipped out.

“No, I mean why not talk to them.”

Xina rolled her eyes.

“You mean the people you don’t have clearance to talk to?”

Gabriel halted, staring up at her.

“I thought you didn’t listen to any of my messages.”

She shrunk back, embarrassed.

“Yeah, well. I still… wanted to see how you two were doing.”

“You do care,” he grinned.

“Fine, you wanna talk to the Spiders. How exactly are we supposed to contact them?”

Gabriel stood up, pacing with his pointer and thumb to his chin. This went on for a minute, and Xina couldn’t help but think about how overly-dramatic the O’Hara brothers were.

“Oh, shock!”

He spun around, reaching for his displaced scarf and headed for the door.

“Gabriel? Earth to Gabriel? Where are you going?” she asked, standing up to follow the slightly air-headed man.

“Who better to tell us what’s going on than the most spiteful and slightly vindictive thing you’ve ever made!”

She stared at him, raising an eyebrow in a wordless question.

“Lyla. Obviously I was talking about Lyla.”

“But she isn’t here, Gabriel.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“Sure, Miguel can’t go anywhere without her. But her mainframe is here. There’s nowhere safer for it to be stored than Miguel’s place. And I know you still have a key,” he said flippantly.

Xina’s eyes widened.

“Why do you know that–”

“My brother may be the most emotionally constipated genius I’ve ever met, but sometimes he’s painfully predictable.”

She paused in the doorway, considering the plan.

“What, so we go, break-in to Miguel’s on a technicality and then look through Lyla’s coding for some kind of answer to all this?” she asked, crossing her arms.

Gabriel thought for a moment and nodded.

“You know this is insane, right? You couldn’t get into Miguel’s apartment last time you tried.”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, well, Lyla’s temperamental to Miguel’s moods. But she’d never keep you out.”

“Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not,” she deadpanned.

Gabriel laughed, locking the door behind her as they started the trek along to the other side of Nueva York.

“You’re the one who dated him!”

Chapter Text

About five minutes into their journey across Nueva York, Xina realized an uncomfortable truth: she had never been alone with Gabriel O’Hara before.

She glanced at him, the younger O’Hara looking out the window of her car, lost in his own thoughts. If she stared too long, she would find too many similarities between him and the older O’Hara.

Sure, she went to family dinners and holidays and he came to the occasional school event, but they had never been alone.

Least of all with the amount of baggage between them.

For a moment, Xina considered losing him and solving the Miguel problem on her own. It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to it. The number of times she had to get the older O’Hara out of a less than savory situation should have granted her sainthood. Instead, she was here, with his little brother, wishing not for the first time that this was all an elaborate prank.

It wasn’t that she disliked Gabriel. He was always kind to her, welcoming her from the very first time she had come to the O’Hara’s home one summer away from Alchemax’s boarding school. And a small part of her knew that the things she held against Gabriel weren’t his fault, but she couldn’t help but hold a grudge.

So many what-ifs played in her head, even after everything.

What if Miguel had actually agreed to come with her to her folks place for the weekend?

What if Dana hadn’t become so enamored with her boyfriend?

What if Gabriel had… well, she didn’t really know what he did, in the end.

“How can you do it?” she asked after a moment.

“What?”

Xina cleared her throat, trying to come up with the words. She didn’t exactly want to come out and say it, but she would rather have this conversation than continue unpacking ‘Miguel is Spider-Man.’

If she told herself a year ago she’d rather talk to Gabriel O’Hara about their mutually destroyed relationships than a masked vigilante that turned out to be her ex, she wouldn’t have believed any of it.

She wouldn’t have believed a lot about the last year.

“Not wanting to tear Miguel’s head off for everything he’s done,” she said after a moment.

The man laughed, and it sounded a little too familiar for her liking.

“Gabriel, I’m being serious—“

“I know, Xina. It’s just… you’re an only sibling, right?”

She nodded.

“So, it’s just different,” Gabriel started, “… and you know how our dad was. And how our mom started to be around Miguel. In the end all we had was each other. So, even when he’s being a Grade-A asshole… he’s still my brother. Even when it felt like everything was falling down around us, he was there.”

But that didn’t explain away everything.

Especially not the less-than-noble behavior between Miguel and Dana.

“That doesn’t make any of it easier,” she grumbled.

“Shock, you think it makes me feel better about any of it?!”

She blinked.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Well, why would you, huh? I’m just the butt of every joke about how much my girlfriend couldn’t stand me so she decided my brother was free real estate. You just loved reminding me at every shockin’ holiday that Dana found me to be a real snooze-fest,” he snipped back at her.

She clenched the wheel tighter, trying to take in a deep breath before replying to the younger man.

“Out of the two of us, Gabriel, I wasn’t the one who’s partner seemed oh-so bored of me,” she snapped back.

“No, but Miguel was always a better liar than me,” he glared.

Xina stopped the car, having enough sense to steer to the side of the holo-road.

Gabriel crossed his arms, glaring down at her front seat, surely wishing to be anywhere but here, too.

Sighing, she held the bridge of her nose for a moment, trying to clear her head while the other hand tapped on the stick shift. The two of them were all they had to solve this mystery. Maybe, if they were lucky, they would be able to have some sort of version of Lyla along with them after they got to Miguel’s.

But the way they were going, it didn’t seem like they would ever get to Babylon Towers.

“I think we’re having arguments we wanted to have with other people, a long time ago,” Xina said, breaking the long silence.

The man froze, starting to shake his head.

“No, I let that go—the only person I want to be mad at is Miguel, not Dana, she—“ his words got stuck in his throat, and Xina felt a clench of pain for the man.

“Grief and anger can go hand in hand, you know,” she said quietly.

The man grumbled to himself and she swore she heard “level-headed” and “actually trying to be angry.”

Xina veered off the shoulder of the holo-road, parking the car on an out-dated gasoline refiling station. They weren’t used for anything anymore, just a place to rest along the way. She figured they needed it, in more ways than one.

Casting a sideways glance at the younger O’Hara, she stepped out of the car. When she didn’t hear any sounds of protest at the temporary detour, she sat at the edge of the station.

It overlooked most of Nueva York, the skyscrapers and occasionally patches of turf creating an idealistic picture. But she knew this place wasn’t perfect. It was just another city hiding its sickness. Below the clear-cut lawns and shiny buildings was the throbbing, bleeding center of it all: downtown.

But she never worried about what was below. Since she was a kid, her only desire was to go up past the city and the sky, far away from this place. Everything from her movies to shows to books from the TwenCen told her it was better in the stars. Nobody to hurt you, no one to string you along or only use you until they didn’t need you anymore.

She wanted Alchemax to be a stepping stone. Even as a teen she figured she could talk her way into an extraterrestrial program. As if she could just change the minds of men set on rewriting history until no one remembered the Heroic Age.

So much for that.

She graduated in the top of her class, offer after offer coming from Alchemax’s head office in Nueva York, just what she was supposed to do. But she knew there was more in the world than a glorified techie position for a company that never wanted to do anything more than maintain the status quo.

Instead, she freelanced her way through holo-technical work.

At first, she thought she could convince Miguel to drop Alchemax, too. But he always gave the same excuse about how owed them everything, without the scholarship and the schooling he wouldn’t be who he was today.

Sometimes she wondered if that was really true.

He had an aptitude and inclination for biology, but wanted to know everything. It was endearing to her as a kid and she would never admit it, but it still charmed her.

Everything about him was charming to her.

Too bad he had a bad case of wandering hands.

So lost in her thoughts, Xina didn’t hear the man beside her until he was sitting next to her, glancing out at the dozens of flying cars and cityscape.

“It always used to drive Miguel crazy,” Gabriel said quietly.

Xina tilted her head at him, finally looking at the younger man.

“Your level-headedness.”

She rolled her eyes, as if that was a trait Miguel really associated with her.

“I’m not kidding, Xina,” he said, clocking her disbelief.

“Every day for a year do you know what I thought about? All the different ways I could make your brother regret everything he had ever done to me. He’s one of my oldest friends, someone I’ve depended on more times than I can count, and when push came to shove, he decided I wasn’t worth it anymore. I don’t understand how he could throw away all of our history, our memories… and what I thought was a future. So, no, I haven’t felt level-headed in a long time,” she muttered.

Gabriel grimaced, all too familiar with those same feelings.

“He has a way of bringing that out in people,” he said after a moment.

Xina just nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“But… you were level-headed, y’know. And you had normal parents.”

“Define normal,” she snorted, thinking of the expectations put before her, the numerous conversations about what her future was supposed to be, how dating someone like Miguel could put all of that at risk.

Her parents were never… the warmest towards Miguel. He was rough around the edges, unsure of how to address someone’s parents who weren’t on the verge of fighting every waking moment. Xina knew there was an underlying tension in his own home life, walking daily on a tightrope of expectations he could never meet.

She did her best to explain him to her parents, to try to get them to understand he just didn’t have the same upbringing she did.

None of it mattered after he cheated.

And she knew if her parents had even an inkling of where she was now… well, they wouldn’t be too proud. But they wouldn’t be that surprised, either.

Xina had to keep reminding herself that she was here because of extreme circumstances. It had all but seemed like Miguel might have done something drastic, something dangerous and something that could get him killed. And as long as she had breath in her lungs, she wouldn’t let him do that.

Just something between old friends.

“Everything about you was just so… stable,” Gabriel started, “I think that scared him. So of course my self-sabotaging brother would find the quickest way to ruin one of the best things to ever happen to him. And that wasn’t enough for him, so he had to completely blow up my life, too.”

She grimaced, sometimes forgetting that Miguel’s actions didn’t just hurt her.

“Where do you think we’d be… if he didn’t do it?” she asked after a moment.

Gabriel looked out at the city again, frowning.

“I try not to think about it. Especially after everything. I guess I’d hope I’d keep my fiancé actually interested in me. Or at the very least get a formal rejection from her, instead of her deciding she’s done with me and not shocking saying anything. You two would be off saving the world or whatever it is you actually want to be doing with Miguel instead of watching him waste his talents at Alchemax,” he shrugged.

He had clearly thought about it, more than he would want her to know.

She did the same, so who was she to judge?

Back in their final year of school, Miguel had talked for hours about what they would do when they left. The idea of getting out of Alchemax’s grasp, going somewhere nobody knew their names or their stories so they could make their own.

In hindsight, it was what every kid says. And like hindsight, it never works the way you think it will.

But she had had him by her side, the two determined to change the future.

Until Alchemax and Gabriel’s latest girlfriend of the month.

The scene replayed in her head a half a dozen times in a good week, trying to piece together the moment he wasn’t really hers anymore. And every time she came to the same conclusion: dinner with Gabriel. For admittedly longer than she was proud of, she gave Gabriel more of the blame than he was owed.

It wasn’t his fault his girlfriend had wandering hands.

And those hands wouldn’t just wander over Miguel, either.

For as much guilt as Xina felt over the other woman’s death, she couldn’t shake her disgust at juggling Tyler Stone and Miguel. Dating the man who’s nearly ruined your supposed fiancé’s live a dozen times over? And now… with what she knew, about Spider-Man, she couldn’t help but wonder if that had Stone written all over it, too.

She snidely thought that Dana wouldn’t have withstood the Spider-Man reveal. That was if she ever figured it out.

“Yeah, well, you deserved better,” she sighed.

The man hummed, and gave a sidelong glance in her direction.

“So did you.”

It was nearly two years now, and still an admission like that clenched at something inside her.

“Like you said, I’m the one who dated him,” she snorted, playing off the younger man’s response.

“He was better with you. Nicer than normal. Or at least didn’t feel the need to be so condescending every waking moment,” Gabriel observed.

She bit back a smile, thinking about how often the older O’Hara would wait until they were back at her place before bitching about whatever had happened with Gabriel or his mother that week.

“It’s like they live to drive me crazy,” Miguel complained, taking her coat and his own before hanging them up in her entryway.

“No, that’s my job,” she teased, pulling him along to her couch.

“What, the three of you holo-vid every week deciding the new and absurd things those two will get up to? You came up with Gabriel trying to move to Antarctica with ‘the woman of his dreams’? My mom and you chatted over her latest elaborate death hoax?” he rolled his eyes.

Xina couldn’t help but laugh, trying to cover it with a cough.

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh all you want, and count your blessings you don’t have any siblings.”

She shook her head, trying to queue up the latest episode of an old TwenCen show she’d finally found a half-way decent copy of. Something called The X-Files. The cover had what TwenCens had thought were UFOs on it, so she knew it was right up her alley.

“You talk a big game, Miguel O’Hara, but I think you do it all because you care,” she said.

“Somebody’s gotta make sure Gabriel isn’t giving out his bank account information to some two-bit swindler just because she batted her eyelashes at him,” he sassed back.

“That’s caring, you dork!” she exclaimed, watching as he shook his head at her, as if he couldn’t possibly see what she did.

“Sure, Xina. What’s this, again?” he nodded to the television.

“So, it’s the late nineteen hundreds and there’s these two government agents. One’s a believer, the other a skeptic. Huh, kind of like you. Anyway, they—“

“Xina?” Gabriel’s voice pulled her from her memories.

“Sorry,” she cleared her throat, regret starting to seep into her bones.

There was a reason she didn’t think about Miguel or Gabriel or their mother. If all she had to remember them by was Miguel’s anticlimactic sigh of resignation about their relationship, she wouldn’t remember any of the good.

Like the summer Gabriel helped her rebuild an old TwenCen motorcycle from scratch. She knew he wasn’t considered as smart as his brother, but he so earnest and actually wanted to learn. The younger O’Hara had sat beside her, listening intently as she explained each tool and how they were going to build the bike up from the ground.

Miguel had sat in the corner, the occasional sarcastic comment about what possible use Xina would have for something with tires.

Yet he didn’t have any complaints when she let him ride it around the outskirts of Nueva York with her.

She loved spending time with him and his family, even if sometimes that meant side-stepping the simmering anger of George O’Hara.

As much as she knew Miguel complained about his mother, and as much as she had her own misgivings about some of the woman’s parenting techniques, Mrs. O’Hara was always kind to her.

Even if sometimes the older woman would cryptically warn her about the kind of man Miguel could grow up to be.

His mother always did have an observant eye.

“He had a lot of anger in him. You know how he is,” she started, “And a lot of his problems he brings on himself because he can’t possibly picture a world where everything works out for him.”

“Well…” Gabriel hesitated.

She turned to look at him, catching the glint of something in his eye.

“Come on, O’Hara. Don’t hold out on me now, not with all our history and co-mingling exes,” she said lightly, hoping to brighten the mood.

He winced at her words.

“Aw, come on, Xi, don’t say it like that—“

She shrugged.

“I was gonna… well, I know he never told you this. I dunno if it’s my place,” he explained, tugging nervously at the end of his scarf.

She shot him a look.

He put his hands up in defeat, and she half-smiled at the fact she could still get at least one O’Hara to flinch with a glance.

“Miguel told me about your parents. Uh, how they wanted to meet him, I guess? Kind of crazy to me, still, that after all those years of school together he somehow never met them.”

Xina pursed her lips, remembering all too well why he never met them.

“He said he wasn’t good for that part of a relationship. That he didn’t know how to get his own parents to like him, much less mine,” she sighed.

“What, so every time they came by to see you he just… disappeared?” Gabriel frowned.

“Considering Miguel’s current status of ‘missing until proven otherwise’ how are you shocked by that?” she snorted.

“…right,” he said.

“I could never get him to see what I saw in him. And after awhile I stopped trying. Maybe that’s why he got all cozy with, well, you know,” she glanced down, watching the traffic pile up on the holo-road below.

“I… and I know this will sound ridiculous, and I am still talking about Miguel here, I swear, but I think he really got scared.”

“Of me?” she asked flippantly.

“You, your parents… the whole idea of a future. You know how our childhood was. I’m sure somewhere in his thick head he figured if he met them that was the fast lane to marriage, misery and having 2.5 kids who hated him,” Gabriel shrugged.

“We were fresh out of school, Gabriel. You’re acting like I was holding a gun to his head over a future I never asked him for,” Xina argued.

“You might not have seen it that way, but he definitely did.”

“He’s so frustrating! Why wouldn’t he just talk to me?” she groaned.

“Have you met Miguel O’Hara?” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I just… he wasn’t like your dad. Sometimes your mom would warn me about him, saying stuff about how he’s hard to love and I didn’t really get it. And even now, it’s not that he’s difficult to love… he wants to make it hard to love him. Because he doesn’t think he deserves it,” she said quietly.

“Well he makes it pretty damn hard, I’ll give him that,” Gabriel agreed.

Xina sighed, the tension between the two of them seemingly gone. At least for now.

“Thanks for what you said, about him and me,” Xina started. “Even if it’ll never happen, it is… nice to imagine a world where your brother kept all his promises to me.”

Gabriel just nodded, a glint of something in his eyes.

The two got back in Xina’s car, headed once again for Babylon Towers.

Neither noticed the figure a skyscraper away, who had watched in the shadows as they vented their frustrations toward the oldest O’Hara.

“I don’t get it. If they’re so mad at him, why are they still trying to find out where he went?” a young voice asked the holographic figure beside her.

“They love him,” the other voice responded, as if it truly was that simple.

And maybe that’s all it takes, really.

“Like you and—?”

“I’m not her, sweetheart. I’m just a collection of her memories. But… if I were her, I’d want to say yes, I think.”

The hooded girl stepped into the light of mid-day in Nueva York, watching the retro-looking flying car disappear into traffic. She pulled the multi-colored goggles up from her eyes, resting against her forehead. Lifting her wrist, she tapped twice to enable the holographic screen.

“Neither of them ever mentioned any of that to me. How does it all work out… I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?” the girl questioned, pressing buttons on her holographic screen.

“It’s not that world, remember?” the holo-agent reminded her.

“I know, I know. But those two look just like them. I guess a little younger. But that’s—!”

“Not every choice births an alternate reality, but that one… that one did. And this is a world where it doesn’t all work out. At least, it hasn’t so far. Maybe it will. But that’s not for us to decide. We’ve already over-stayed our welcome here. We’ll fluctuate the spacetime continuum if we—“

The girl snorted.

“Like that’s ever stopped me. And it’s never stopped him so why does it matter?”

“I’m sensing some unresolved feelings toward a particular variant of your—“

“Obviously, LY-LA!”

“No need for the sass. Especially when I can’t sass back.”

The girl rolled her eyes.

“This travel was a test-run. To see if you could. And you can, so we’re done here. You can’t… you can’t do what he did. It’s not advisable.”

“I’m not him, LY-LA. And that’s not what I’m doing. You were there, too. You saw what happened. And I’m still.. resentful. But maybe I don’t want the jerkiest version of not-really-my-Dad to be all sad and lonely the rest of his life. It’s clearly not good for the multiverse,” the girl snapped, pulling her goggles back over her eyes and leaping from the skyscraper.

“Now you really sound like him,” LY-LA said cheerfully.

“And you said you couldn’t be sassy,” the girl rolled her eyes, leaping from the skyscraper, casting a web to sling her across the cityscape.

“This… this’ll work, right?” she asked after a moment.

“What?”

“You know what I mean.”

“According to my last diagnostic, this plan has a 43.8% chance of a favorable outcome.”

The girl blanched.

“Last time you said 61%!”

“Well, within the last 10 minutes Miss Kwan has fluctuated on her feelings for the Spider-Man of this time approximately three different times.”

The girl pinched the bridge of her nose, irritation coming off her in waves.

“Great.”

“Well, well, well look who it is!” came the all too cheery voice of Lyla, appearing before Miguel’s door.

Xina and Gabriel shared a look.

“Lyla, we just want to talk with Miguel. That’s all. You know how he can be. We want to make sure he’s okay,” Gabriel explained.

“Killer look, Xina. The purple really brings out your eyes. And you’re here too, Gabriel,” Lyla joked.

The younger man resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing it would only fuel the holo-agent.

“Like my holo-clone told you on the drive up, Miguel isn’t here anymore,” Lyla shrugged, painting a tear down the side of her cheek.

“Can you elaborate?” Xina asked, already fishing for the key for his apartment in her pocket.

“Skipped town. Went upriver. Moved on to greener pastures, all that jazz.”

Gabriel’s ire switched to the woman beside him.

“Did you have to go full.. whatever this is when you fixed her?”

“Would you believe me if I said I figured I’d never have to deal with Miguel again and I thought it would be really, really funny?”

He stared at her.

“Of course you did. Of shockin’ course you did!”

She shrugged, passing the younger O’Hara. Lyla shimmered out of her way, and she put the key in the latch, trying not to remember the first time she did this. Of any of the memories she didn’t want to relive, it was top of the list.

Miguel actually smiling. And at her, too.

“Nope, not doing that,” Xina shook her head, entering the apartment.

“What?” Gabriel asked from behind her, trying to get a glance in if there was any signs of life.

“Nothing,” she said quietly, uneasy with lingering quiet of the apartment.

The lights were off, which was nothing new for Miguel. But it felt less… lived in, even for him. She put a hand on the kitchen island, surprised to find a layer of dust.

“Your brother get worse at cleaning since I’ve been gone?” Xina asked nervously.

“No more than normal,” he replied, his voice echoing the empty apartment as he checked each room.

Lyla was right.

Miguel wasn’t here.

And Xina was growing more and more certain he wasn’t planning on coming back, either.

“Lyla?” Xina called, sitting down on the couch, trying to keep the rising panic down.

“Hiiiii Xina! See you made it inside. It’s a real mess in here, huh?” Lyla jeered.

“He sent that message today. That’s what the log said. How is already so dusty in here?” she asked.

“Oh, Miguel hasn’t slept in the apartment in months.”

Gabriel blanched.

“What do you mean he hasn’t slept here in months? Where’s he been staying?”

“His lab, silly,” Lyla replied, like it was that obvious.

Xina stilled.

“His Alchemax lab? Why?”

Lyla laughed.

“Ick, not that drab old place! The new lab. In the—!” the holo-agent frizzed out, holographic red tape appearing across her mouth.

Gabriel and Xina shared a look.
“The place with the Spiders, Lyla?” Gabriel asked, sitting beside Xina.

Lyla looked ashamed.

“You guys aren’t supposed to know about that. It’s classified.”

Gabriel gawked at the holo-agent.

“I’m sorry, did Miguel think we wouldn’t notice a giant building filled with of weirdos playing dress-up as Spider-Man?”

“One: they’re not playing pretend. Two: have you seen the Spiderites, Gabriel? And thirdly, Miguel figured you two would be off living your own lives and wouldn’t need him anymore.”

Xina stiffened.

“He thought we what?”

“You’re the one that told your stupid robot butler you didn’t think you were ever coming back, Xina,” Lyla sneered.

“I didn’t—!” Xina froze.

Because she did.

If Lyla hadn’t sent Miguel’s final message to her, she would have kept driving. She had no plans, no more shining five year plan. None of it mattered anymore.

“While we’re playing that card, I didn’t ever expect Miguel to chase after me,” Xina shot back.

Lyla morphed her shape, a near spitting image of Xina.

“I’m Xina Kwan and I know everything about everyone. Too bad I don’t know anything about myself,” Lyla’s face morphed back into her original form, a glint of something in her eye.

“Lyla, that’s not fair—!” Gabriel started.

Cruel words weren’t unusual out of the holo-agent. Least of all if she was programmed to say them by Miguel. And it would be just like Miguel to set up a fail-safe, something to dissuade her or Gabriel from coming in here and finding the place deserted.

So, she ignored them.
Xina looked from the projection of Lyla to her mainframe, which seemed larger than the last time she had seen it. A lot of the data was theoretical, but with the right system alignments and technology…

“She’s inter-dimensional,” Xina gasped.

“She’s what?” Gabriel tilted his head.

Lyla cheered, firework projections appearing out of nowhere.

“Ding ding ding! Give the girl a prize,” she winked at Xina.

“Miguel expanded her scope. This stuff is supposed to be theoretical. I mean, they’ve come close to proving its existence in the past, but Alchemax always undercut the funding. Guess they didn’t want people seeing a world where a “benign” corporation didn’t rule the world,” Xina crossed her arms.

“So… he really left?” Gabriel asked quietly, his eyes downcast.

“He did,” Xina reached for the discarded jacket on the end of the couch, smoothing it out in her lap.

He was always the worst about leaving his stuff lying around.

“This was the optimal outcome,” Lyla informed the two.

Gabriel snorted.

“Oh yeah, for who?”

“You two, silly.”

Xina’s frown deepened, noticing a deep gash in the jacket sleeve.

No wonder Gabriel found out so quickly about Miguel being Spider-Man.

“What, we find his place deserted and stew about him ditching us? Great plan,” Gabriel said sardonically.

Lyla shook her head.

“No, for the secondary plan.”

Xina’s head snapped up.

“Lyla, what are you talking about?” she asked, peering at the holo-agent inquisitively.

“Well… Miguel’s a bummer on a good day… and I missed you two. I didn’t tell him about this data. I figured he wouldn’t be too happy. So I just told him there was a 82.7% that you and Gabriel would be happier here without him. And he saw that alternate universe, a world where he didn’t cause a domino effect of all domino effects… and he chose it. I think he just wanted a break from all of this,” Lyla said quietly, waving her arms around the room.

“He doesn’t get to just walk out of reality when it gets hard!” Gabriel shouted.

Xina sighed, standing up with the jacket still in hand.

“Well, he did. And he’s not the only one who’s done it, either. I mean… I left Nueva York. And we both remember you and your time as Firelight,” she looked at him pointedly.

“That’s not the same thing, Xina. Miguel could track you down to the ends of the Earth if he wanted. And he’s literally pulled me out of Cyberspace,” Gabriel argued.

“Well, Miguel’s always hated being outdone,” she grimaced.

“You said secondary plan, right, Lyla? So… are we supposed to go in after him?” Gabriel asked uneasily.

Lyla glanced down, shaking her head no.

“What, you expect us to just sit here until he gets bored of the other timeline?” Xina deadpanned.

“Well… probably not here. Especially since there’s an alarm system rigged to alert Jess about any unwanted intruders to the premises. Miguel loves a fail-safe!” Lyla cheered.

Gabriel and Xina looked at each other, and then towards the faintly blinking red light coming from the kitchen.

“Who’s Jess—?”

“—I’m not an intruder, Lyla! I’m his brother!”

The apartment went pitch black, metal panelling covering every window and possible exit out of the room.

Gabriel dropped to the couch, holding his head in his hands, angrily muttering in Spanish she couldn’t catch.

She was too busy looking at familiar picture frame, the red alarm lighting flickering off the glass.

Xina knew that picture well, because it used to sit beside her own nightstand.

... the week she left, he came back.

Chapter Text

It was quiet.

Xina had retrieved the picture frame, holding it carefully in her grasp. As silly as it was, she feared if she held on too tightly it would break. She couldn’t handle another broken thing, not now.

The younger O’Hara sat in the corner of Miguel’s apartment, glaring down at the ground.

Once the realization had set in, that for all intents and purposes his brother had all but abandoned him, Gabriel had went quiet. Simmering in his anger at Miguel’s actions, remembering too clearly all his disgust at Spider-Man for losing Dana. It simmered over, and he stood up. Xina watched, curious what the man was going to try to do.

“This isn’t funny, Miguel! Let us out of here!” Gabriel shouted, pounding his fist on the door to apartment for the dozenth time.

For the last hour, the apartment was locked down. In that time, she had played Miguel’s seeming goodbye. Gabriel had reacted as well as she had expected. In the last twenty minutes, the younger man had stormed around the apartment, ranting about how this was just so typical of his brother. Being a paranoid, bitter man who assumed anyone who wanted to help him was actually trying to hurt him.

Xina didn’t disagree.

“He’s not here,” Xina said quietly.

Gabriel stilled.

“You don’t know—maybe, maybe he came back. Or he’s got cameras in here or something to tip him off that we’re here.”

The woman frowned, wishing she was as optimistic as him.

But if she had learned anything about his brother in the years she had known him, it was that once he decided something, he wasn’t easily swayed.

They were similar, in that way. Maybe too similar.

“He wouldn’t abandon everything here! I mean, he gripes and complains about our mom and I know I drive him crazy but he wouldn’t—!?”

“This time he did. I wasn’t talking to him, neither were you. I turned off my holo-vids for months. And I can’t imagine your attitude toward him got better after I left,” she said, glancing down at the photo of her and Miguel.

It was like looking a ghost, a person so far removed from who she was she barely recognized her.

“I was mad. He does the same thing when he doesn’t wanna talk. Shuts down and refuses to answer any of my messages. I thought giving him a taste of his own medicine would be good for him. Maybe I was wrong. But I can always come around here… and he’ll be here. Always,” Gabriel said quietly.

“This time was different. It was the accumulation of Alchemax, of becoming Spider-Man… losing Dana. And knowing at the crux of it all was Kron Stone, our own personal tormentor? I think it was just too much to bare,” she murmured.

“But… he just left,” Gabriel said weakly.

Xina didn’t know how to explain it any better to him. Because she already knew what she would do in Miguel’s shoes. Finding a way out, a place where she didn’t have to spiral out with all the different ways she could have acted differently in the moment? She’d take it in a heartbeat. And running from Nueva York… she did do exactly that.

“I think there’s something you need to see,” Lyla appeared, fiddling nervously with her sunglasses.

The holo-agent had made herself scarce after the alarms went off, knowing all she would see was the younger brother’s disapproval and Xina’s look of defeat.

“His goodbye message? I can’t do that again, Lyla, I’m sorry,” Xina set the framed photo down for the first time in too long, making a beeline for any other room but the living room. If Lyla wanted to go over the same footage again and again with Gabriel, she was more than welcome.

“No, Xina. Just… just listen, okay?” she said, a hint of annoyance in the holo-agent’s voice.

Xina and Gabriel shared a look, and the two plopped back down on the couch. If Gabriel noticed how she had still clung to his brother’s jacket, he didn’t comment on it.

Lyla appeared before them and disappearing just as quick, an old stylized camera countdown appearing before old video of Miguel appeared. He was in the Spider-Man suit, again.

She absentmindedly wondered how often he actually took that thing off, or if it was always there. He did love to be reminded of his burdens.

“Journal Log Entry… I dunno. I’ve lost track. But that doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day this isn’t for me. This is for them. Because there has to be a place, another world, somewhere that I didn’t shock it all up. Or at least their lives aren’t ruined because of me….”

“Are you sure?”

Miguel’s head snapped up to Lyla’s form, leaning against the kitchen island of his apartment.

“Lyla, we’ve gone over this. I’m the one thing connected to everything that’s gone wrong. Xina wouldn’t feel guilty over Dana if I hadn’t… if I had just been faster and smarter. She’d be perfectly fine if I hadn’t kept running away from Nueva York. Our joyriding made me forget what I have to do, who I have to become to keep them all safe. Gabriel wouldn’t blame me for Dana’s death because she wouldn’t be dead. I’m the commonality in it all, can’t you see that?” Miguel glared, going back to his tinkering on his home lab.

“… using that logic, they’d both be dead too. If you had never gone with Xina to Nightshade, that creature could have killed her and everyone there. Or those creepy Monopoly Rejects would have done the job. And don’t even get me started on the number of times you’ve had to save Gabriel’s butt,” Lyla argued.

Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing Lyla would be like this.

“You don’t get it! They wouldn’t be in danger if I wasn’t Spider-Man. The weirdness levels of all of Nueva York went up the minute Delgato didn’t finish the job. Sometimes I wonder if everybody wouldn’t be better off if he had…”

Lyla frowned.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try to ring Gabriel again—“

Miguel rolled his eyes.

“And do what, get his answering machine, Lyla? He hates me. I don’t blame him. I’m a pretty hate-able guy, all things considered,” he snorted.

The holo-agent blipped out of existence before nodding silently to the man.

“I just wish you wouldn’t work through this all alone. It can’t be healthy…”

“What exactly is healthy about my life, Lyla? Only have you to talk to? Being hated by everybody I love? Need I go on, or have I made my shocking point?” he snapped.

“Not everybody who loves you hates you,” she mumbled.

“Oh, here we go again. For the last time, Lyla, you are a program. You’re made up of numbers. Of zeros and ones and coding that cannot possibly understand what it means to be human. You can express an emotion as good as my shocking toaster can,” Miguel glared.

Lyla stood up, looked the man up and down, and shook her head in distaste.

“Right. Because I have so much in common with a never-used toaster, Miguel,” she sniffed, disappearing.

The man grimaced, realizing he had overstepped, again.

“All you do is drive everybody you care away, you can’t even keep your holo-agent around…” he muttered to himself, slouching down on the couch.

The video ended, and the once-bright room was dark again. Xina couldn’t bear to look at Gabriel, her own mess of feelings try to sort themselves out. She had never thought about that day at Nightshade, how it was far too convenient for Spider-Man to appear, especially in a little Indy town.

Miguel had saved her… but he couldn’t save Angela.

And she had called him a coward to his face. A few times, actually.

From the moment Spider-Man had appeared on the scene in Nueva York, she had assumed he was some passing fad. Or some loser trying to cash-in on people’s increasing despair in the world. But the fact it was Miguel? He wouldn’t do any of those things. Because he was right, he was never pompous.

It was an obligation and responsibility he clearly never wanted, but had anyway.

Of course Miguel O’Hara would find himself living the life of a man from a hundred years ago.

“He has to know that isn’t true,” Gabriel said after a moment.

“What?” she looked up at him.

“I don’t… I know I’ve said a bunch of stuff when I’m angry at him… but I don’t wish he’d died that day,” the younger man finished.

Xina turned back to Lyla, who was patiently looking at her, as if waiting for her to put together the pieces of a puzzle.

“What day?”

“He, uh. Told me once. Didn’t want to every talk about it, and after he explained it all I kinda understood why he wouldn’t wanna rehash it,” Gabriel coughed.

Xina frowned, but pressed on anyway. Maybe something in all this web-head craziness could explain Miguel better to her. Because not for the first time, he felt like a stranger to her.

And the last time she felt that way about him, they didn’t speak for over a year.

“What happened?” she asked, knowing there was every change he wouldn’t answer her, either. Or give a classic half-ass O’Hara response.

But something in her face must have convinced him.

“Well, you know how Alchemax runs. You do whatever Tyler says until you burn out and lose any and all passion for whatever you once loved. And… they wanted to recreate Spider-Man, using his genetic code. I didn’t wanna listen too hard whenever Mig talked about it, it sounded gross and borderline unethical.”

“So an average day for Stone,” Xina said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah. And they wanted to rush-order the Spider-Guys, wanted better than the Public Eye running around Nueva York to keep everybody in their place. I don’t really know if Miguel was too thrilled about that, but he was too enamored with the science of it all to really care about the consequences,” he said, grimacing at the memory.

“So an average day for an Alchemax Uni graduate like Miguel,” she sighed.

Her not following him to university was probably the first crack in their relationship.

They’d holovid most weekends, and he would go on and on about all the things they were teaching him. But she could only notice the small differences in him over time. How he got more defensive over Alchemax’s actions, citing a need for scientific progressive over any sort of ethical questions she could have about the work.

And she overlooked it, because at the time she had… well, she knew how she felt.

It wasn’t until after he left her for Dana she wondered if he had had a wandering eye at university, too.

But the person she saw when she had looked in his eyes in his apartment that day wasn’t the same one from university, not by a long shot.

“… they wanted to start human testing, I guess. But Miguel wasn’t going for it, said it was too dangerous. Don’t give me that look,” Gabriel glared back at her.

“Oh, somebody like Stone wanted to use human test subjects? And I’m supposed to be surprised by that?”

“No, but you are supposed to let me finish telling the shocking story,” he griped.

She just shrugged, nodding for him to keep going.

“The team went ahead with human testing and it… well it ended badly. Real badly. So Miguel quit.”

Her head snapped up, about to remind the younger O’Hara of Miguel’s current occupation.

“Yeah, I know, Xi. He quit and then Stone drugged him with Rapture.”

“He what?!”

“…yeah.”

“Give me one good reason not to waltz up to that arrogant, tar-for-brains old man’s office and—“

“We’re trapped in a metal nightmare of Miguel’s own design?”

Xina huffed, still vividly imagining throwing Stone out his office window.

“So Miguel came up with the brilliant idea to un-bind his DNA to Rapture. Which, I guess theoretically would have worked if the co-worker he had undermined earlier that day didn’t hold an insane grudge against him. But then he wouldn’t be Miguel. The guy put spider DNA in the machine and he came out… like that,” Gabriel grimaced.

She blinked, trying to stop her mind from racing a million miles an hour. How had she not noticed any changes in him? A person doesn’t get their genes spliced and come out unscathed. There was a reason that technology wasn’t yet used on humans, the results far too varied and unstable.

But Alchemax didn’t care about any of that.

“His eyes,” Gabriel tapped his temple, as if reading her mind.

“What about them?”

“Since you two… reconnected,” he hesitated, “He’s only worn his glasses around you, right?”

“Yeah, he said his headaches were getting worse because he was too stubborn to wear them as a kid… but the lenses are red. And he never smiles like he used to… not all toothy, like he did. I figured it was just the awful headspace he was in,” she bit her lip, wishing she didn’t feel a tinge of guilt for not noticing sooner.

“Don’t do that.”

“What, Gabriel?”

“Guilt for not realizing something was up with him. He’s a closed book with a triple-plated lock. The guy’s a nightmare to understand on a good day,” Gabriel said, but there wasn’t any malice in his voice.

“I used to…” she trailed off.

“Aw, don’t do that either, Xi,” the younger man groaned, holding his head in his hands.

She didn’t want to put any of her muddled feelings in Gabriel’s hands, she knew he didn’t deserve it. And as Miguel’s little brother she doubted he would entirely understand, either.

“Sorry,” she coughed, embarrassed.

Gabriel shrugged, and for a moment she was grateful they had the history they did.

“Wait, Lyla. You said you had something to show us. Seeing Miguel depressed and down on his luck isn’t anything out of the ordinary. What did we miss?” Gabriel tilted his head, watching the holo-agent reappear.

Lyla burst into her life-sized form, taking the face of Xina.

“He’s a coward! And I want to say it to his stupid mask!”

Lyla sizzled, appearing as Gabriel.

“Why is that when you became Spider-Man, it’s my life that gets ruined?”

A third time Lyla shifted, but as Conchata, the brother’s mother.

“If only you were more like Spider-Man! He actually cares about people!”

The holo-agent re-materialized as herself, looking at the two of them expectantly.

“Now do you two get it? Miggy ran a million and one tests, trying to find a universe where he wasn’t Spider-Man and didn’t ruin your lives. Turns out those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. But he was holed up in here, trying to prove his hypothesis. That if he wasn’t Spider-Man, if he didn’t get any of you involved in any life-or-death situations, that you would all be better off.”

And now Miguel was gone.

Her hands shook in her lap, and Xina tried to remind herself that this wasn’t the end of the mystery. Just because they were trapped in Miguel’s deserted apartment, apparently waiting on a stranger Spider person to let them out…

“And is that true?” Gabriel demanded, standing up, eye level to Lyla’s floating holographic self.

“Well, you both seem fine. Vitals are little off, but that tends to happen when you find out big, life-changing secrets from loved ones,” Lyla shrugged.

If Gabriel rolled his eyes again, she wondered if they would roll right out of his head.

“You know what I mean, Lyla. If Miguel is never Spider-Man, does everything get… better?” he asked.

“That’s a trick question,” she shimmered.

“You’re the one that said it!”

“No,” Lyla started, “I’m presenting Miguel’s hypothesis. He’s the one testing out the theory. He’s trying to present a false equivalency.”

“And you just let him?!”

Lyla blipped out and reappeared, glaring back at the man.

“Have you ever tried to get that idiot to do something he doesn’t want to do?”

Xina took a deep breath, knowing that arguing in circles wouldn’t do anything. Least of all debating Lyla, who was programmed to get a thrill from proving someone wrong.

“Okay. So Miguel wanted to test out his theory, see if everyone was happier in a world without Spider-Man. And what exactly did he find, Lyla?”

The holo-agent hesitated.

“That’s classified,” she began.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either you let us bypass Miguel’s half-assed safety protections, or I shut off your mainframe and re-wire you again just so we can find him. Which would you prefer?” Xina stared expectantly at the holo-agent.

Lyla had enough sense to look a little guilty, even if it was a manufactured emotion.

And then her face glitched into one of confusion, and she looked southward.

"You two... I think you'll want to see this," she disappeared, replaced by real-time footage of Babylon Towers south exterior.

Throughout the years of Spider-Man’s service to the city, the denizens of Babylon Towers had gotten acutely aware of the general strangeness that had started happening around their building.

Nothing had quite prepared them for what they were witnessing outside their windows.

“Are they done yet?!” the girl shouted, her golden hologram appearing at her side.

“Negative. It seems this universe’s Lyla has her own sense of humor, too.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t have one—“

“Incorrect. I said I couldn’t sass,” the hologram giggled.

“You are not helpful!”

The girl squealed, thrown off her course by a sling of webbing.

From the other side of the Towers, a team of Spiders had tried to break into the metal-bound apartment, seemingly having trouble. It would have been a flick of a switch or a few taps on their fancy Multiverse watches. Until she got there.

With the help of LY-LA, she had frozen them out of the Babylon Towers database.

It seemed kind of pointless, and she was getting more and more annoyed at having to distract five Spider people. She ripped the webbing off of her side, trying to remind herself that these people just didn’t know any better. They didn’t know what was at stake. Or what would happen, what would change everything around them for the worse.

“C’mon, kid! What are you doing here?” came the voice of one of the Spiders, his suit covered by a pink robe and a baby sling.

“None of your shockin’ business!” she yelled, webbing the Spider-Dad to the side of a building.

The Pink-Robe Guy muffled something into his watch, and a Spider-Woman on a motorbike appeared from the top of the Towers.

“No, Peter. For the last time, that cannot possibly be—”

“How do you know! She sure talks like him.”

The girl rolled her eyes, biting her tongue.

Unlike every Spider she’d ever met, she actually had control of her smart mouth. Well, not according to her mother or uncle, but they weren’t here to disagree with her.

“Maybe if you guys were less chatty, you would’ve caught me already!” she teased, shooting a web past the motorbike and trying to lead them past the Towers. It wasn’t working very well, because she could only hold their attention for so long.

“She’s not an anomaly! But her watch isn’t one of ours. And she showed up the same place as the alarm breach. I mean, that can’t be a coincidence!” Spider-Woman reminded Robe Guy.

“Yeah, but Grumpy Pants doesn’t have an alarm set up for outside his apartment. It’s inside that matters. It’s almost like…” Robe Guy trailed off, looking between her and the Towers.

“You don’t want us in there, do you?”

The girl blanched, glad the guy couldn’t see her face.

“This isn’t 20 Questions!”

“You sure you’re a Spider-Man…. Person… Girl, kid? Spidey fights are exclusively 20 Questions!” he slipped free of her webbing, close behind the Spider-Woman.

LY-LA reappeared, informing her she had less than five minutes left on her universal jump.

“Delay it!”

“Again?” the holo-agent asked nervously.

“Do you want our universe stuck in a temporal restart for the rest of eternity?”

“…no?”

“Then delay it, LY-LA!”

The hologram stared at her for a moment, as if seeing someone else in the young girl before flickering away again.

“See! That! I know it’s the future or whatever and everybody has their own personal little assistants, but that looked like—!”

Spider-Lady cut off Spider-Dad.

“Even if it was, and if the readings were right, that would mean… well I don’t know what that would mean, because none of this makes sense! And we can’t contact Lyla, she’s been offline for an hour.”

Spider-Dad and Spider-Lady shared a look, and then looked to the little girl poorly covering her identity with goggles, a scarf, and an oversized letterman jacket.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

The girl frowned, worried the Spiders had at least made some sort of slightly educated guess about who she was. She wasn’t sure where she was exactly in the time stream, the jump was a little less than perfect, but she needed time.

Her family needed time.

“You have no idea what you’re tampering with! If you—you just have to trust me, okay?” she explained, looking down nervously at her watch.

Unlike the Society watches, hers had a time limit. Her mother had thought it was the best course of action, that to search the multiverse to even get a glimpse of happier times… there had to be a cut off.

Because one person can’t change the past, and they can’t replace it.

If only certain Spider-Men had heard that philosophy before jumping willy-nilly in time and space.

“Why?” Spider-Woman glanced between Robe Guy and three other Spiders, all five closing in on her.

“The fate of everything depends on it,” she was flustered, her entire speech gone from her head.

“Where’d you get the watch, kid?” the bedraggled Robe Guy asked.

“… my mom,” she answered.

“And does she know you’re out here?” he raised a brow.

“… I mean, time is relative and there will eventually be a moment in time when she knows I was doing this—” she started explaining.

“So that’s a no,” he half-smiled.

“I mean, does your baby know you’re here?” she threw back, internally cringing at herself.

“Normally my baby is here,” he shrugged.

“That sounds like bad parenting,” she deadpanned.

“And yet you’re here,” he countered.

“It’s not her fault. I ran away. I had… I have to fix something. Something in your future. And my past. Or my present, depending on how you look at it, I guess,” she tilted her head, still trying to figure out the best way to explain any of it.

“And that’s something we can help with?” Robe Guy asked, looking between the Spiders, who still had her cornered.

“No. But I know who can. And they’re in there,” she pointed down below, to the metal-covered windows.

“This has something to do with Miguel’s little multiverse experimentation, doesn’t it?” Spider-Woman looked at her expectantly, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was being lectured.

“It’s complicated,” her eyes were downcast.

The woman sighed, looking to the other Spiders.

“Alright, this has been fun, kid. But we have to bring you in, and whoever’s in there. Anomalies can’t stay in their own universe too long, you’ll glitch out,” the woman sent two webs at her, and she flipped barely fast enough out of the way.

They only spoke about anomalies, not any sort of additional hazard. Not that they had to explain to every villain of the week what was going on. But she was betting they would have said something, especially so quickly after 928B’s demise.

But 928B wasn’t gone.

Instead, it was stuck in a temporal loop.

The day before everything crashed.

Except, she didn’t have her slightly off-kilter dad and the Spiders didn’t show up to try to stop the collapse. And it didn’t collapse.

It was in stasis, nothing moving forward. It was like that super old movie her mom had shown her, Groundhog Day, but worse.

And nothing she did stopped it.

So… she left the universe. Did some homework on similar universes, until she landed on 928. In retrospect, it made perfect sense. Figuring if anyone could figure out what the problem was, it was the jaded, broken woman who ran away from the man who wore her father’s face.

At first, she thought she just needed to send her mother’s doppelgänger back to Nueva York before he left. But time was finicky, and she arrived too late. And she couldn’t endanger this dimension’s time stream by going back sooner.

“It’s already started,” she realized.

The Spiders shared another look, a silent conversation between the two lead Spiders.

“Kid, I’m gonna need you to come with me, okay?”

“It’s not what happens or how it happens. I don't even know if it's Spider-Man. It’s that no one stepped up. Okay? He ignored it, where I’m from. He got all the powers and then with my mom’s help tried to dampen them, lessen it. So by the time I came around they were a little more prepared. Or at least, that’s what everybody says. The file got it wrong, with your boss. They did try to recreate Spider-Man, but there was no Spider-Man. The lab was wiped clean, and Miguel O'Hara left Alchemax the next day. The data was changed, Lyla was mislead,” she tried explaining, looking to the left of the Spiders.

They’d cornered her right into a street she knew had an Alchemax camera.

And she knew in this universe, the missing man kept a log of all Nueva York footage in his apartment.

Lyla would see it, if she hadn't already.

“And I’m trying! But something broke. And I can’t fix it. And it’s not like Earth-1610 and Earth-42. They both have heroes, even if one of them doesn’t fit your boss’s definition. But he played house and now I’m suffering for it. My whole world is. And the only person I know who’s capable of un-clustering a mess like that is currently trapped in that stupid shocking building! So you’re going to leave her and my uncle alone and let them fix this stupid mess!” she pulled a last trick from her jacket, a little experiment from back home.

Apparently these things were supposed to be used to study aliens, but they’d have to work on Spider-People, too.

Closing her eyes and looking away, she threw the 5 hexagonal shaped pieces of tech, hoping beyond hope that even if her world was frozen, her mother’s tech wouldn’t fail her.

The trap mechanisms sprang, and the Spiders were floating in near holographic containers.

“Now do you see the familial resemblance?” Robe Guy asked sardonically.

Spider-Woman let out an exasperated huff, looking closer at the girl.

“Who’s your mom?”

“Xina Kwan, obviously. She’s gonna save the—well, at least my universe,” the girl declared, leaping off the skyscraper and pressing another button on her watch, waving cheekily at the trapped Spiders and disappearing with a flash.

The interior of Miguel O’Hara’s apartment was silent, again. This time, it was from disbelief.

“A kid?” Gabriel was flabbergasted.

“I don’t—we didn’t—obviously!” Xina stammered.

“Did she say a different universe…?” he blinked.

She had heard it all, her brain still catching up with the mile-a-minute explanation from the kid. That was the only was she could refer to her. She couldn’t think of her in any other way. Least of all because, even if she was from another universe, that didn’t make her hers. That made her some other version of her’s kid.

A daughter.

With Miguel?

She would have laughed if she hadn’t seen it with her own two eyes.

“So he… left us… for a different version of us?” Xina couldn’t help but be offended at the prospect.

“You had a kid!” Gabriel exclaimed.

“No, Gabriel. A different version of me did. We aren’t the same,” she felt her temple pulse, already wishing away her headache.

“But still, it’s you and Miguel! And you had a kid! How’s that even possible!?” he paced back and forth, waving hiss wildly above his head, laughing like it was a very good joke, instead of her new reality.

Lyla, their Lyla, appeared again.

“928B. A universe so nearly identical to this one in every way, save for the events of early 2098. Miguel O’Hara of 928B told his brother his worries about his relationship with one Xina Kwan, instead of burying himself in his work and being overly curious at his brother’s fling of the month. One month later, Dana D’Angelo would meet Tyler Stone at a corporate mixer and would end things with Gabriel O’Hara. In 2099, Gabriel would meet one Kacey Nash. By 2100, one Gabriella would be born,” Lyla explained, as if giving a historical account and not a universe so different from their own.

“But she’s not a baby, Lyla. She’s a whole kid. What year is it there?” Xina asked, trying not to notice how Gabriel’s eyes glistened at the name of this other her’s child.

“Due to time fluctuation between universes, it is currently 2110,” she said lightly.

“11 years in the future?!”

“But then… if I’m understanding right, how could Mig go there?” Gabriel question.

“The Miguel O’Hara of Earth 928B died approximately 13 hours, 2 minutes and 36 seconds ago,” Lyla said.

He had looked, he had found a time where he hadn’t crushed her heart and he had left. Slipping into the life of a better man, of someone who didn't break every person he came into contact with. Instead of staying, of trying to work through his complicated grief, he had left.

To go live with another version of her, and their child. Something she couldn't possibly picture going well, and yet it did.

In a very convoluted and uniquely Miguel way, it was the strongest declaration of love he had ever given her.

And she wanted to strangle him.

Chapter Text

“—we gonna talk about it? Hello, Earth to Xina?”

Once the footage had ended, something had snapped inside of Xina.

She was up in an instant, looking around Miguel’s apartment for something, anything to help them get out of this mess. If that girl was right, she was their only chance. Which… she didn’t entirely understand what she meant or what the full context was, but Xina knew she was the only one who could get them out of here.

He wasn’t coming to help them, and it seemed like he didn’t want their help, either.

“Lyla,” Xina started, raising a finger at Gabriel who glared back, “you’re still connected to the apartment and I’m guessing all the Spiders, right?”

The holo-agent nodded.

“But the version of you in my car isn’t compatible with the new tech Miguel’s messed with, is it?”

“No, Xi, but that’s—”

“If you say classified one more time, I’ll rewire your circuits.”

“He wouldn’t…” Lyla trailed off, looking between the two. Her gaze shifted to outside the metal paneling, as if she could see the south side of the Towers.

“They’ve used me to shutdown the containment fields. Now they are rewiring the apartment and will have access to the apartment in less than 5 minutes,” she droned.

Xina groaned in annoyance, pulling Gabriel along with her.

“What are you doing? We have no way outta here—”

“Don’t you get it, Gabe?! They think we don’t belong in this universe. They’re going to capture us and throw us who knows where. And your brother can’t help us because he’s light-years away in some universe with some better version of me. So, I’m trying to find any of his stupid inventions that might help us,” she ranted, shifting throw papers and half put together gadgets.

“Think I’m better there, too?” Gabriel asked absentmindedly, picking up a strange metal watch in curiosity.

“Not remotely the point, dummy. Wait… what is that?” she looked at the metal band.

“Dunno, but isn’t a watch kinda TwenCen-y of him? Who even uses these anymore?” he frowned, putting it on.

The watch lit up, informing them they were in Universe 928A.

Xina’s jaw dropped.

“This is how they do it. These connect to Lyla and the warp technology.”

Gabriel eyed her curiously, looking down from the watch and back up to the drawer he had found it in labelled “Prototypes.”

“But these—”

The metal paneling lifted and the emergency lighting turned off, leaving the two of them squinting from the sudden sunlight. They were out of time and options, and this was all they had to show for it.

“Oh, shock me.”

Gabriel grimaced, glancing from the sound of the unlocking door to the dangerous experimental technology.

“Where’s the on switch to this thing?” he complained, his finger shaking with nerves at pressing the wrong thing.

“Later. Just stuff it in your jacket. Guess your Blade Runner look is finally paying off,” she snarked, dashing back across to the couch, shoving a familiar frame inner pocket of her own jacket along with another prototype watch.

The second they had hidden away their findings, the door burst open, revealing three of the Spiders from earlier.

“So whaddya think we’re dealing with, Jess? Alternate Green Goblin 2099, or ooh, maybe a super creepy futuristic evil Jameson!” came the overly gleeful voice of the Pink Robe Guy.

“You are way too happy about this,” the woman named Jess rolled her eyes.

“We never get any 2099 variants, and Miguel is a steel-trap of fun so we don’t even know anything about the guy. Although, one time my Vulture landed in this dimension and he said something about how he was thrilled he wasn’t a cannibal, which was too specific of a reference to not mean something,” the Robe Guy droned on.

Gabriel panicked, grabbed her hand and tried to kneel behind the couch, but she pulled back, keeping them both upright.

“What are you doing?!” he hissed.

“We aren’t going to hide from them! That won’t give us enough time to get out of here, anyway. Just keep the watch in your pocket,” she whispered back.

“You’re the one that said they’d catch us and lock us up!” he bit back.

“Yeah, they will. But that means they take us to the Valhalla building, Gabriel. That’s how we get real answers. And if… it doesn’t go well, we use the gizmos and we get out of here,” Xina explained, mouthing the last of her words as the Spiders rounded the entryway corner.

“Why does it feel like you and Miguel are playing 4D chess and I’m sitting in the corner, bored out of my mind,” Gabriel wiped a hand down his face, tired.

“Can you just trust me on this?” she said quietly.

“Of course I do. I’m not stupid.”

Xina smiled at that, which quickly turned to a frown as the thwip sound pushed them up against Miguel’s living room wall.

She looked down at the webbing, immediately curious about the substance. It seemed to be synthetic in nature, but the webbing that held Gabriel in place looked… organic?

“Well that’s a bummer. They’re both totally normal,” Robe Guy complained.

Gabriel frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jess and Robe Guy shared a look.

“Family anomalies? Is that even a thing?” Jess rose an eyebrow.

“I mean it is a multiverse, and it is infinite and blah, blah, blah. Whatever else Miguel says about it. Anything is possible,” Robe Guy shrugged.

“Family—? How’d you—?”

“C’mon, Gabriel. You’ve both had the same pout since you were kids. It’s not the hard to piece together,” Xina said, hoping he’d catch on that she was trying to stall.

Maybe not stall, but at least get these Spiders talking.

If they were anything like the one she had studied as a kid, according to the urban legends and second-hand accounts, he loved to talk.

“So we’ve got the Trench Coat Cyberpunk Dimension and a The 1990s Never Ended Dimension,” Robe Guy observed.

“Chatty and mean. I bet Miggy fits in great with you guys,” Gabriel snarked.

The Spiders shared another look.

“Miggy?”

“Oh, I am absolutely using that,” the Robe Guy laughed.

“What, a nickname from an alternate reality relative, Peter? He’s already sad and moody and broody all the time, you can’t make it worse,” Jess rolled her eyes.

Gabriel glanced at Xina, both of them thinking the same: that sounded like Miguel.

“Wait,” Xina started, noticing how timid they were around the subject of his family, “what… happened to his family, the one from here? If we really aren’t in our dimension, what’s it like here?”

She was gambling, and it was risky and stupid and she could almost hear the rant the older O’Hara would give her if he ever found out about any of this. But a larger part of her wondered if he even cared. He could care enough to look for her in another world, but not enough to stay here and try to fix things.

And even then, she was assuming he had ever wanted to…

She couldn’t compete with a ghost.

He could love her in another world, one where Dana never died.

But here? She would always be a reminder.

Even if Lyla had wasted no time telling her the wrongdoings of Dana, of how she played with the O’Haras and even Stone just for fun. She couldn’t shake the guilt, the gnawing feeling in her stomach if she had just moved faster or done something differently…

She had told Dana that she owed her more than she could ever know.

And now she owed her her life, something she could never repay.

“He never said. So I just kind of figured…” Peter shrugged, glancing at Jess.

“We are not risking the space time continuum because an anomaly wants to know what happened to another version of themselves. That’s like, Anomaly 101, Peter,” the other woman looked at him expectantly.

“Even if we wanted to, he never talks about them,” he said casually.

“Peter!”

“What? Do we even know if that guy has a mom? What if he just popped up out of the blue one day, a full-grown sarcastic buzz-kill?”

Gabriel snorted, drawing the eyes of the Spiders.

“Promise you, he’s got a mom,” the younger O’Hara said.

“Maybe your Miguel does,” Peter pointed out, a kind of smugness about him that irritated Xina.

She needed to hold her tongue.

They had to get inside that building, get some sort of insight into what Miguel had done.

And this Spider Guy was making it increasingly harder for her not to correct him.

“Whatever, let’s get them and go. I don’t wanna stay in Miguel’s depression cave any longer than I have to,” Jess shuddered.

Xina covered her laugh with a cough, earning her a strange look from Jess.

“You know… she kind of reminds me of…nah, there’s no way,” the other woman said, looking at her intently.

“Glib humor? Loves laughing at every single one of Miguel’s mess-ups? Nah, you’re probably right,” Gabriel grinned.

Jess and Xina gave him a look.

“Oookay, you guys have had your fun. Time to send you back home to your own dimension before Miguel hears about this,” Jess said, carefully tying up Xina while Peter grabbed Gabriel.

Xina frowned at her words, assuming she would try to send them home with the watch on her wrist.

“But how will you know where we’re from?” she asked, the second her question was over she felt the slap of webbing across her face.

She had never once found herself on the wrong side of Spider-Man, mainly because she wasn’t a corporate nightmare or any of the other horror shows Miguel fought, but she couldn’t say she was fond of it.

“The Go Home Machine!” Peter supplied, the two Spiders carrying them out of Miguel’s apartment.

“Peter!”

“What are they gonna do? Go tell their Spider-Man? As if,” he shrugged.

Xina rolled her eyes, briefly wondering what their Spider-Man would do if he saw the mess they had gotten themselves into. She reminded herself none of this would have happened if he hadn’t run off.

“What about that kid? We don’t know what she wants, or why she was ranting about the multiverse. What if they’re with her?” the other woman asked skeptically.

Good luck must be some sort of Spider talent, because no one saw them in the hallway of Babylon Towers or at the entrance, and no one noticed when Jess put her on the bike of her motorcycle.

If this was another place and time, Xina would have wanted to ask her about the bike and what year it was from, because it looked suspiciously like the TwenCen. It wasn’t like the twentieth century didn’t exist in other universes, she had just never… thought about it.

Questioning the scope of the multiverse would drive her crazy.

Or do whatever Miguel did.

She grimaced, her mind going back to the little girl.

So it couldn’t all work out here, in this universe? Did he know that for a fact, or was he just running off of semi-educated guesses? He wouldn’t even know how she felt about him unless he asked, and he never had.

In the rush of everything, with him begging for her to fix Lyla and agreeing to come with her to Nightshade… she knew things weren’t good with him and Dana. And after he had ended things… Xina didn’t think it was her place to push him about the state of his so-called relationship.

Sure, she pushed him before, to try to get him to be a better person. But that was when they were kids, before Alchemax had sunk its teeth into him. A corporate Miguel, with a corporate fiancé and apartment and all that that entailed.

At least, that was what she had convinced herself. If the truth was murkier, if he really had ruined everything they had over the fear of something greater than complacency…

But that wasn’t the man that knocked on her door after two years of no contact.

In all of her fascination of the TwenCen and even of the Heroic Age, she was never enamored with the Spider-Man of 2099. It seemed to be some glory hound trying to profit off the dreams of the people. Or worse, some sort of malignant design of Alchemax’s to turn heroes into the police force…

“Do you see the kid? She’s not here. And she had a watch. Or at least… a version of a watch. Maybe it’s some kind of convoluted new training exercise by Mr. Dark and Gloomy. You two will get your DNA scanned, it’ll alert us to your universe, and it’ll send you there. Easy peasy. I’ll be home for dinner,” Peter said cheekily.

Xina glanced toward Gabriel, who was still flung over Peter’s shoulder. He was wondering the same thing as her: what would happen when it scanned them and saw they were from here?

The way they spoke about Miguel… he clearly wasn’t doing well.

But it seemed to them as if he was always like this, snarky and off-putting and a permanent grimace. And maybe, in some ways, he did come off that way. He was terrible at first impressions. Though, a permanent frown didn’t always linger on his face.

Did any of the Spiders even know him? They clearly didn’t know who Gabriel was, or Mrs. O’Hara. And sure, superheroes had secret identities… but did that matter if you didn’t even live in the same universe? But mentioning who you did any of this for, it would make sense, right? She didn’t expect her own name to come up, too much baggage and unsavory history to even begin to unpack with someone who’s a mirror of yourself in another dimension.

Or maybe the Spiders related too much to personal loss and difficulty and didn’t need to dig any deeper than the forlorn look in his eyes.

It seemed pretty clear none of them had convinced him to sit in his grief or even think about how his actions could affect anybody he claimed to love.

She had wanted to… to try to talk to him about any of it. When she walked up to Alchemax, going in with one set purpose and he had waved her off. Too busy trying to get revenge on Venom.

Too busy trying to get revenge of Kron Stone.

Guess in a way, this was all her fault.

What if he was right, all those years ago? Their actions got that murderer expelled, giving him free range to do whatever he wanted. The truth didn’t set anybody free, and it kept her running and rerunning every moment of that awful day in her head for the last three months.

And now that she knew Venom was Kron, and Miguel was Spider-Man…

Someone had to be collateral damage.

But she knew who that someone was supposed to be, and it wasn’t the status-seeking heartbreaker.

Xina shot another look to Gabriel, some unconscious fear that the Spider-Man from another world would drop him. He just met her gaze, and she saw her own worry reflected in his eyes.

For as much trouble as he gave them both, he was Miguel.

He could disconnect and distance himself as much as he wanted, but they would always be there.

“Gabri! What are you doing with that?! Give it back, can’t you see I’m trying to talk to someone—!” teen Miguel complained, pulling the tablet away from his younger brother.

Gabriel frowned, wondering why his brother didn’t want to play anymore.

He blamed that stupid school.

Ever since he went away, everything changed. Their mom didn’t look at him the same, and Gabriel was pretty sure he saw her frown every time Miguel left the room in a huff.

But he still wanted to be with his brother, so he kept trying.

Peering up at the tablet, he could make out a few sentences and seemed surprised at the correspondence between his brother and the mystery person.

“Who’s that? Is that the girl you met? She seemed really funny, is she like your girlfriend or something? If you get a girlfriend does that mean Mom’ll let me get one, too?” he rattled off his questions.

Miguel rolled his eyes at the younger O’Hara.

“For the last time, I’m talking to Xina. Sure, I guess she’s funny. And gross, no. We are not…no way, that’s not… even if I did like her like that—wait. Why am I telling you this, you’re like, 8 years old,” he sassed.

“I’m 11! Why do you keep acting like I’m some little kid!”

“Newsflash, Gabe. You are some little kid,” Miguel snarked.

Gabriel puffed up in annoyance, eyes watering in anger.

“I thought school was supposed to make you smarter! Instead you’re just some kind of jerk… like Dad!” Gabriel snapped.

Miguel’s blood ran cold, and for a moment Gabriel regretted the words.

“Out! Get out of my shocking room!” Miguel shouted, leaping off his bed and shoving the younger O’Hara further out of the door. Gabriel shoved back, starting to cry.

“Migue quit it! You’re being mean!” Gabriel cried.

The older boy looked down at his brother with disdain.

“Me? Being mean? I’m trying to get you out, you idiot! Don’t you get it? If I actually do good at this stupid school, maybe I get an in with Alchemax and then I can get my own place and you and Mom never have to worry about that piece of shit again! But no, I’m the bad guy, right? Just like him? Buzz off,” Miguel gave the younger boy one last shove, and slammed the door to his bedroom.

He tried to ignore the voice of his mother, softer and kinder with Gabriel than it ever was with him.

Checking on the younger boy, making sure he wasn’t hurt.

Well, if Gabriel didn’t want him to do it, guess it had to be their Mom’s job.

Not like she was ever looking out for him.

“Miguel! Open this door, right now!” his mother called.

Case in point.

“I’m busy!” he shouted back.

“Either you come out or I come in!” she replied, the anger dripping in her voice.

Miguel sighed, typing out another message to Xina that he wouldn’t be replying for a bit. For a moment he wondered what her summer break was like, and if it included cruel fathers and overbearing mothers.

Doubtful.

Every single time she mentioned her parents it was an overall fondness, something he had never felt for his own. Even if sometimes it felt like his mother wanted better for him, she had only gotten more and more distant the longer he went to Alchemax.

But she didn’t get it, and neither did Gabriel. If he could just push through these years, he could actually get them out of the lower floors of Nueva York. Sure, it wasn’t the nightmare that was Downtown, but it wasn’t that great, either.

Especially when the shadow of his father kept them all alert, no matter the hour.

He stepped to the door, pulling it open with a trained disinterest.

“Yes?”

His mother shot him a look he couldn’t read, and for a moment he felt ashamed.

She had done that more and more, especially when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

But he was always paying attention.

“Gabriel says you yelled at him and hit him, throwing him out of your room. Is that true?” she asked.

He resisted the urge to glare at his little brother.

“Well, he’s not in there anymore and I had the door closed. What do you think?”

His mother looked down in disappointment and something else in her eyes, something akin to resentment.

She’d never done that before.

“You can talk to me however you like, Miguel. I don’t expect you to respect me, but he’s your little brother. When I’m old and gray and gone, he’ll still be here. And I like to think the two of you will still be brothers,” she said pointedly.

Miguel frowned, shame creeping up in him.

“He’s the one that called me Dad,” he mumbled, crossing his arms.

His mother looked down at Gabriel, her frown only deepening.

“Both of you… stay in your rooms until dinner. And don’t be so quick to lash out. You’re brothers, remember that,” she said after a moment, her head already a thousand miles away.

That happened a lot, too.

The two watched her leave, neither making eye contact.

Gabriel crossed the hall to his room, giving Miguel one last look as he closed the door.

The older boy scoffed, jumping back onto his bed and picking up his tablet again.

It must be so nice to have a little brother. Sometimes I wish I did, it gets a little lonely. I hope your break is going well… and somehow you’ve done the impossible O’Hara, I miss you. Don’t get into any fights without me. We both know you’d lose. — Xina.

“Ground control to Major Tom, Ground Control to Major Tom, take your protein—“

“No!” Gabriella threw her pillow at the retro alarm clock, the dulcet sounds of a TwenCen musician abruptly cut off.

She was here, again. And again and again, in some sort of awful loop, never moving forward.

Every day, since the day her father died, she woke up in her bed, thinking somehow nothing had gone wrong and it was all an awful nightmare.

But nobody ever told her nightmares could be waking.

“Good morning, Gabriella! This is our twenty-seventh Thursday morning in a row. The weather remains the same: sunny, with a light chance of rain later tonight,” LY-LA appeared from nowhere, a cheeky grin on her face.

“And why are you the only one who remembers that, besides me?” Gabriella whined, falling back onto her bed, pulling the covers over her head again.

“Well, like I said yesterday, and the day before that, and the day after that—!”

“LY-LA,” she admonished, peeking her head out of the blankets.

“I’m connected to my own mainframe, but there was the brief moment before the world collapsed that I felt the presence of that alternate Lyla. Could that be it?” LY-LA said lightly, as if she were still discussing the weather, and not the demise of an entire world.

“But the world isn’t collapsed! At least, not anymore. Now we’re just… here,” Gabriella frowned, standing up and pacing around.

“Technically, it’s more akin to the moment before total collapse. This is more like the last moments of a dying star,” LY-LA supplied.

“But we aren’t dying. And wouldn’t it make more sense if we were stuck in the day it collapsed, not three months in the past?” she questioned, biting her lip.

LY-LA zipped out, reappearing in a lab coat with a white board behind her, a description of the multiverse behind her.

“Well, working off of all known knowledge on the subject—“

“And is that knowledge gathered by the fake? Why would we trust anything he has to say?”

“I’m not using his data, that wouldn’t get us anywhere. He has at best around 300 universes catalogued, and when something, by definition, is infinite, he can’t ever get the data he wants,” LY-LA explained.

Gabriella tilted her head, confused.

“If it is infinite, then what’s the point of collecting data in the first place? Isn’t that kinda.. pointless?”

“Knowledge isn’t pointless, Gabriella,” LY-LA frowned.

“It didn’t get him anything, did it?” she sassed, mindlessly cleaning her room and getting dressed for the day.

The first couple of times the days repeated, she thought maybe she was supposed to try to stop something, like all the old movies said. Gabriella warned her mother about the groceries and her dad, saying they didn’t need them.

Anything to make him stay home that night.

But she couldn’t change it, no matter what her father would still leave.

And she would wake up the next morning, her mother far too quiet, asking him strange questions about their school days and inside jokes that she had heard far too many times.
The worrying part was that her father had seemed to have forgotten half of what her mother knew, claiming he was just too tired that day. Gabriella believed him, at first. But then he forgot their pancake handshake, he was surprised about the bicycles rides through Central Park, and he always looked a little bashful when her mother would kiss him.

Like he didn’t deserve any of it.

But that wasn’t her father, just an imitation from another world. And maybe he didn’t deserve it.

She used to think it was so embarrassing, how much her parents clearly liked each other.

Now every time she had to watch her father leave for the day, joking to her mother about how she’d finally get a moment of peace with him out of the way for the day, she couldn’t help but frown.

Gabriella knew every part of his day.

He’d go out and get new parts for LY-LA’s mainframe, drop by her Tío’s place, before remembering to pick up groceries for dinner.

When everything fell apart, she hadn’t known when her father was replaced, but she just knew it wasn’t him. And now, trapped in the same day, she couldn’t understand why the universe could be so cruel.

“Knowledge isn’t useless, Gabriella. Your mother knows that, and so did your father. From everything I can see, I think the world is stuck because this was supposed to the beginning,” LY-LA explained.

“Newsflash, LY-LA, death isn’t a beginning. It’s the end,” she felt her throat close up, knowing that behind her door and down the hall her father was still here, living in some sort of half-life because time had stopped.

“Not in this instance. Heroes… they have origins, that’s no different in the year 2110. And like the Spider-Man of old, it does start with death. More precisely, your father’s death,” LY-LA said quietly.

Gabriella stared at the AI.

“What, are you saying I’m supposed to be Spider-Man or something? I’m a kid, LY-LA! Spider-Man was some guy with a mid-life crisis. That’s not possible,” she muttered.

“No, that’s part of the issue. I ran through Lyla of 928A’s data, and it seems like something… something altered history. Your father wasn’t supposed to die today. It was going to be five years from now,” the holo-agent pulled her screens around and away, trying to decipher the information.

“How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Because your… the other one, from 928A, he isn’t entirely responsible. Someone else in this world was tampering with the multiverse first. And it wasn’t Xina, either,” the AI blinked.

Gabriella’s eyes widened.

“My mother was doing what, exactly?”

LY-LA frowned, already dreading the next words out of her mouth.

“She has always wondered at the stars, how expansive the universe is, and what exists beyond there. It wasn’t just extraterrestrials that piqued her interest, but the worlds, plural.”

“LY-LA, my mom does android repair. What, you’re saying she’s building a way to sit other worlds in our basement? How would my dad never find out about that?” Gabriella rose an eyebrow, thinking she had gotten the upper-hand on the AI.

“Because he knows. Just like she knows whenever he’s cooped up in the little home office of his he’s trying to reverse engineer the Heroic Age’s Spider-Man,” LY-LA said matter-of-factly.

“He’s what?!”

LY-LA rolled her eyes, expecting the youngest O’Hara to have at least explored the house in the twenty-seven days she had relived.

“It’s been nearly a month and you haven’t looked around the place? Not even a little?”

“I dunno, LY-LA! Maybe I assumed my parents weren’t doing crazy science in our basement!”

“It’s your parents, of course they are,” LY-LA smiled.

“… you said she’s working to understand the multiverse, right? And dad’s trying to understand Spider-Man?” Gabriella started, a plan starting to form in her head.

A plan that her parents, her Tío and even the fake one would no doubt lecture her for until the end of time.

“…yes.”

“You already know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?”

“I’ve known your parents since before you were born, and you are half of each of them. Of course I know what you’re going to ask,” LY-LA said, a nervousness in her voice.

“Well… if I do it, what are our chances? That we un-break this mess? I mean, we would have to find someone who could look at the universe with a clinical eye, but with an understanding of the stakes and the multiverse at large. I mean, it has to be Mom, right? At least, a version of her. She’s the only one I know who’s smart enough to get us out of here,” Gabriella explained, rushing around the room, looking for anything that could help her.

“Statistically? I mean, it’s the best path forward. If we leave the universe, we at least crack through the distortion. And I started running hypothetical solutions the moment we restarted… but you’re right. We have to find a version of your mother. But you won’t like it. At least, not the universe.”

“What about it?”

“It’s the other one. The one he left, to come here.”

“She’s alive?!” Gabriella exclaimed.

“But… I figured he wouldn’t—“

“It’s not like this place, Gabriella. He hurt her and he avoided owning up to it, for years. There’s so much different there, but that version of Xina is still our best bet.”

Gabriella frowned, wishing she could just talk to her own mother.

But she couldn’t bring her along, she didn’t remember anything from after her father died. And if she could keep her happy a little longer, she would. At least in permanent stasis, her parents never became collateral damage.

“One last thing, there’s a bit of a time displacement involved, so while we may live in 2110, they live in 2099. And… they may look like your parents and your uncle, but they aren’t them, not really. Direct engagement isn’t, truthfully, advised, but there’s never been a cross dimensional time-displacement like this… besides, well, the other Miguel, but…”

“We aren’t doing it like him. I’m not running away from anything,” Gabriella snapped.

A sound from outside her door stopped the conversation, and she remembered her parents were still out there, the clock ticking away. No doubt they were wondering what was taking her so long.

“We’ll leave tonight. When it’s quiet, so nobody will see. And it’s not like Mom or Tío will be worried, it’s like no time will have passed,” the girl explained, trying to comfort herself more than the holo-agent beside her.

“Okay, Gabriella.”

“One of these days I’m getting Miguel to explain to me if this is the New York City of the future, why they still have so much traffic,” Peter complained.

“Maybe it’s a canon event,” Jess said drily.

“Oh, hardy har har,” Peter rolled his eyes.

The two Spiders had taken them back across the city, nearer to once what was once considered Manhattan.

When she had first seen the Spiders, Xina didn’t understand why no one else in Nueva York noticed that they clearly weren’t the S-Man of 2099. But they took underused paths, trying to stay out of the average Nueva Yorker’s way.

Probably making it infinitely more annoying to get across town.

For a moment, they passed by her own apartment complex, and she remembered the catalyst of all this, Lyla’s initial malfunction. From where she stood, it didn’t seem like Miguel would ever speak to her again. But because the holo-agent broke… he actually overcame his own massive ego and re-entered her life.

Even if the apology was half-assed.

If she and Gabriel managed to ever find him again, he owed her far more than an apology.

The webbing still clung to their faces, but from where she was sitting on the back of the motorbike, she could see Gabriel’s look of apprehension. She shared the sentiment.

But as long as the watches really worked, they could make it out of there before their DNA got scrambled to… well, she wasn’t entirely sure what would happen.

The closer they got to the skyscraper, the worse the anticipation became.

Outside the building, Jess and Peter sat them beside the hexagonal tablets they saw before, and suddenly they were trapped in cube-like devices.

But the webbing came off, at least.
“Next time I see Miguel, I’m kicking his ass,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth.

“And water is wet,” Xina replied, noting the look the Spiders shared again.

She leaned too far to the side of the wall, and felt a crack on her side. In all of the movement and chaos, she had forgotten the frame. Gingerly, she reached for her inner jacket pocket, feeling for the photo.

It was stupid and dangerous and in those few moments before the Spider entourage came, should should have reached for anything else.

But this picture was the last good memory she had of Miguel.

And if there was a chance he wasn’t coming back… she wanted it.

It was hers, anyway. And finding a photo printer in 2099 was incredibly hard when everyone just wanted holographs of their loved ones.

“What’s that?” Peter asked, glancing at her.

“Nothing,” she lied, shoving the picture back in her pocket.

“Do all Spider people ruin their relationships, or is Miguel just really, really good at that?” Gabriel asked.

Peter and Jess shared a look.

“That guy? In a relationship? No way. He’s married to the job. Even if he was in one, that poor soul would be the last thing on his mind,” Peter said matter-of-factly.

Xina couldn’t help but agree.

“Well, ask him sometime,” Gabriel snarked.

“Geez, 2099 variants are mean. No wonder Miguel never lets anybody handle them,” Peter cast a wary glance at the two.

“We never have any, Peter. That’s why,” Jess reminded him.

She found that intriguing, that in an infinite world of possibilities… there were never any other versions of Miguel’s world.

Something seemed wrong. That just… wasn’t mathematically possible.

Maybe the little girl was right, maybe there was something amuck in the worlds.

The Spiders led them back and up through the building, and Xina noted that everything was upside down, even the elevator.

“I bet Miguel thinks this is real funny. So all this time, even if I wanted to march right in, I’d just fall flat on my face because I can’t stick to anything,” Gabriel pouted.

“Maybe he learned his lesson,” Xina supplied, curious at the different Spiders that seemed to occupy every corner of the building.

“He’s the one that leaves his door unlocked! And when I have a problem, I need to talk to him. It’s… it’s always been like that,” Gabriel crossed his arms, leaning against the holographic cage wall.

“There isn’t a place like this in your world. This is the command center of the Spider-Verse,” Peter explained.

“You know Miguel hates it when you call it that,” Jess side eyed him.

“It flows off the tongue better than Arachnid-Humanoid Poly-Multiverse, c’mon, Jess!”

The Spider-Woman stayed silent, shaking her head at the man’s antics.

But Xina wasn’t paying attention to the Spiders anymore, she had started to feel an eerie familiarity to the patchwork technology all around her. It almost seemed like… like all of the schematics and theoretical drawings she had done in school. When she still dreamed of studying the stars and the concept of extraterrestrial life.

And she had only ever shown one person these drawings.

Miguel hadn’t made fun of her, hadn’t laughed at the absurdity of her dreams.

Because he didn’t think they were out of reach like everybody else.

When she had cleaned out her apartment of anything that might remind her of him, she had found her old notebooks again. Still filled with different containment fields and modified tech, but a sour note at the new association with her ex-boyfriend.

Much like the photo of the two of them, she couldn’t part with it.

So the notebooks stayed paperweights, and up until very recently, she had assumed they had stayed in her apartment, on her nightstand, never to be read through again.

He did more than look back, he must have… what, looked through her old journals?

She hadn’t left a forwarding address for a reason, and he was looking for clues on how to find her.

And when he failed to do that, he took her hypothetical inventions and turned them into… this?

She didn’t understand him.

“Why do you guys have to capture people in the wrong dimensions and send them home?” she asked, tired of playing silent.

“You can’t stay here. It’ll disrupt the very fabric of reality. This force field keeps you from glitching out and damaging the universe,” Jess said, unbothered now that they were finally set to get rid of the anomalies.

“And you guys only ever go to other places to take people home?” she pushed, looking to Gabriel for help. He just nodded, following the train of thought.

“…yeah?” Peter peered at her.

“So why’s this universe’s Miguel somewhere else? Isn’t that kind of contradictory?” Gabriel asked.

Peter and Jess shared a look.

“I mean, he’s the one who discovered multiversal jumping in the first place. And he made the traps, the Go Home Machine, and everything else. So… he… well, he’s unhappy. Something awful must have happened here and he wanted to be reminded of a place where he wasn’t,” Jess answered.

“Some might call that running away,” Xina clipped out, trying to control her anger.

“And some people might still be here, living through the awful thing while he’s off pretending to be happy,” Gabriel seethed.

“We’re all Spiders. You don’t become Spider-Man or someone like him without bad things happening, alright? He was alone when we met him. He didn’t talk about any family or friends or even girlfriends, so there’s no way he can see you two. Whatever problems you have with your universe’s Spider-Man, take it up with him,” Peter glared, and it seemed like they magically jumped the line of anomalies to the universe genetic marker machine.

Xina and Gabriel gaped at the machine, all too familiar with the technology of 2099 and of where Miguel drew his inspirations.

“It looks like something out of Alchemax,” Xina whispered.

“What? No, it’s not,” Peter’s brow furrowed, shielding his eyes as they sent another anomaly away.

“I live in a world where Alchemax owns everything, pretty sure I know Alchemax when I see it, buddy,” Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Xina’s cage moved on its own, passing by Gabriel’s and for a moment she panicked, trying to remember her plan at all.

The watches were pre-synched when they had grabbed them, and while she didn’t know what universe it was set to, but it wasn’t here, and that’s all that mattered.

Bright lights signaled the machine was being prepped, and her eyes found Gabriel’s, his hands rummaging in his trench coat for the watch again. She slipped hers on, absent-mindlessly taking out the banged up picture frame, not noticing the folded up photo that clung to the other side of the frame.

She saw him clasp it on his wrist, and nodded once.

Without thinking too long, the two pressed a dial on their watches, and in a burst of light the two disappeared from the anomaly cages.

Peter’s jaw dropped, while Jess started ranting about how nothing ever went wrong except when she went on missions with the Society’s resident stay-at-home dad.

Above, Margo had finally gotten a reading on the home dimension of the two anomalies.

She gasped, swinging down to Peter and Jess, tablet in hand.

“What the heck is going on?!” she exclaimed, reeling from the information on the tablet.

“I mean, I guess there’s a first time for everything—“ Peter shrugged.

“Peter, shut up! You weren’t bringing in anomalies. Those two are from here, Earth 928. Says here his name is Gabriel O’Hara. And Lyla’s database shows a bunch of saved files about him, but they’re all encrypted on Miguel’s private server. And that woman? Her name is Xina Kwan. Same story with her, but an encrypted message was sent out today to her from Miguel,” Margo explained, pulling up the time stamps on the unreadable messages.

“So what? Miguel’s family isn’t dead, and they came here to rip him a new one?” Jess asked skeptically, looking back at where the two used to be.

Peter frowned, seeing something in the distance, and swung over to the Go Home Machine, picking up the still-smoking photo.

It was the woman and Miguel, both looking at each other with far more than fondness.

“Oh, buddy, what did you do?”

Chapter Text

After what could only be described as the worst roller coaster of all time, Gabriel blinked and suddenly they weren’t in the corporation-turned-Spider building. Instead, it almost seemed like they were flying through space, except it wasn’t space.

Or maybe it was space and time?

If he thought about it too long, his head would explode.

It already kind of felt like it did, especially with everything he had just seen.

Of course his jerk brother couldn’t handle just micro-managing his own life, he seemed to be doing it for hundreds of other people, too.

He couldn’t handle looking himself in the mirror after Dana’s death, so he just avoided any and all reflection on his actions, deciding there was no Miguel, just Spider-Man? Talk about flawed logic. Because Spider-Man failed her, too.

Spider-Man failed all of them.

The spinning feeling of awfulness kept going, and he briefly wondered if he was just going to die in some weird in-between space between reality.

Figures his brother would still find a way to nearly get him killed, no presence necessary.

And as quickly as it had started, the two of them were suddenly spat out the other end, skidding into an alleyway. Disoriented, Gabriel still noticed it looked eeriest similar to their own world.

Well… it still could be their world. But even if they only got sent packing all the way across town, at least the Spider people didn’t know where they were. Hopefully. If he ever saw Miguel’s smarmy face again, he’d punch his lights out.

“Is the world still spinning or is my brain just broken?” he grouched, holding his hand to his head, thinking that if he had a concussion it would be the least of his problems.

“Spinning here, lot’s of spinning,” Xina agreed, a look of disgust on her face as she peeled away a piece of rogue trash from her shoulder.

“What was that?” Gabriel grimaced.
“I don’t really feel like playing the pronoun game right now, Gabriel,” Xina said, glancing around the alleyway.

“The building! The Spiders! They called us anomalies. What the hell does that mean?”

“Something that doesn’t belong in the universe. I’m guessing if you stay too long in a dimension your atoms don’t belong in… well it’s not pretty. They thought they were helping us,” Xina shrugged, trying to stand up.

“They didn’t even know who we were,” he muttered.

“Well, why would they?” Xina asked, grabbing onto the nearest building wall for support.

“Because it’s us! I mean, I’m his brother for crying out loud. I’ve known he was Spider-Man since the first day he tumbled his way through Nueva York. And that old guy, the Heroic Age Spider-Guy, he had his own family, right? They made it into the archives. He had his aunt and uncle and his friends! Why didn’t he tell them about us?”

The woman stopped dusting herself off, and looked down where he still sat, surprise in her features.

“The archives? You mean you read all those musty old books I kept around?”

Gabriel looked away, trying to find his words before he spoke.

“Yeah, well… you made it sound so interesting as a kid. When you would talk about the real history of Nueva York, all the heroes and villains and even the aliens. I know Miguel thought you were just making stuff up, or even doing it to get a rise out of him. But I always believed you,” he explained, embarrassed to be revealing this to her after so many years.

“But he did believe me! At least, in school he did. I told him Alchemax wanted to cover up the history of the city and he trusted me. And then he went off to work for Stone and suddenly I was just living a great big pipe-dream. But the whole time… they were trying to bring back Spider-Man. And just to make him a flyboy,” Xina frowned, indignant.

He pressed his lips together, trying to think of why Miguel would dismiss Xina. He never used to, not before his internships and university.

Then all it seemed he would do was write her off or say that she just didn’t know as much as he did.

“I mean, they covered it all up before. And didn’t you have to bypass a bunch of security clearances in the school library to even get the books you did? I’m sure that made you more than a little suspicious,” Gabriel said.

Xina rolled her eyes, remembering this very conversation with the other O’Hara.

“Yeah, but Angela said it was fine. I seriously doubt that put me on some sort of Alchemax Hit List, come on.”

“You sure you’re talking about the same place that’s so miserable to work at they give their employees an all-addicting drug to get through the day? The place that privatized health care and banking and housing? Those people wouldn’t put you on a list just for disagreeing with them?” Gabriel argued, recalling all the things Kasey had said Alchemax was responsible for and did.

He had known some of it, his mother was never once to mince words, especially about a place like Alchemax.

“… a corporation run by a man who’s shown his disdain for me time and again, who’s only son I got kicked out of private school. Fine, maybe there’s something there. But why would Miguel care about that?” Xina huffed.

The younger O’Hara was starting to understand why Lyla was so sick of dealing with his brother and Xina.

“Shock, you two are something else.”

The woman shook her head at him, disbelief clear on her face.

For a brief moment, he lived in a world where he could just kick them both into a closet and force them to talk through their issues and obvious feelings.

But that would require them to be in the same dimension.

They weren’t even in their dimension anymore.

Gabriel gasped, the realization setting in. In his head, he was going to go over to Miguel’s, the sad sack would be lounging in his living room and Gabriel could leave the two of them alone to reconcile or fight or whatever they decided. He really didn’t care, he just didn’t want to be involved.

And here he was instead, running from the law. Well… Spider…. law? Vigilantes were illegal, and they were in costumes running around stopping crime. So that couldn’t be the law, right? He and Xina had watches so were they really technically breaking universal law by being in another dimension?

Nope, he was not spiraling. This was not a spiral. He would not panic. Absolutely not.

Oh, no.

He had dinner with Kasey and his mother tonight.

And judging from the way the sun was hitting the windows across the street… he might have missed dinner with Kasey and his mother.

“Why are you making that face?” Xina asked, looking wary.

Gabriel scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe it’s the fact I thought my brother was just playing Ignore My Family Forever and would be sulking in his apartment in his stupid robe for the millionth time. Maybe it’s because I thought that I’d help you get in, the two of you could have the same old half-assed conversation that never really clears the air because neither of you want to admit how much you hurt and how much hurt Miguel did. Or maybe it’s because, like always, I decided to look after my brother’s interests instead of my own, and now I’m paying the price? Same old shocking story, Xina,” he snapped, his head clearer then it had been in hours.

He felt a twinge of guilt at the way her face fell, but she needed to hear it. Preferably, Miguel would have heard it, too. But same old story, he wasn’t. His brother was never where he needed him to be.

Well… he used to be, a long time ago.

Before everything crumbled and fell apart.

How the one person he trusted, depended on and loved more than anybody else could hurt him so much was… well, if anything his mother said was true, it wasn’t that much of a mystery.

She disliked everything about Miguel’s schooling, disinterested in what he was learning, knowing that the school wasn’t the issue. It was who was there, who was feeding him lies and half-truths and opinions that would shape him forever.

It didn’t matter if the headmaster was some sort of humanitarian when Tyler Stone was the one holding the keys to the kingdom.

His brother left that day for school, and sure, he’d come back around sometimes. But he started to drift further and further away. The nail in the coffin had to be the internship program. Away from the rest of his peers, away from Xina, too, who somehow always seemed capable of putting Miguel’s head back on straight.

But he listened to her less and less, fought with their mother more, reminding her time and again the only reason they made it out of their old lives was because of him.

His mother and Miguel knew how to be cruel to one another, their words staining any attempt at any sort of reconciliation.

And Gabriel had tried, against his better judgement.

They clashed too much, had too much anger. He wondered if his brother resented their mother for sending him away at such a young age, surrounded by classmates who mocked him for their social status. Sure, his brother had met Xina. But he was pretty sure that was the only good thing to happen at that prep school horror show.

“He won’t listen,” Xina finally broke the silence, her voice shaking.

“And how do you figure that?” he asked.

The woman took a deep breath in, finally steadying herself after their collision through space and time, reaching her hand out to help him stand.

He gave her a look, but took it anyway, waiting for her to finally explain herself.

“I’m nothing more than a memory to him. Even after everything we went through in school, and everything since I fixed Lyla for him… he doesn’t see me. All he sees is the plucky girl who helped him survive Alchemax. Because if he thinks of me as anything else, remembers me for anything else, then he has to think about all that pain he caused. And why would he ever willingly make himself go through that? Your brother loves to avoid problems, it’s his favorite hobby. He avoided breaking up with me, he avoided telling you he loved your girlfriend and I’m sure he’s found so many new and thrilling ways to avoid things in an entirely new dimension,” she explained, exasperated.

And there it was, the same old rusty knife his brother had shoved in his back.

Dana.

He liked to say it didn’t bother him, that there was nothing that could make him stay mad at her and not Miguel.

Maybe he wasn’t that bad of a liar, he just needed the right time and place.

The disbelief when he had found out… he was so surprised he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. And then he just said what the two of them had wanted to hear.

It’s good, it’s fine, even.

How am I supposed to get in the way of true love?

And deeper still, how could anybody ever love him when his brother was around? Who would want the younger, dumber brother when they could have the new face of corporate science? What could he offer somebody that his brother couldn’t?

Nothing.

It was true, every time.

Even Kasey had finally shocking admitted their break-up was over Spider-Man.

And tonight was supposed to be some sort of redo. Or at least trying. He wanted to give it another chance, had tried to work through all his insecurities over his brother and Spider-Man and the awful ways they overlapped. Gabriel had even opened up to Kasey about the grief and anger mixed together he still felt over Dana’s death.

Unlike Miguel, he could look at his own reflection. He hated it, but he did it. Because if he had to live with what happened to her, at least he would be able to look himself in the eye.

But getting stuck in another dimension with his brother’s only real friend wasn’t part of the plan.

“Must have been a pretty good memory to go run off into another world where he isn’t a complete disaster,” he muttered to himself.

Xina’s brows furrowed, her nostrils flaring in anger.

“What did you just say, O’Hara?”

“It can’t all have been doom and gloom, Kwan, if he abandoned us for you,” he snapped back.

She just stared at him.

“Are you even hearing yourself?! That’s not me! I don’t care if she looks like me or sounds like me or everything about her is similar down to the last molecule! She isn’t me! No, because I’m stuck here, with you! Miguel’s crybaby baby brother who can’t fight any of his own fights! Who can’t even confront his own brother! You wanna talk about half-assed conversations? When was the last time you and Miguel had a talk? A real one? Because as far as I'm concerned, you got to live in some fantasy land of delusion where you pretend your brother didn’t steal your girlfriend out from under you, and they were just always the picture-perfect couple! And me? I was cut out! I lost my oldest friend! I lost the only person I’ve ever lo—!” Xina cut herself off, a look of horror on her face, which slowly blended into shame.

“Well, seems like you’re right back in the thick of it where I’m standing, Xina. Hope the proximity to such an utter disappointment doesn’t rub off on you. Wouldn’t want to ruin Miggy’s perfect memory of you,” he spoke each word with more venom than the last.

“Believe what you want,” Xina snapped, reaching for his wrist.

He pulled away, still glaring at her.

“Hold still, I’m trying to send you back home,” she held her palm out expectantly, and he gave her his wrist, looking away.

They stood in silence, neither wanting to break it. His brother wasn't the only one who knew how to hold a grudge, how to make the pain linger. But he could only hold back his questions for so long. And he might not get another chance.

“So, what? You’re just gonna keep jumping around? For what? There’s nothing for us out here. Everything left to care about is back home,” he said, looking quizzically at her.

“I was going to drive until I lost sight of the road. Or until I ran out of gas. Whatever came first,” she started, focused on the holographic screen in front of her.

“I…. I know. Mig told me about what your robot said. How you probably weren’t coming home.”

“My life was fine before your brother came barreling back into it. I had steady work, more than enough time to find rare TwenCen trinkets, and nobody made me feel… like that. I had myself, and that was more than enough. I didn’t have to consider anyone else,” she said quietly.

“Sounds lonely.”

“Loneliness goes away, that kind of pain doesn’t,” she said quietly, frowning at the watch.

“So, what? Instead of driving off until you lose the road, you’ll universe jump forever?” he asked.

“No, Gabri. That girl… I know it’s crazy and stupid and I’m probably just projecting all of my fears and issues with Miguel onto this, but she needs my help. She said I was the only one who could do anything. So I have to do something. I didn’t have a purpose after Venom. Maybe… maybe helping her could help me understand what I’m supposed to be doing. I could actually use my skill-set and my knowledge to help someone…” she trailed off.

“You know you don’t have to have a purpose, right?” Gabriel asked quietly.

“I have to make up for it,” Xina mumbled.

“What?”

“Being alive.”

He stayed silent, trying to hide his discomfort.

Before Venom, she had never sounded like this. Even after Miguel pulled the rug out from under her, Xina was still herself. When she had come to his place, shock still etched in her features over the revelation, she had steeled herself.

It was over, it was done, and it didn’t matter anymore.

But he had known her just as long as she had known him, and he knew deflection when he saw it.

And this… this was a different kind of pain.

It had taken him months and one too many conversations with his mother to even come to terms with the fact it wasn’t entirely Spider-Man’s fault.

Because at the end of the day, he wasn’t the one who razed Escher’s Club with bullets, knowing damn well Venom could phase through them. That was the Public Eye. It was the same old shocking story, it was Alchemax.

And somehow his brother couldn’t see the forest for the trees, see that he couldn’t change a place like Alchemax. They had to be dismantled, because they would sacrifice hundreds of more civilians like Dana if it meant keeping control.

He looked up from the watch, Xina’s eyes filled with dread.

“What? What is it? These things don’t have a self-destruct on them or something to keep them from getting stolen, right? Because if Mig—“

Xina steeled herself, keeping her voice steady.

“This was a prototype. We both knew that, and we knew it was risky.”

Gabriel’s heart stopped.

“Xina, don’t say it.”

“It had enough juice for the jump. A return trip is a no-go. We need another power source, and I don’t know—“

“—of course you don’t! Because why would it ever be that easy?”

“Be mad at Miguel, not me. Can you let me finish my shocking sentence?” Xina glowered at him.

“…sorry, I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Xina glared at him, crossing her arms.

“What I was going to say is that I think I know what powers it. The only down side is… the only place I know we can get more is Alchemax,” she frowned, turning toward the street, unfamiliar with Downtown.

“And what, waltz on up to their front steps and ask really, really nicely if they’ll give us whatever junk you need to fix the watches? Yeah, right,” he snorted.

“…it wouldn’t be through the front door,” she mumbled.

“Break in to Alchemax? You want to break into Hell on Earth?” he scoffed.

“Well, it’s that or having to live in the middle of nowhere for the rest of our lives so we never run into other versions of ourselves, Gabriel,” she reminded him.

He blanched, trying to picture the half life she described.

But he didn’t want to go to Alchemax. He didn't want to be doing any of this. And he didn't want to take out any more of his anger on Xina.

So he took a page out of his brother’s book.

He’d leave.

“Where are you going? We don’t know where we are!” she exclaimed, starting to follow him.

“Anywhere but here!” he yelled back, anger clouding any better judgement he might have had before their spat.

Turns out he was pretty good at lashing out with his words, too.

“Gabriel!” she called out again, but he was too busy turning the corner, his head down, the familiar unease of Downtown Nueva York hitting him.

It looked the same.

In disrepair, yet people still trying to make it a home. Children outside with their friends, parents watching keenly from the steps of their apartments. The occasional Flyboy leering a bit too close to any group that dared make a bit too much noise.

He hadn’t spent too much time here, not until Kasey.

And even then half that time he spent getting his ass kicked six ways to Sunday.

At first when he would come down here he would make up a story about visiting Miguel or having to go into a freelance gig or anything but the truth to his mother. She didn’t talk about it, but he knew she grew up here. And it wasn’t up for debate or discussion, Downtown wasn’t a place you went, especially if you wanted to come back up topside with all your limbs intact.

The place his mother had spent half her life running from, he had found someone he really cared about. And it wasn’t like every other time he said it, either. Even he could admit he loved too easily and maybe a little too fast.

But someone in their family had to be capable of love.

It sure as shock wasn’t Miguel.

Gabriel knew it wasn’t smart, but he still found himself walking towards Kasey’s apartment. He didn't have to talk about the universe to her, he just wanted to see someone who wasn’t wrapped up in all of this garbage.

He pulled the collar on his coat up, trying to keep a low profile.

Looking down at the watch again, he saw the jump ability was at 0, but that wasn’t what he cared about. The fact it said Universe-2099 was what he didn’t understand. Guess the universe did have a sense of humor.

Leaning up against the wall adjacent to Kasey’s apartment building, he kept looking for signs of life. Even if he could just see her… it’d make him feel better.

The sun had long since set, the moon rising up over one of the glass ceilings of the inner-city.

And still no sign of Kasey.

Unfortunately he was too focused on the wrong thing.

He hadn’t noticed the figure following him the last few blocks.

“What are you doing here?” came a gruff voice.

Gabriel jumped, alarmed at the sound of… nah, it couldn’t be.

“Got a tip from an old friend. She said something about the someone jumping places they didn’t belong. I thought she meant the Raiders or Flyboys, not…you,” his own face appeared behind him, and Gabriel flinched.

Sure, he saw that kid who looked too much like his brother and Xina. And yeah, he believed her about the multiverse and its existence he just… didn't think he’d have to see it with his own eyes.

See himself with his own eyes.

Yeah, his head hurt again.

“You’re me… but you look—wait, are you dressed like Firelight?” he frowned.

“You do realize the only difference between what we normally wear and Firelight is the red scarf, right?” the other him raised his brow.

“Well… I thought it was cool,” Gabriel muttered.

“It stops being cool when you have to hide your face from the Public Eye’s surveillance system, curtesy of dear old dad,” his double remarked.

“Why are you running around Nueva York? We—I only ever fought in Cyberspace,” Gabriel wondered, seeing something shift in his double’s face.

“Somebody has to put an end to the corporation’s ironclad hold on this city,” other him answered.

“But… what about Spider-Man?”

The other him flinched, anger flashing in his eyes.

“You mean Alchemax’s person watch dogs? Why would those Spiderites ever help anyone who wasn’t a card carrying member of the corpos?”

Gabriel stared, trying to take in his double’s words.

“What do you mean the Spiderites are Alchemax’s… are they the Flyboys? Where’s Spider-Man? Where… where is Miguel?” Gabriel asked, worry etched in his face.

The other Gabriel frowned, looking away from him.

“He’s gone. They… they said it was some kind of drug overdose at his genetics lab. But the next day they rolled out the new generation of corporate watchdogs. All wearing the face of that Heroic Age guy. It doesn’t matter what he used to mean, no matter what… well, there are people around here who still believe he could have been a good guy. Whatever that means,” the other Gabriel scoffed.

“No, that’s not right—Miguel didn’t—he’s alive—“ Gabriel couldn’t find the words to explain, remembering what Xina said about the reality of infinite possibilities.
Just because his Miguel was alive, albeit running around the multiverse, didn’t mean every single other one was…

“Yeah, well mine’s not. He sent off a bunch of encrypted files to an old friend and we’ve been trying to piece it all together for weeks. She thinks he sent information to finally take down Tyler Stone. I’m not… I’m not so sure. Mine wasn’t a good person. Working for Alchemax, helping them achieve their dreams for the future. Maybe he just wanted to send us on one last wild goose chase,” the other Gabriel crossed his arms, disappointment clouding his features.

Gabriel couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

He knew… he knew everything Miguel did was dangerous. Finally trying to quit Alchemax, to quit Tyler Stone. But he didn’t think it would ever end like this. Some small part of him figured his brother would always get out, mostly unscathed. Because his brother was always luckier than him.

Guess that wasn’t the case in every universe.

And then remembered something the other Gabriel had said. No, someone he mentioned. There was only one person his brother would trust to decrypt thousands of Alchemax files.

His universal twin glanced to the side, pulling him along and walking toward Midtown.

“We need to get out of here. It’s safer further uptown, I know a place we can go,” the other man explained.

“It was Xina, wasn’t it?” he mumbled, trying not to think about his version.

“Maybe there are some universal truths,” the other Gabriel wise-cracked.

“Is that how you knew we were here, too?” he pressed.

“Obviously. She’s the smartest person in Nueva York, and I’d wager all of this universe, too.”

Gabriel nodded, a bit of guilt seeping into his stomach.

He hadn’t… he didn’t mean to leave her alone.

But he couldn’t argue with her, not again. And they were just spinning in the same circles, all of their anger deflected at each other, when they really wanted to lecture Miguel.

“What’s that face?” the other him asked, and it felt entirely surreal to see someone so much like him see through him.

“She and I… well, I got into a fight with her. We keep getting into arguments and ripping deeper and deeper into each other. I guess it’s the price for knowing someone for so long. You start to see just where their pain lies, and how to pull it out of them,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

It was eerie to see sympathy on his own face, directed at him.

Why his brother wanted so badly to see other faces and other worlds and other choices… he didn’t get it.

“Butting heads with Xina, what, are you crazy?” the other him joked.

“All because my brother is too much of a jerk to face his problems,” Gabriel sniped, blanching when he remembered what happened to this world’s Miguel.

“It’s fine… you’re not wrong. He did that here, too. Maybe some things are unavoidable in people, they have to be a certain way to realize they aren’t as high and mighty as they thought they were. So, just spit-balling here, but you and Xina… it’s about Dana, isn’t it?” the other him asked.

The two of them cut into a back alley, and Gabriel had lost track of how many side streets they had gone down, getting closer and closer to Midtown. And if his hunch was right, they weren’t too far off from their destination.

“Yeah. I guess… I just thought I could take out all my anger on Miguel and pretend Dana didn’t do anything wrong. But she did. She pretended everything was fine, that we were fine. Only because she was too much of a coward to admit she didn’t like me anymore,” Gabriel grimaced.

His mirrored self nodded, but something passed too fast in his expression.

“But… have you ever really let yourself be mad at Miguel? I know it’s a different world but he always seemed to get out of any sort of real conversation with me, never having to talk about how much of an asshole he became by working for Alchemax, how he never thought about anybody but himself,” the other man frowned, a lingering resentment laced in his words.

“Nope. I guess Miguel is Miguel is Miguel,” he grimaced.

“At least it isn’t too late for you…” the other Gabriel trailed off, motioning for him to follow him up an older fire escape.

Only Xina would live in a building that still had a fire escape on it.

“Fingers crossed,” Gabriel sighed.

“Wait,” the other man paused, “… if your Xina isn’t with you, where did she go?”

Gabriel frowned, remembering Xina’s plan.

“You’re not gonna like it.”

The other him stared at him.

“Try me.”

“A one woman heist… on Alchemax,” Gabriel grimaced.

“Is she insane?!”

Gabriel shrugged.

“We’ll know when people from other universes show up here, she said. It’ll make the universe safer, she said. And all you and your Xina are is a big headache,” the other Gabriel groaned, finally stopping on the fourth floor of the fire escape, pulling up the window and pointing for him to get inside the apartment.

“I’m you and you’re me, so technically we’re a big headache,” he joked, only to be met with an eye roll.

“Xina! We have a problem!” his twin called out.

A version of Xina, nearly the same, save for longer hair and a hardened look in her eye came out of the next room, arms crossed and irritation coming off her in waves.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she rolled her eyes.

“Fine. Your doppelgänger is about to get herself killed or captured by Alchemax because it’s the one place we can get a power source to power these stupid watches and go home,” Gabriel dead-panned.

“Why would you let her do that?! Have you met me?” this world’s Xina exclaimed.

“No, care to introduce yourself?” he snapped back.

“It’s fine. What’s the worst that could happen?” the other Gabriel tried to joke.

He withered a bit at Gabriel and Xina’s matching glares.

Chapter Text

“Anywhere but here!”

Xina blinked back tears, trying not to let a second O’Hara make her cry in as many days.

So much for that.

She huffed, giving the alleyway one last glance, wishing not for the first time she had gone after Miguel alone.

Maybe she was a bit too harsh on Gabriel, but he hadn’t exactly held his tongue, either.

But neither of them had lied.

It seemed rich, that even as he was worlds away all she felt was Miguel’s absence.

And his younger brother was right, there was a time when she would have fumed at Miguel’s behavior, made him feel as low as she did at the discovery. Let him know that he couldn’t just break her heart and carry on, as if it had never mattered.

But that was before she surprised him.

Before he surprised her even more.

Because she hadn’t lied that day he had convinced her to fix Lyla, he had hurt her, and badly.

Her mother had always joked that he was her blind spot and that one day that would come back to bite her. And she had always dismissed it, thinking her mother was just seeing danger where she wanted it.

And still, when she called her, stifling her own emotion down, trying to let her know that she made it home safe and sound, she knew.

There was a beat, a glance too long in the holo-video call.

Her mother had known.

That second-too-long glance was worse than any sort of “I told you so.”

The look was all she gave her, not mentioning anything else about Miguel’s abhorrent behavior, at least not to her face. She was almost certain her family had made him public enemy number one, but she hadn’t had the energy to care. And she silently agreed with their stone-walling.

Instead, her mother had come around more often, bringing homemade dishes, VHS tapes she’d found at pawn shops, and anything else she thought Xina would want.

It was nice, and it was a good distraction, too.

Of course, she had noticed the little ways her parents had tried to slowly get rid of any memory of her former best friend.

Things disappeared from her apartment, like the framed photos of them at their first science exhibition together. The TwenCen scrapbook she had found one day in the back of a shop, trying to fill it with all their school memories, had long since found its way into an unlabeled box in the closet of her apartment.

Her parents hadn’t thrown anything out, even when they were their angriest. Maybe it was the crestfallen look on her face, the expression she couldn’t quite hide around them.

Xina knew Gabriel thought she got over it all, and maybe in some ways, she had. But the only reason she had kept her composure around him was because she couldn’t let another O’Hara see her at her lowest.

Not again.

Besides, she told him about the affair, opened his eyes to how much of a scumbag his brother was, and how casually malicious his so-called girlfriend could be.

As far as she was concerned, she didn’t owe those brothers anything else.

Or at least that’s what she had told herself.

But when someone’s lived in your life for so long, practically a part of your family, it’s tricky to make a clean break.

“And you’re sure they want me there?” Miguel asked, nervously pulling at the tie she’d found for him in her collection of old TwenCen things.

“I promise, Miguel. It’s my seventeenth birthday dinner, they want to meet my best friend. My parents are half convinced you aren’t real since you always seem to sneak away from the school when they visit,” she joked, knowing there was some truth to her words.

He didn’t know how to act around her parents, how to talk to them or even if he was supposed to look them in the eyes half the time.

But she was telling the truth, they wanted to meet him.

And they had invited him to her birthday dinner.

… her mother wasn’t entirely convinced he was going to show up, but she had said on the holo-vid she was thrilled to meet her very real best friend.

“You know you don’t have to dress up for this, right? It’s dinner but it’s not that nice,” she said mildly, pulling on her boots.

He mumbled something that almost sounded like “but I want them to like me.”

Xina smiled softly at him, standing next to him while he fiddled with the tie in the mirror.

“They like everything I like, and I like you,” she said quietly, clocking the way his expression changed at her admission.

Even if it wasn’t what she wanted to say…

But she couldn’t tell him how she really felt.

He would look at her differently, he might not even feel the same way. And she couldn’t risk her best friend over a little crush.

That’s all it was.

And eventually she would get over it.

“Uh…Xina?” he mumbled.

She met his gaze, a flicker of hope in her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I…I’m glad we’re friends,” he said, glancing down again.

“Me too,” she kept the disappointment out of her voice, feeling like an idiot for even wondering at the possibility.

“Don’t get too sappy on me, Migue. We’ll never leave the school if you wax poetic about how great of a friend I am,” she joked, covering her tracks.

The drive into the nearest town had her finding her rhythm again. Their headmaster, Angela, had arranged a ride into town, and she swore it was like Miguel knew the taxi cab driver, but that seemed silly. Why would he?

“You two kids have fun on your little date!” the cabbie cheered, looking back at the two of them through the rearview mirror.

“For the last time, it’s not—” Miguel started, heat rising on his face.

“Thanks for the ride,” Xina pulled the boy out of the cab, too many questions swirling in her head.

But there wasn’t time for any of them, because her parents stood waiting outside.

Her mother enveloped her in a hug, and her father joined on the other side.

She was sent to school with the hope of opportunity, with the dreams of her parents and her grandparents and every one before her. It was similar, in some ways, to the weight that Miguel carried around.

It wasn’t the same, but Xina had tried to understand him where she could. Her parents had never raised an ultimatum against her, had never saw her as some sort of consolation prize of their marriage.

And yet, he could never relate to some of her fears.

He had never had the misfortune of running into corporate stooges who distrusted anyone who might be affiliated with Stark-Fujikawa. Men who, like his own father once had, saw her as nothing more than a nondescript Asian girl, a clear threat to Alchemax.

But no one in her family worked for Stark-Fujikawa, they didn’t have any connections to the mega-corporation. They weren’t even Japanese.

Her grandmother had once told her that while the world moved on technologically, hate finds a home in every generation.

She still struggled with the possibility that she was only accepted into Alchemax’s boarding school because men like Tyler Stone wanted to rub it in the face of Stark-Fujikawa.

And when she voiced these concerns to her parents, they had told her it wasn’t true. The school saw her potential, Angela, the headmaster, had seen more possibilities in her than she had seen in a student in a long time.

That quelled some of her anxieties, but brought on a new one: how was she supposed to live up to that?
She came to the school with the dream of reconnecting to the past, of studying where the Heroic Age ended and how to be sure they would never repeat history. And even more, she wanted to understand what was beyond Nueva York and the Earth.

Entire communications with other planets had existed, other worlds.

Maybe places where corporate ghouls didn’t dictate every last resource.

And if those worlds existed, maybe that would be enough to show this world they didn’t have to live at the beck and call of the corporations.

Her grandparents had spoken of the time before, hazy memories of their childhoods. Of the world she never knew.

Those first-hand accounts, however tarnished by time they may be, kept her on track. It reminded her when she was a little too enamored with the advancements in technology by Synthia or Alchemax or anyone else that this was all a distraction.

And her parents worried.

They knew how much she was influenced by the past and the worlds beyond, and they didn’t want her hurt.

Because they knew what happened to people who asked too many questions.

Maybe some small part of them sent her to this school hoping some of that spirit would get nullified, or at least she would be reminded that she could have a place in this society, where her head wasn’t in the clouds.

She pulled away from her parents, remembering her friend still stood the side, unsure in his place.

“This is Miguel,” she started, turning to smile encouragingly at him.

“We’ve heard quite a lot about you, Miguel! Xina has always been a talker, but every time she messages home it seems half the time she’ll tell us all about her best friend and your classes and how grateful she is to have someone like you in her life,” her father started, shaking Miguel’s hand.

The boy looked petrified.

“Thank you, Mr. Kwan. It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, a slight shake to his voice.

Her mother’s expression shifted to something Xina couldn’t place.

“Let’s get inside! I’m sure you two are starving. We’ve heard enough about how much the cafeteria food is only so-so from Xina, too,” her mother joked.

“Mom, you’re making it sound like all I ever do is write home to you about how much I miss it,” she mumbled.

“Well, you do!” her mother said.

Miguel stayed quiet, but right beside her. She gave him a quizzical look, a silent conversation taking place between the two of them. He sat next to her in the restaurant, and when her parents were still settling in, he reached for her hand under the table and gave it a squeeze.

It was code for them, one squeeze for I’m okay and two for I need help.

She really hoped there wouldn’t be two today.

And at first it seemed like there wouldn’t be, with dinner going so well. They stayed on easy subjects, the school and how she and Miguel liked their classes, what extracurriculars they participated in. She didn’t even get embarrassed when her mother pulled out a wallet of photos of her at different ages. And she tried not to get overly invested in how much fun her best friend seemed to be having at looking at the photos, either.

But the other shoe dropped. And hard.

“So Miguel, what do your parents do?” her father asked, his curiosity piqued.

Xina had tried to warn her parents, unsure how to explain the complicated dynamic in the O’Hara house. They knew Miguel’s father, George, was unkind to her during move-in weekend, and they had made her promise to never be left alone with him.

Like she would ever be around Miguel’s dad by choice.

“My dad designed the security system for Alchemax,” he mumbled, as if reciting from a fact sheet and not talking about his own life.

“Oh,” her mother started, sharing a glance with her father, “that must have been a large undertaking.”

“They’re still putting up all the cameras in the city, so, yeah,” he said unenthusiastically.

“He designed the Public Eye’s new surveillance system?” her father stiffened.

Oh, no.

“Yeah,” Miguel said uneasily.

“The system that has more cameras the closer to downtown you approach, that system?” her father’s voice cracked.

“Dad, can you please just drop it?” she asked.

“Let’s talk about their classes! Xina said you have an interest in twentieth century history as well? Our little girl has loved the stuff since the first laminated subway station card my father gave her—”

Miguel looked perturbed.

“What’s the big deal, anyway? Xina goes to Alchemax, too. She’ll probably end up working there. And she was offered an internship there, same as me,” he argued.

Her parents exasperated looks transferred from Miguel to her.

“—sweetheart, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Absolutely under no circumstances will you—!”

“—we sent her to this school, and this is an opportunity!”

She grimaced, watching her parents debate the merits of her education.

Tentatively, she turned to her friend, wanting him to know it wasn’t his fault.

But his seat was empty, he had no doubt fled the moment her parent’s had started the same fight she had heard the last few years.

“I’m not taking it,” she said, the two pausing to look at her.

Her mother asked why the same moment her father had nodded approvingly.

“I thought… I thought maybe I could change things there. But you can’t change something that doesn’t want to be changed,” she murmured, feeling Miguel’s absence.

She excused herself, and started looking down the hallways of the restaurant, even past to the bathrooms.

Xina called out for him, only to be met with silence.

But when she reached the men’s restroom, she heard a distinct thud against a bathroom stall door. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open, ignoring any strange looks.

“Miguel?” she called out.

She watched a dress shoe scurry up the side of a toilet, and she walked to other side of the stall, wishing he wouldn’t put so much distance between them.

“Please don’t beat yourself up over this. I didn’t… I didn’t realize how much my father still resented the surveillance system. You didn’t do anything wrong, I should have warned you—” she started, wishing she had covered her bases better.

“Your parents hate me,” Miguel said miserably.

She blanched, grateful he couldn’t see her face.

“No, they don’t. They just don’t like the corporations… we, my family and my neighborhood… we’ve never been treated kindly. It’s tricky to explain, but it’s rooted in a lot of old feelings that never went away, I guess,” Xina explained.

“But I’m supposed to be the future of that place. That means they hate me, Xina,” he argued.

She frowned.

“C’mon, Miguel. We all get told that kind of stuff at school, it doesn’t have to be true.”

“You wouldn’t get it. My dad, Tyler Stone, they all said so. For whatever reason, it’s my birthright or whatever,” he explained.

Great. This conversation, again. She believed him, at least, to the extent that he felt he owed them. But they didn’t own him. He didn’t have to become their next big brain and bring in a new, worse age of Alchemax.

“You’re more than that! They can’t map out your whole future for you, you have a say! It’s your life, not theirs!” she exclaimed.

Miguel laughed through the stall door, and she felt her anger shift to him.

“It’s never been my life.”

A punch to the gut.

But she could be angry. She could rage at his father and Stone and every Alchemax executive who leered a little too long at him in exams. Because he never did.

In all of their years of schooling, he never let his anger get the best of him. Half the time she would have to coax it out of him, to even get him to confess he felt any sort of negative feelings toward his seemingly preordained future.

“What if it could be?” she asked quietly, leaning against the stall door.

Miguel’s face contorted, finally jumping off the toilet seat, walking apprehensively toward the door.

“What are you talking about?”

“I declined the internship. And Angela is leaving the school this year, starting her own indy project outside of Alchemax’s influence. She said she would give me a chance, let me dig deeper into my research on the TwenCen. And… we only have a year left. We could leave, together. No more worrying about that gilded Alchemax future,” she explained, wishing they could have had this conversation in her dorm, like she wanted.

Miguel opened the door to the stall, regret seeped into his features.

“They already moved my stuff into a dorm for the summer, Xina. I’m interning in their Genetics program. And if it goes well I’ll be guaranteed a job there come next summer,” he explained.

“But you didn’t… you didn’t tell me,” her voice petered out.

“I didn’t wanna upset you on your birthday. So much for that,” he walked past her, absent-mindedly washing his hands.

“Yeah…” she trailed off, following him out the door, wishing she knew what to say.

She ignored the differences in him during the internship, figuring it was just stress. And when she actually got the nerve up to confess her feelings to him, it was almost like he was her Miguel again. The one who would sneak out of the dorms with her at night to go stare up at the sky. He would talk to her for hours about what they could learn from the past, how they could improve the future. Hearing him say all of that to her… it was like someone finally understood her dreams.

And then something just… changed.

He didn’t want to hear about her indy projects or how she side-stepped university requirements.

Instead, he claimed she cheated the system to still be successful.

A system he had had such animosity for, not too long ago…

But then he had had his internship interview with Tyler Stone.

He came back stoic and reserved from it, and weirdly pushy about her accepting her internship, too.

The whole disagreement was so long ago, she had nearly forgotten how on edge he was for weeks.

And now… with everything between them, how their relationship of a few years had imploded, how Tyler Stone had looked at her with such animosity…

Maybe Gabriel was right, maybe Stone did have it out for her.

She thought Miguel knew her better than anyone.

And she thought the same of him.

Which was why she had spent far too much of the last two years spinning herself in circles, trying to uncover the truth. Why her best friend would shut her out so completely, as if none of their history had mattered to him.

Xina had some of her answers when she dumped a box of his stuff outside his apartment, wanting as little contact as possible. She already assumed he had trashed anything she had left at his place, making peace with losing her first ever prototype holo-agent outside of Alchemax’s schematics.

“I guess this means I lose the bet,” the door to Miguel’s apartment opened, revealing Dana in athletic wear.

“I’m just leaving some of Miguel’s stuff. I hope you two and your disregard for other people’s emotions will be very happy together,” Xina snapped.

“Don’t you wanna know about the bet?” Dana leaned against the door frame, the smirk never leaving and humor in her eyes.

“Box. Of. Stuff. Take it in or let it get raided by whatever poor Alchemax goons live on this floor, see if I care,” she bit back.

“I told Miggy there was no way you’d ever come back around here, that no self-respecting woman would. And he said you weren’t like other women. He sure knows how to say just the wrong thing, doesn’t he?” Dana laughed.

Xina glared, wishing she was still the girl in boarding school, who would have hit first, asked for forgiveness later. Who wouldn’t let a bully poison her with their words. But her best friend chose the bully. He chose it in Alchemax, in Babylon Towers and even in Dana.

And she was left with the discarded remains of their friendship and a box of shit he couldn’t be bothered to take with him.

“You know, in all our fun, he was only ever worried about how Gabriel would feel. Asking if I had told him yet, when I would tell him and how that could hurt his little brother. And even those questions were few and fleeting. But you? He never worried about you.”

She dropped the box unceremoniously in front of the other woman, never breaking eye contact.

Fine, she wanted to be catty and cruel?

She’d play ball.

“Hope you don’t crave pet names and ooey-gooey confessions of feelings. Actually, you would need at least a bachelor’s degree in complex thought before you could even begin to dissect the way Miguel O’Hara’s brain works. You won’t understand him. Not in any real way,” she finally spoke, anger lacing her words.

Dana rolled her eyes, nonplussed with her assessment.

“He’s never made me feel dumb. Maybe that’s a you problem, Xina. Maybe he just got tired of being second string to your supposed brilliance. Yeah, I know all about how you were supposedly top of the class. Until you wouldn’t agree to an internship with Alchemax. Then nobody wanted you. Guess history has a funny way of repeating itself,” the other woman giggled, stepping out of the doorway to the apartment.

It slid shut with a resounding thud, and Lyla appeared.

“Uh oh! It seems my safety protocols kicked in. All entry points are sealed until Miguel comes home,” Lyla shrugged, a neon “open” sign appearing beside her holo-form, and she flicked it off.

Dana turned around, affronted.

“Lyla. This isn’t funny, we’ve talked about this. I have access to the apartment, I’m his girlfriend,” she said indignantly.

Xina couldn’t help but smirk at Lyla, and something else pulled at her heart, too.

He kept her.

The holo-agent she gave him, months ago…

And then she remembered the fuming woman in front of her.

“I don’t remember seeing you at Alchemax Prep, but congratulations on getting second-hand information. I wouldn’t sell my integrity. I guess you already have, or you’re fantasizing everyday about the moment you’ll finally have earned a better place in Nueva York. But we shouldn’t rank people. And if Miguel wants you and a corporate future of disparaging anyone below him, then I guess I never really knew him. I hope your money brings you peace, because nothing else will,” she turned and walked away.

Before the goodbye video, before the old lab footage… Xina was certain she was nothing but a footnote in Miguel’s personal history.

She glanced up to the sky again, hopelessly trying to find her way closer to Midtown.

Xina hadn’t spent too much time in Downtown, her family nervous about the warring groups below and the never-ending presence of Alchemax.

But she didn’t see weapons or any danger, really.

She just saw people trying to live their lives.

The road up ahead looked familiar, leading to one of the old city parks turned into a cemetery.

A cemetery she had promised herself she would never step foot in again.

So much for that.

Glancing down at the defunct watch, it still said Universe-2099.

It wasn’t their world, but it was too eerily familiar. Bits and pieces that made her wonder if they hadn’t really just landed on the other side of the city.

She followed the sidewalk, trying to keep her eyes from the grave stones.

But the closer she got, the more she was certain she saw the too familiar figure of Conchata O’Hara in front of one.

That didn’t make any sense.

The O’Hara’s mother had no love lost over Dana, and had attended the funeral out of obligation for her sons. Xina knew as much, because she tried to give her her condolences before the funeral and Conchata had dismissed her.

“…Conchata?” she started uneasily, knowing the woman hated being called by her ex-husband’s last name.

The other woman paused, clearing her throat before turning around.

If Xina didn’t know any better, she would have thought she was crying.

“What are you doing out here, Xina? We both know it isn’t safe. Tyler’s already suspicious, and I don’t want—“

Her breath hitched, finally catching the name on the grave.

Miguel.

“This isn’t happening,” Xina started, the terror of her day finally catching up to her.

Conchata looked at her with sympathy.

“I know, sweetheart, but—“

“No. I shouldn’t have listened to those stupid messages, I shouldn’t have found myself back in his orbit. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t… this wasn’t…” she trailed off, feeling her hands shaking and her heartbeat in her head.

His mother was many things, but she wasn’t stupid.

“You aren’t… from around here, are you?” she asked, taking another glance around the park.

“I can’t do this! I’m not the answer to whatever mess he made, I can’t fix his mistakes. I have spent half my life trying to keep him out of danger and he jumps in head first at every chance!” she ranted, whatever dam that was keeping her together finally broken.

She took a step closer to the stone, gliding a hand across the marble.

“This is what I was afraid of for so long. Neither me or Gabriel would say it out loud, but we worried… because that’s all I do when I see him. And to know it is merited, because there’s a universe where he…” Xina couldn’t finish the thought, the birth and death dates more than enough to confirm her fears.

Miguel's mother gave her a very long look, trying to piece together this version of her son’s childhood friend.

“Tyler killed him,” she said after a moment.

“What?” Xina wiped her eyes, trying to collect herself.

“He told that monster no, and he killed him,” Conchata glared at the ground, balling her fists.

“…told him no to what?” she asked quietly.

“The Spider-Man project. To advance the Flyboys and make all of our lives that much worse. He finally told that man no and he killed him for it,” the older woman shook her head, disgusted at the memory.

Xina felt too frazzled, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to her. Miguel leaving for good, convincing Gabriel to help her, getting tossed around by a bunch of Spider-People, the little girl who had his eyes…

And now this, a world where her best friend finally stood up to his biggest terror and he killed him for it.

The man who ruined her reputation with half of Nueva York, all because she wouldn’t intern at Alchemax.

She stepped away from the grave, her fingers lingering on his name.

Some small part of her, remembering all those years ago, all those times she pushed him to fight back against the Stones. Was this always the outcome if he did? Did encouraging him to stand up again someone like Stone lead to this?

She knew the world they lived in was broken and she wanted to fix it… but if this was the cost, maybe…

Maybe some things come at too high a price.

“I always said nothing good came out of sending him away to that school. He became obsessed with being the best, his entitlement only became worse and… too much of it was my fault,” Conchata admitted, looking away from Xina.

Xina blinked, trying to hide her surprise at the older woman’s words.

Conchata glanced at her, and rolled her eyes.

“You don’t have to be so surprised, Xina. I know I wasn’t the world’s best mother. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out,” she joked.

“I… I don’t know how it was here, but for me and him… I couldn’t always understand. How his father was so wicked and how you seemed so disinterested,” Xina crossed her arms.

“That was for his own good,” his mother cleared her throat.

“Good for who?! He thought you hated him! How’s that for his own good?”

The older woman looked conflicted, as if there was something else she wanted to say.

And then she side-stepped the conversation, in proper Conchata fashion.

“But that place wasn’t all bad,” his mother backtracked, “I mean, he met you. And you made him a little less smarmy.”

She didn’t see how that helped anything.

“If being my friend was such a good thing, then why did he end up here?” she asked.

It felt strange, to finally have an actual, unfiltered conversation with Conchata. For years, Miguel kept that from happening, and it always seemed as if he was embarrassed of his mother. Sure, he let Gabriel hang out with them, but even then he would eventually tell the younger boy to find something else to do.

“You didn’t do this, Xina. This wasn’t because of this world’s Xina or her relationship with Miguel. It was because of me. I’m the reason my Miguel is dead, and I already have one Xina filled to the brim with guilt over it, I don’t need two,” Conchata declared, as if that ended the discussion.

Xina turned away from the grave stones, looking out to the cityscape past the park.

It all looked so familiar, at first glance.

But the Flyboys in the sky weren’t wearing their normal armor.

No, they wore retrofitted padded armor with… spider symbols on the front and back. Some of their bikes had Spider-Man masks pinned to the front, like some sort of sick prize.

“You said something about the other Xina… so you know this isn’t the only world?” she asked, watching a troupe of Flyboys head toward Downtown.

“Well, obviously. How else am I supposed to explain you?” Conchata huffed.

“Fair enough,” she started, her curiosity getting the better of her, “…so who proved the multiverse theory?”

“You jumped to another universe and your first thought is to ask about that?” Conchata rose an eyebrow at her.

“We can’t get back without a power source so… yeah, I’d like to know who clued you in,” Xina argued.

“Fine. It was our Xina. But that doesn’t matter, because anything of any use to you is trapped in the hell pit that is Alchemax,” the older woman explained.

“It can’t be that hard to break in—”

“Death by a thousand Flyboys. Or Stone’s personal bodyguard. Or any other number of security measures. Alternate universe or not, I’m not letting my son’s… well…whatever you two were, get blown to bits by Tyler Stone.”

Xina grimaced.

“You don’t understand, I have to do this—for Gabriel, he’s here too—I got him trapped here, and I have to fix it.”

Something flickered in his mother’s eyes at that, and for a moment she thought she had convinced her.

Suddenly something in Conchata’s pocket lit up, and she reached down for it, grumbling about how Gabriel worried too much. Well, Xina assumed she meant 2099 Gabriel. Well… they were both from 2099.

Oh, her head hurt.

The older woman read the message and clicked her tongue.

“Come on, it seems my Gabriel found yours,” she sighed.

Xina blanched, turning back to the grave and wondering how this world’s Gabriel was handling any of this.

“And how’s… how’s he been? Since?” she waved a hand, unable to voice it.

“Angry. Hurt. Convinced Miguel died a coward,” Conchata said bluntly.

“Oh,” Xina whispered, staring down at the ground.

The older woman looked on sympathetically.

“There’s more to it than that. He sent her something called Project Socrates. And I think… I think he left us something to take down Tyler for good. But we can’t discuss it out here, it’s not safe. We can’t… we have to go, Xina,” Conchata explained, patting her sympathetically on the shoulder.

She knew they couldn’t stay out here, she had clocked the way Conchata looked around every so often, noticing everyone who walked around them in the park.

But it was hard to leave, when he was so close.

Even if it wasn’t really him.

He was a ghost here, by every definition of the word.

Xina turned around, looking down at his name again, an ache she couldn’t name settling in her.

And something clicked in her brain, a conversation she had over a decade ago. And apparently so did this Miguel and Xina.

“You said Socrates? That’s what he said?” she whipped around, following Conchata out of the park.

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s the truth,” Xina said simply.

Conchata gave her a sidelong glance, and shook her head.

“What do you mean we can’t tell him?” Jess stared at Lyla, the holo-agent crossing her arms defiantly at the Spider-Woman.

“It’s like I said. You can’t tell him they were here. And when I say this next part, you can’t laugh,” Lyla started, looking between Jess and Peter.

“If you say the fate of the multiverse—”

Lyla glared at Peter.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

“This never happened, okay?”

Jess and Peter shared a look.

“Fine, Lyla. I just… I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jess said finally, giving one last uneasy look to the holo-agent.

Lyla didn’t feel emotions, technically.

That’s what Miguel told her, and that’s what Xina had said the first time she powered her up.
But she wanted this to work, she wanted Gabriel and Xina to actually bring Miguel out of his slump, make him see that he wasn’t just Spider-Man or a failed brother or friend… or anything else she would define Xina as to him.

He was her friend, and she wanted him happy.

That had to be some kind of emotion, right?

Chapter Text

“No one else is supposed to be here,” a man’s voice came from behind the young girl, startling her out of her observance of Universe 2099-C, the blips on her watch showing her the location of versions of both her mother and her uncle.

She turned around sharply, confused as to how this man snuck up on her.

“This is the in-between of the multiverse. People shouldn’t be able to travel here,” he said nonchalantly, sitting beside her.

“Yeah, and who made you Supreme Ruler of the Multiverse?” she snapped, crossing her arms at the man.

“You,” he started, “are quite the conundrum. You shouldn’t exist, by all accounts.”

She blanched at him, deciding she didn’t like this mystery man all that much.

“What a way with words,” she rolled her eyes.

“No, I mean that. I have seen many versions of who you come from, and most times… there’s not a relationship to salvage. Let alone a daughter to raise.”

She fought the urge to tell off the man, or to activate LY-LA. Some part of her… wanted to hear what he had to say. He said it all with such certainty to his voice, like he really had seen all these versions of her parents.

And she… well she was curious. Nobody could fault her for that.

“Yeah, well, here… or 928… or whatever, they obviously have problems,” she said dismissively.

It was the understatement of the century.

“And you think making them happen upon each other again will just magically fix everything?” he half-smirked.

She frowned.

That wasn’t…entirely the plan. Most of the plan was hoping this other version of her mother would figure out how time got thrown out of sync and help restart her universe. Getting them back together… it would be nice, yeah. But she wasn’t doing this for them.

She was doing it for her world.

“I didn’t think you did, kid. I just wanted to know what I’m working with here. I’m still working off my old model. Before the gizmo and the Spiders and your world. I know it’s not destroyed, and so do you. But Miguel doesn’t know that. And if he never learns the truth, he’ll send us all down a fate worse than death. Because this place, this connected multiverse is just a smaller piece of the larger connective tissue. You think universes only exist if a Spider-Man is there? Not so,” the man explained.

The girl’s frown deepened, a thought beginning to form.

“If you’re so knowledge about the multiverse why didn’t you tell him? Or stop him? Since you know so much about him?” she accused.

The man gave her a long look, as if carefully considering his next words.

She changed her mind, she didn’t like how he looked like he knew everything.

“Do you think anyone would do well to know everything they will do? To know every option of their actions, that every choice could cause calamity? He got a taste of that, and look how he spiraled. Attacking a boy, who by chance, became Spider-Man. Sending all of those other Spiders against him, too? That is not the man I met months ago. His mindset has shifted, the realization that he isn’t alone in the multiverse didn’t help him. It hurt him. And you wish for this power, for me to do that to others? You may not be his child, but you sure think like him,” the man said quietly.

The girl bristled, standing up from her spot in the in-between plane, balling her fists.

Who did this guy think he was? He wasn’t the one trying to undo Miguel’s mess, it was her. She was the only one who had any idea how dangerous—

Oh, shock.

“I’m not trying to be,” she began, pulling nervously at her scarf.

“All you have is those who came before you,” the man said, standing up and patting her on the shoulder.

“Pretty sure I was just a big jerk to you and you’re still being nice to me,” she shuffled on her feet, uncomfortable.

“You’re a child. And you’re alone and scared, trying to solve a problem you didn’t create. That’s normal. I’d be more concerned if you had a calm demeanor about all of this,” he said, walking and creating a pathway with each step he took.

“But I want to fix it. Or… or get her to fix it. I just want this to be over,” she exclaimed, finally admitting to someone she was tired of all of this.

It was barely a week since she left her mother and everything behind, but it felt a lot longer.

The man made a noncommittal sound, and pulled something from his pocket, throwing it into the distance.

A rock… a rock that bounced off the white noise almost like a pond.

“How are you doing any of this?” she asked.

“Something happened to me, a long time ago. And now I can see between worlds. I can see moments that should happen, moments that shouldn’t happen but do, and everything in between. When I first met the Miguel we both know, I didn’t understand the powers laid before me. And I won’t pretend to have a complete understanding of them now, but I’ve changed. They’ve changed me. And… one time, he helped me. So I want to do him a good turn, too,” the man contemplated, throwing another rock out into the abyss.

She scoffed involuntarily, thinking about how much help her phantom father really needed.

The man laughed to himself, seeing the indignant expression on her face.

“Do you really think you can help that guy? He refuses to talk about anyone about his problems, dismissed my mother, a woman who is apparently identical to the one everyone thinks he loves, clams up around my uncle—”

“And how do you think he got that way? Nothing in your world happened to him. He didn’t reconnect with Xina Kwan, he didn’t patch things up with his brother and he certainly never talked things out with his mother. If any of those things happened in 928, they were abruptly ended by the reappearance of Venom.”

She hesitated, trying to remember who that was to her parents, or if it was anyone at all.

But she didn’t know that name, not in 2099. Maybe it was someone from the original Spider-Man’s past… it sure sounded like one of his problems.

The man looked down at her curiously, as if waiting to see if her brain would make some connection.

“I don’t know who that is,” she admitted.

“He was a foe of the original Spider-Man’s, and he reappeared as a specter of your parent’s past: Kron Stone,” he explained, an expectant expression on his face.

She just tilted her head in confusion.

“Am I supposed to know that name? Cus… I really don’t,” she shrugged.

“Another universe discrepancy. He nearly killed Xina and Miguel numerous times and when he came back from the dead, he did kill someone. A woman once engaged to Miguel,” the man explained.

“That’s what drove them all apart… why they’re all like this now?” she asked, having put some of the pieces together on her own.

“Yes and no. Some things… were broken well before Venom,” the man explained.

Gabriella frowned again, her growing pity for these alternate versions of her family swaying her.

“You said I can’t fix everything on my own, right? And that I can’t just try to act like him?” she asked after a moment.

He nodded.

“Well… show me how to help. Those two seem pretty clueless, they don’t even know they’ve missed three months of time in their own universe,” she snorted.

The old man rolled his eyes, mumbling something to himself.

“And who sent them on that wild goose chase?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought… I thought she would just figure it out,” she said quietly, shrugging her shoulders.

“You told a woman who was questioning her very place on this Earth that she was the only one who could save another dimension and then expected her to just pull herself up by her untied bootstraps and make it all better. Of course she hadn’t figured anything out,” the man said gently.

“But she’s…” Gabriella trailed off, realizing he was right.

“She’s not her. She’s another version of her, with different lived experiences. She may want to help you, and she may try. But she is just one person.”

One person… who made all the difference.

It didn’t matter that she wasn’t her mom, that she was just another version of her.

Because some things are true about Xina Kwan in every universe.

Like her belief in others, her deep capacity for love and a deep-rooted sense of justice.

This Xina was just like her mother in so many ways and that’s why she came here.

One old man in a trench coat wasn’t gonna tell her she made the wrong choice.

“You’re wrong.”

“Oh? How so, little spider?” he asked, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“You don’t know her. She’s the smartest person in the universe, smarter than this world’s Miguel, and he created the whole mess to begin with. And… I don’t think it’s fair to make her clean it up. But she’s the only one who can. Regardless of how they ended, she always wants to help him. And this time around he got himself in too big a mess. Maybe you’re right, maybe she is just one person. But that’s never stopped her before. She’ll fix this mess and you’ll eat your words, Trenchy,” she sassed.

The man guffawed, holding his side as he let out what thought was a bit too loud of a laugh.

“You have a fire in you, that’s for sure,” he said after a moment.

She glared at the old man, waiting for him to spew more nonsense about this specter mother of hers.

“If I’m seeing clearly, and I usually am, there is a path forward. For her and Miguel. But she has to help someone else first,” the man explained.
Gabriella frowned.

“Who?”

“Herself,” he smirked at his own joke.

“You mean that other… other one? With the files and… no, uh, Miguel?” she asked, the name feeling strange to say.

She didn’t call him that. That wasn’t who was to her. But this one… he wasn’t her father. And neither was the dead one.

And she had to stop acting like he was.

…and she had to do the same to Xina, too.

She was a different person.

A person who could help her, but she wasn’t her mother.

“I know you want her to save your world, and there’s a possibility she can. But she has to find her strength again. Outside of doing something good for someone else. Even now, she thinks all she’s good for is undoing whatever damage Miguel did to your world. That somehow, because she survived Venom, a price has to be paid,” the man explained, his brow furrowed.

“But that’s not—”

“Grief makes people re-examine. And even if she has nothing to feel guilty for, it’s crept in either way. And sometimes you need an outside perspective. This outside perspective just happens to be an alternate reality,” the man laughed to himself.

“It isn’t that funny,” she mumbled.

“Sometimes in extraordinary situations, you have to find the humor,” he shrugged.

“So… you think she can do it? Save the world?” she asked tentatively.

The man just smiled.

“Of that, I have no doubt. But first she has to remember the brilliance in here,” he tapped at his temple.

She nodded slowly, her head still filled with half a dozen questions.

“Who are you? Why do you know so much about my—them, that is?”

“Just an old friend,” he said, walking away, seeming to fade the further and further he walked away.

She blinked, and it was if he had never walked in the world between worlds.

UNIVERSE 928, MONTHS AGO…

“So how do you know Spider-Man?” the mystery man asked, giving Xina a look she wasn’t really sure how to interpret.

“Nueva York’s retro vigilante? He’s fine,” she said noncommittally, hoping to end whatever line of questioning he wanted to go down.

She wouldn’t tell.

She wasn’t even sure she was right.

But there were too many similarities, too many happenstances…

And even then, maybe she was wrong.

Xina had had the wrong idea about Miguel before…

Tensen gave her a look, and she knew he had some sort of inclination.

Or he was playing mind games with her.

And considering the weird portal thing he’d just done a few minutes earlier, she wasn’t sure what he was capable of.

“I believe we both know the identity of the 2099 incarnation of the webbed hero, Ms. Kwan,” the man said solemnly.

“Even if I do, why do you care?” she asked tentatively.

“Because it’s sent you on a downward spiral of epic proportions,” he said easily.

Xina gripped the steering wheel harder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she clipped back.

“Your oldest friend suddenly has the power of the Heroic Age and he couldn’t spare you another second of his time. Too busy seeking revenge on the ghost of a woman who ruined your whole life. He donned the suit every time danger struck, even with you around. And when you finally got up the courage to tell him you knew, a man once thought lost to time plucked him from the seat of your car. You haven’t had a candid conversation with this man in years, and the first time you try to, he dismisses you. Sure, he held you for a moment or two. But he decided revenge and steering a broken system was worth more than you. Need I go on?”

He really didn’t.

“Do I even want to know why you know all of that?” she asked, exasperated.

The man’s eyes flickered a bright magenta before turning back to their normal shade.

“I hate that I can qualify that as an answer,” she griped.

“So… you and him?” he carried on as if he hadn’t just pinpointed every one of her insecurities of the last year.

“There is no me and him. He’s just an old friend. Or he was. I dunno, it’s… hard to explain,” she waved one hand around, as if it would explain away their years of… whatever they were.

“And I thought you’d be the easy one to reason with,” the man muttered to himself.

Xina paused.

“What are you talking about?”

The man looked unbothered at her question.

“My name is John Tensen, and I am the Prophet. I met your Spider-Man months ago, in the beginning of his tenure. Miguel seemed… splintered in his loyalties then, too,” the man frowned.

She shot a look at him, resisting the urge to sass him.

“I meant his loyalties to Alchemax. And his position in that company, Ms. Kwan,” Tensen said.

She felt heat rise in her face, wishing the man would look out the window or the console or anywhere but her face. Apparently being an all knowing glowing eyes mystery man didn’t mean you could pick up on social cues.

“Maybe he didn’t lose all of his backbone to Stone,” she mumbled.

“Did you ever really believe that?” he asked.

Xina hesitated again, disliking how good this man was at poking at her psychological sore spots.

“I wanted to… it would make it easier, I guess. If there was nothing salvageable in our friendship then it could be a clean break,” she explained, echoing the words she had once told her mother.

And neither this strange man in a trench coat or her mother believed her.

“Sometimes people lose their way. And too often we try to put them back on the path, thinking since we so clearly see the way forward, they will too,” Tensen explained.

“Yeah, well, I’m just the idiot who thought I could help my friend become a better person,” Xina ground out.

Tensen looked carefully at her, something behind his eyes.

“I know it offers little comfort, but there… have always been extenuating circumstances surrounding Miguel and Alchemax.”

Of course she knew about that. Well, not every detail. Miguel always got cagey around the topic of his acceptance into the school. She knew it meant a lot to his family, but she always had got the sense it was different than the way her family cared.

“He always felt like Tyler had it out for him. That he had to prove himself,” she supplied.

“And the threats that followed? The ones laid out by George O’Hara? Be a good student or else? Tyler clocking the dangerous environment, threatening Miguel to stay in his place?” the older man asked, tapping his foot to some unseen beat.

“He mentioned it, alluded to it… tried to get me to hear his point when Kron endangered both out lives. But I thought he was just being a coward. That he would rather turn away when things got hard, then face them head on,” she reminisced, a pang in her heart at the feeling that that’s how he ended things.

He didn’t tell her to her face he wanted to end things. He just snuck around her back presumably waiting for her to find him out.

“And then Kron disappeared from your lives, if only for the moment. And Tyler found the perfect replacement for an ill-behaved son: Miguel. A boy constantly try to prove himself to everyone around him, to show that he deserves to hold the space he already feels he doesn’t deserve. A malleable teenager who could become an obedient worker bee given time,” Tensen described, a lilt to his voice as if he were describing the weather and not the slow spiral of a bankrupt morality.

“Seems you care more about the outcome of Miguel and I’s doomed friendship more than either of us,” she deflected.

“I don’t work in absolutes. And I don’t work with abject failure. Maybe there is a bit of hopelessness to your case, but not how I see it.”

Xina glanced at him curiously, trying to understand what he thought his role was in all of this.

She was scared of losing her best friend, pushed him into a relationship, lost him to his own insecurity and somehow they stumbled back into being at least friendly with one another.
And then he couldn’t spare more than a few words for her, his time too valuable. And the unspoken: this is more important than you.

A random man who yes, seemed to have otherworldly abilities, was just suddenly interested in herself and Miguel? Not likely. There had to be something in this for him.

Maybe when she was a child she could believe this stranger was altruistic in nature. But she wasn’t a child anymore.

“What do you get out of all this? Why do you want me and him to get along again? I seriously doubt my not speaking to Miguel has any serious universe-ending consequences. I’m nothing to him,” she bit out.

The man looked away from her, out the window and his gaze drifted, going somewhere far beyond the hills they were driving through.

“You’re quick with your words and quick to make a judgment. I know he has wronged you, and I know you don’t think he feels any guilt over that. But he does. You saw him as a person, not an extension to wealth or power. And I think we both know both family and supposed friends have seen him as their ticket to a great economic standing,” John grimaced.

“That’s all anyone in Nueva York cares about,” she huffed.

“But you didn’t,” he pressed.

“No, because I kept reading about the past. And felt like we could change how we lived, to pave a better future. Because for some reason I think everyone has the capacity to change,” she rolled her eyes.

“That is why,” he said simply.

“Why what?”

“I care,” he continued.

“Does Miguel find your cryptic-ness charming? Because I find it annoying,” she deadpanned.

“Knowing too much about your future is dangerous. The path I walk is laden with possible missteps, and I can’t give you any more information. Our future is slipping away, but you have to hold onto that belief, do you understand me?” he said, waving a hand above his head, another eerie black and white portal appearing.

“I guess,” she said after a moment.

“Good.”

And with a wave of his hand, he was gone.

Xina was alone.

She passed another sign, barely registering how many hundreds of miles away she was from Nueva York.

Believing in someone didn’t mean she had to linger in their orbit.

If Miguel wanted to become something other than a corporate stooge, he was more than welcome to do it.

Xina would rather get another hundred miles between her and him than have to look in his eyes and see nothing but disinterest.

Not again.

“—something could have happened to her!”

“I know that. But she’s with Ma, she’s safe—”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better!?”

Xina felt like she was in an old episode of The Twilight Zone as she glanced between two Gabriel’s, nearly nose-to-nose bickering with one another about her apparent safety.

She and Conchata had snuck back through Midtown, climbing up the fire escape of this alternate Xina’s apartment. It had felt strange, going up to her own apartment but knowing it wasn’t exactly hers.

The whole time she had sorted through dates in her head, trying to pick which one would have that much of a significance to Miguel. If the files on Alchemax were stored behind a six digit passcode, it would be a date, right?

Could it be the day he got his first degree? She didn’t think it would have anything to do with Alchemax, too obvious. Not when he started working there, or even anything to do with the school.

Maybe the other Xina would have a better idea.

“I never knew you cared this much,” Xina joked, alerting the two to their arrival.

The alternate Gabriel had on a different colored scarf, her’s still in a yellow scarf. Well, at least they made it a little bit easier to tell them apart
That, and one looked significantly more guilty than the other.

“Xina,” he started, glancing down at the floor, his shoe kicking up the carpeting.

This world’s Gabriel shared a look with Conchata, and the two left the small room, giving the two of them space.

She glanced around, noticing the room was similar to hers. Just like in her apartment, a whole space right beside her balcony filled with plants. It was supposed to be a guest bedroom but she closed up and shut off, deciding she just needed her plants and her android.

“Entirely different universe and I still have the same taste in furniture,” she snorted, glancing at the couch facing the windows.

Gabriel made a non-committal sound, and she wondered for a moment if he would carry on like Miguel would.

Never admitting he did anything wrong, just a look in his eye that was supposed to mean he was sorry for whatever stupid fight they got into.

“I—I shouldn’t have said what I said, Xina. Any of it. I felt crummy the longer I waited Downtown, but I figured you were already gone. And… shit, I’m bad at this. It’s not… I’m not—well, you saw what it was like for me. How it still is with both Ma and Miguel. I can’t talk to them about anything that really counts. Ma wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell her about the damage she did, and if you try to say anything half genuine to Miguel, good or bad, he clams up,” Gabriel sighed.

Xina couldn’t help but nod, knowing everything between them was messier than they wanted to admit.

Especially when it came to Miguel.

“You can’t hold all that in, Gabriel. And I know that’s real rich coming from me, especially about your brother… but maybe we both got a little hot-headed?” she offered, nervous about this unfamiliar territory with him.

He had gone from her best friend’s little brother to… well, what do you consider someone who got spat out through to another dimension with you? Some sort of friendship higher than acquaintance, that’s for sure.

“Runs in the family. You got lucky and acquired it by osmosis,” he joked.

“Nah, I’ve always been a little hot-headed,” she half-smiled.

Gabriel smiled back, and she hoped they were on better footing. Sure, maybe the extraordinary circumstances made everything feel that much worse, but a part of her was relieved. Maybe… the two of them did need each other. Who else was supposed to relate to sticking by Miguel’s side, even when he was his worst and most prickly self?

“And for what it’s worth, Xina, I don’t think—all you have to do is keep going, okay? There isn’t some grand purpose out there you have to find. It’s taken me a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of anger, and a few too many punches through my walls to figure that one out,” Gabriel frowned, his gaze anywhere but her.

She paused, surprised he was still thinking about what she had said. And yet, knowing how often he showed up at Miguel’s, even when uninvited, always checking up on his brother… it shouldn't have shocked her too much.

Gabriel was more perceptive than she gave him credit for, and she felt a twinge of guilt.

Neither her or Miguel ever expected too much from him. It was hard, Miguel was her friend first, and Gabri was just his little brother. But she had clearly discounted him for too long.

“I’ll start giving that a try,” she gave a small smile, still not used to being this vulnerable after so long.

“And,” he started, “can I just say I’m really, really glad you didn’t go try to rob Alchemax alone? It’s worse here, I think. Which doesn’t sound possible, but I guess anything’s possible in another dimension.”

Xina pursed her lips, remembering what stopped her in her tracks.

“I mean, I was trying to go that direction. Then I saw their Conchata in front of a line of graves, including—Gabriel, I’m sorry,” she felt her throat close up, the knowledge that Miguel, even if he wasn’t theirs’, was dead, nearly too much.

His face fell, and she wondered if he already knew.

“Yeah, uh, Gabriel told me. And that seemed to be the catalyst for everything that’s worse here,” Gabriel said quietly.

“The Public Eye… they’re all like Spider-Man? But ours, not the one from the past?” Xina asked, skirting around Miguel’s name.

But that didn’t mean they both didn’t know.

“Talons, fangs, the webbing. They have the whole deal, and the Nueva Yorkers have nothing,” he spat.

She hesitated, wondering about the encrypted files.

“I mean… they might have something. If those files are the bonafide truth. I think… I think I might know how to get into them. To at least see, some sort of…”

“And who’s that hope for? Them or us?” Gabriel asked.

“At this point, what’s the difference?” she countered.

Gabriel grimaced.

“I mean, it is kind of freaky, right? It’s like looking in some sort of mirror nightmare,” he shuddered.

“At least it wasn’t Star Trek rules and those versions of us weren’t sent back to our own universe,” she said.

“It’s not like they’d get to see Miggy again…” Gabriel trailed off, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, but he’s out there. Somewhere. This one isn’t. I can’t… I can’t imagine that. We were just barely starting to be friends again, and to lose him like this, it would…”

“Yeah, me too,” Gabriel finished, and she was relieved to see there wasn’t any pity in his eyes.

“But we can at least help them with this, get rid of some of Alchemax’s power,” she said wistfully.

“You’re sure?” he asked skeptically.

“If he knew he wasn’t getting out, but there was a chance to make things better, for you or me or even your mom… he would. People don’t change that much across dimensions,” she confirmed, a small part of her hoping she was right.

He nodded and they both left the side room of her apartment, taking note of the fact neither alternate version was waiting outside for them.

But it didn’t take them very long to find where the three of them were, least of all by the ongoing argument.

“—we don’t know if he even cared at the end!”

“He’s your brother how can you say something like that?!”

“Look, Xin, I know he was important to you. He was my shocking brother, I know a thing or two about loving him even with all this flaws. But he told Tyler no and he died for it. There was no back-up plan. Maybe whatever he sent you is some sort of apology, I’ll grant you that. But my brother never thought about anyone outside of his own circle. And even then getting him admit he cared about any of us was a stretch. You have to know that,” alternate Gabriel pleaded with her own mirror image, and it took Xina aback.

Gabriel was right, it was like looking into a mirror. Mostly.

But this Xina had longer hair, all nestled into a bun. And she looked like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. Considering everything with Miguel…. Xina didn’t think she would have looked that good, either. Shock, she probably didn’t look good right now.

“How can you still think that?! You and I both know you were always more tech savvy than him. I know you know what a file size is, and the sheer amount of stuff in this… it has to mean something, Gabriel,” the alternate Xina argued.

Alternate Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation.

She pretended she didn’t recognize his body language, or the way his nostrils flared in an all too similar fashion.

“I think she’s right,” Xina piped up, trying to give a reassuring smile to her mirrored self.

Weird, weird, really weird, alright.

The other version of Gabriel rolled his eyes, pacing the room.

“What a shocking surprise! Xina agrees with Xina, who could have ever seen the day!”

Conchata cleared her throat, and alternate Xina and Gabriel quit glaring at each other, looking toward the older woman.

“She may be Xina, but she’s still an outside opinion. If she thinks so too, maybe we should let her have a look-see?” Conchata asked, looking pointedly at alternate Gabriel.

“Fine, but if this sets off a billion different alarms at Alchemax and they track us here, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he narrowed his eyes, throwing his hands up in defeat and leaving the room.

Gabriel muttered something about going to talk to him, and Conchata shook her head, sitting on the living room couch.

Alternate Xina motioned for Xina to follow to her room, and she was surprised that half the room was taken up with papers and connecting pieces of string, like some sort of conspiracy board. In the center, Tyler Stone's head-shot, circled with red ink.

"If you know Tyler did it, why go through all this trouble?" Xina asked, looking at the different connected strings and how each player in Alchemax directly or indirectly led to Miguel's death.

"To remember what we're doing this for," alternate Xina said simply.

She pulled up the encryption lock, and Xina couldn't help but notice that the old photo of herself and Miguel was still by the nightstand, a couple others on the wall, ones that in her universe she had hidden away in a box years ago.

All of those photos, those memories between the two of them. And the day it all began...

The encryption key appeared, and Xina realized what six digits it could be.

"Try 090784," she said, alternate Xina nodding as she put the six numbers into the key.

The loading wheel felt slower than usual and for a second she wondered if she was wrong.

A ping.

And the dozens upon dozens of files loaded up onto Xina's tablet, each meticulously labelled.

Alternate Xina teared up, setting aside the tablet to hug Xina and at first she was too startled to say anything.

"Thank you for believing me. For believing in him, too," alternate Xina sobbed out.

Belief.

Suddenly she was reminded of the eerie encounter she had had all that time ago with The Prophet, Tensen.

Maybe... he was right.

Xina clutched the note in her hand, having memorized the words on it:

Meet me in the normal spot. 8 pm. M.

She didn’t know what he would want to talk about, considering for three months she had barely heard from him. Sure, it was the summer. But every summer before they had still rung each other up on the holo-line, or even sending messages to each other.

But interning for Alchemax meant he didn’t have time for that anymore.

And in some ways, it felt like he didn’t have time for her.

He was her best friend and he felt like he was slipping further and further away.

Xina kept climbing up the stairs of the old mansion, looking for the familiar window. Up on the fourth floor of the mansion was a balcony, but nobody could get in the room that led to it, so nobody ever went up there. Unless you knew how to climb to the side of the nearest windows few bricks out of place enough to lead to a path.

Nobody ever bothered them up there, and for a couple hours every week it felt like they were the only two people in the school.

But the last time they had gone up there together was months ago.

And now, what? He just wanted her to meet him there like he hadn’t slowly started icing her out?

He better be there, because she wanted to have a few choice words with Miguel O’Hara.

The moment she crawled out the window, she saw him sitting on the edge of the balcony, looking the same as ever.

“What do you want, Mig?” she asked, sitting in the windowsill.

He was apparently too deep in thought to realize she was nearly to the meeting place.

“Xina!” he smiled a nearly too big for his face smile, and for a moment she reconsidered her cold stance.

“I’ll ask again: what’s this about?” she waved the note in her hand, looking at him expectantly.

He frowned, as if not understanding her questioning.

“Just… come over here and I’ll tell you. I promise,” he stood up from the edge of the balcony, reaching a hand out to help her climb the short distance to the other side.

Xina shook her head no.

“You don’t talk to me for three months and you show back up at school and want to pretend everything is fine? What’s the deal with that?” she tried to hide the hurt in her voice, failing spectacularly by the boy’s deepening frown.

“I couldn’t—they were really strict on curfew and working hours at Alchemax, especially for a student,” he explained, looking as if he desperately wanted her to understand.
And maybe a little bit of her did. But not enough.

“You couldn’t even warn me about that? You just… left all my messages unread? Not even when you were headed back to school?” she asked, wishing desperately he would look her in the eye.

“I didn’t… I didn’t know how to tell you. And it still… Xina, you wouldn’t get it. I felt needed there! The scientists working on genetic material actually listened to me! It was like somebody cared about me for once,” he was clearly exasperated, running a hand through his hair.

“The scientists at Alchemax are the first time somebody’s cared about you?” she repeated, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

“Well, I mean…”

“No, no. Expand on that, Miguel. Tell me all about how men who have little regard for any real ethical boundaries care about you,” she sniffed.

“Why are you so mad about this?!” he groaned.

“Because you doing this is everything we’re against! What, was all of last year just fun and games? All the conversations on this roof?” she questioned, finally climbing across the window to the balcony.

Miguel tensed, reaching out for her.

She batted his hand away, frustrated he would offer his help right now.

“Xina, c’mon,” he pleaded.

“That’s not an answer,” she said, crossing her arms, turning away from him.

“I don’t… I still believe you, y’know. And everything we said, that did mean something. But I have to do this, for Gabri and my mom. Everything at school… it’s always been for them. I’m sorry,” he shuffled nervously, as if he expected her to get angrier at his explanation.

And all of her anger billowed out of her, the wind in her sails gone.

She didn’t know a lot, but she knew enough to know whatever his little brother and mother needed, he made sure it happened.

His jerk father didn’t seem to be doing anything for them.

“You could have told me,” she mumbled.

“I don’t want you thinking less of me,” he muttered.

“What?” she asked.

“Well, you just got to come here because your parents could pay for it. I didn’t,” he shrugged.

She stared at him.

“We’ve known each other for how long and you think I would be that shallow?”

“I mean, not on purpose…”

“You’re my best friend. I would never do that, Mig,” she frowned.

“Yeah, seeing you now… I dunno why I got so in my head about it,” he felt ashamed, wishing not for the first time he could just trust Xina with something like this. But even after everything, there was a small voice of fear in his head, warning him to keep his distance.

“Do what you need to do for you family, Miggy,” she said quietly, trying to rationalize it as quickly as he had. It wasn’t easy.

She sighed, sitting back against the wall, her legs dangling over the side of the small balcony.

He sat beside her, him tapping her boot with his own sneaker.

“It won’t be forever,” he said after a moment.

“Really?” she looked toward him, seeing hope in his eyes again.

“Yeah, one of the scientists in the lab told me the program can be a stepping stone to some other place. Or some people strike out on their own, eventually. I just need to stay there long enough to get my dad off my back. Make him and Tyler Stone see I did what they wanted, and leave us alone,” Miguel said nonchalantly.

“Is that what you were doing all summer?” she asked.

“What?”

“Finding… an out?” she hesitated.

“Yeah, Xin. We’re still gonna change the world, this is just…a road block. Just like those Z Files guys you like so much,” Miguel half-smiled.
Xina laughed, she couldn’t help herself.

“You mean X-Files?”

“Isn’t that what I said?” he shrugged cheekily.

This was what she was used to, what she understood.

Her best friend still seeing good in the world and trusting her.

Maybe he was right, and this was just the road block in the way of their real future.

“Miguel,” she started, clamming up when his gaze lifted up from the setting sun in the distance.

“Yeah?”

“You know… you’ve always been my best friend, right?” her nerves were failing her, again.

“Course I do. And you’re mine,” he stated like it was a fact, like he wasn’t the one currently wondering if there could be something… beyond that.

“Well… I mean, you’re—you’re the most important person to me, too. Not seeing you everyday for a whole summer made me understand that, I think,” she explained, feeling like she was watching herself talk to Miguel from outside her body.

She always said she would never tell him.

Never jeopardize their friendship.

But… what if it didn’t jeopardize it?

“Me too,” he realized, and a flicker of recognition passed through his face.

Oh, he knew. There was no hiding it now.

“I like you. More than like, obviously, but I just…” she trailed off, watching him gently raise a hand to cup her face.

“Me, too,” he smiled softly, lifting her jaw and hesitating a moment before leaning in.

They kissed, and Xina forgot all the reasons she had given herself over the years to never cross this line.

But if she could see him now, she would never have let him get that close to her.

He didn’t blame her.

His only solace in this big, empty lab was that at least she didn’t know about it.

How he took her old schematics from private school and did finally use them for something completed separated from the corporate greed that ruled over all of Nueva York.
If Gabriel saw him, he was sure his brother would give him a never-ending lecture about how he gave up on the city and that he needed to remember where he lived, not just the rest of the known universes.

But neither of them were here. And he was going to keep it that way. They couldn’t know about any of this, least of all… what he did. It was foolish and selfish and irresponsible.
There was never a chance of him being happy in his own world, he shouldn’t have had the arrogance to think anywhere else would be any different.

Miguel didn’t leave the lab and he didn’t go home. Not that it ever really was a home. Lyla made it feel that way, and she was always in the lab now. With an air of indifference, he swept away the many security cameras positioned throughout the perimeter of the Spider building, noticing a silenced alert at the bottom of his screens.

His apartment.

Odd, he hadn’t gone there in months…

“Lyla, what’s this?”

The AI appeared, ready to quip when her glasses fizzled out and on again, displaced and frazzled.

“Um, what’s what, Miggy?”

He gave her a hard look.

“The security alert in the apartment. From three months ago. Care to explain?”

“Maybe it was rats?” she shrugged.

“Rats are breaking into Nueva York apartments now?”

“I mean this is Nueva York,” she said sheepishly.

Miguel sighed, bringing a hand down his face in annoyance.

“Pull up the security footage.”

Lyla bit her lip, trying to think on her feet.

“Miguel, I’d just like to say—”

He gave her an odd look, manually bringing up the footage.

What?

Either he was more delirious from lack of sleep than he thought, or he was watching his brother and… Xina snoop around his apartment?

She looked so worried, an air of anxiety in her movements.

Why would she be in his apartment, and worried of all things?

“Lyla, when is this from?”

It’s the three month old security alert, Miggy…” she explained, eyeing him warily.

He froze.

“After I left? That’s when this is from?”

They were worried! They didn’t know what happened to you, and you love to be cryptic and—”

“Where are they, Lyla? They didn’t find me home and they went back to their lives, right?” he questioned.

“I can’t tell you that, Miguel,” she put her foot down, irritation in her voice.

“You’re my assistant. You can tell me,” he argued.

“If it’s between the multiverse and you? No, I can’t,” she snapped.

“What do you mean the multiverse? Aren’t they still on 928? They don’t even know about the multiverse, Lyla! Why would they know about that?!” he scrubbed the footage, watching again as the two of them pocketed two of his prototype teleportation devices.

He felt like his heart was going to give out.

Miguel finished the footage, irritation coming off him in waves.

“Get me Jess and Peter. Now.”

Chapter Text

Blood.

So much blood.

He didn’t notice blood, not really. Even if it was his, he always determined it a later problem.

But the bullet wounds pierced too much of her skin, too many places to press down on or call for help or do anything but feel completely useless. A feeling that was a bit too familiar.

“Hey, just hold on, okay?” he asked weakly, watching Dana fade in and out of consciousness.

“Jennifer… I never made it right,” she mumbled.

“If you stay awake you’ll see her soon, okay?” he reassured her, clueless to who this Jennifer could possibly be. She never mentioned any friend by that name.

“She’ll be so mad…” the woman trailed off, her grip fading, body becoming slack in his arms.

He heard a choked sob from behind him, forgetting for a moment that Xina was still there. Which immediately sent him in a spiral of shame. He couldn’t save Dana, and now his oldest friend was scared out of her mind and he couldn’t say anything.

“Is she…?” Xina trailed off, and part of him wished she wouldn’t ask. Don’t make him say it, not now.

Because some part of him was still angry, still simmering with resentment over her sudden attachment to Tyler, she was shocking living with him! His father, and even if she didn’t know, she knew what that bastard did to him.

He saw the flashing lights still approaching, and realized in a moment he couldn’t be here anymore. But his grip on Dana’s body didn’t lessen, he couldn’t move from this moment.

After this, he would have to reckon with the consequences of Venom.

Dana was gone, and Gabriel would never forgive him.

He knew. His little brother knew who Spider-Man was and what he failed to stop.

Tentatively, he let go of Dana’s body, rising to his feet and feeling every moment of the last twenty-four hours all at once.

Miguel glanced to the side, balling his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out for Xina. She didn’t hear anything too incriminating, he hoped. Just because he failed one woman didn’t mean he would lead another to her death. This all but confirmed he couldn’t admit who he was to her.

He had to deal with Venom, and permanently.

The monster wanted blood, and he had seemed far too quick to want to hurt both Dana and Xina.

People who, for better or worse, meant something to him.

He cleared his throat, hoping beyond hope she wouldn’t clock him.

“Yeah. Get out of here, it isn’t safe. Go home, lock the doors and don’t open them, not for anyone. At least until Venom’s gone,” he clarified.

Something flickered across her face, and he felt his stomach drop.

Please, don’t recognize him.

“… okay,” she said after a moment, seeming to drop whatever question lingered.

“Be safe,” he mumbled.

He gave her a nod, casting another glance at Dana’s bullet-ridden body.

It wouldn’t happen again.

Venom was dead, and he didn’t even know it.

Because Miguel wasn’t that little kid anymore, and he didn’t have a reason to hold back. Not anymore.

Xina lingered for another moment, and as he leaped from the building he swore he heard her mutter something like “… never admit it.”

He didn’t mean to invent dimensional hopping. That’s not what he wanted, when all of this started.

What he really wanted was a way to turn back time, to right his wrongs.

Maybe in another life he would have succeeded, could have stopped Delgato from ever splicing his DNA. And maybe none of this would have ever happened. But in a way, he had accepted the Alchemax disaster.

What he couldn’t accept was the distant look in Xina’s eyes, the way she cried in her apartment and at the funeral, sitting in the back, having no real reason to come to Dana’s funeral except to try to piece together her own morality.

He wished he could take away her guilt.

Xina wasn’t the one with the power to stop Venom, that was him.

And he couldn’t.

Not only was there Xina’s misplaced survivor’s guilt, there was Gabriel’s justified anger.

Miguel could be dense and inconsiderate at his worst, but even he noticed some of the glances shared between Gabriel and Dana in the last few months.

But still, being him, he assumed it was phantom feelings. Just his brother reaching out for old familiar things, and maybe even spite him a bit.

The prolonged silence from his brother had disproven that theory pretty spectacularly.

For the first time in a long time, Miguel was the first to reach out.

And Gabriel didn’t answer.

For weeks.

The only way he knew nothing had happened to him was their mother.

Who, for maybe the first time in his life, seemed to not… entirely side with his brother.

But he knew the only reason was her latent dislike of Dana.

And he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her, either. He didn’t want to think about that rainy night at Stone’s, what she had revealed.

So now the un-watched holovids weren’t from his brother, but from his mother. Someone who never cared to reach out to him before, unless she had an ominously specific death planned that week.

She was still his mother, though, and every message was short and to the point. Except the one’s about Spider-Man. Rambling on about how he should have killed Venom when he had the chance, that capture only meant he’d break loose and terrorize Nueva York again.

Of course he would disappoint his mother with both his identities, eventually.

But he could undo it.

Xina’s guilt, Gabriel’s anger and even his mother’s resentment could be fixed.

Sure, the last time he had gone into the past was entirely by accident. But it had had Alchemax written all over it. So, with his newly minted position, he searched around Stone’s private projects.

Which then led to him de-funding over half of them before he found the temporal anomaly work, a grimace deepening on his face the more he searched through the sordid history of Alchemax.

Gabriel was right about everything.

If they were speaking, he would have let him rub it in his face.

Instead, he hid away in the back of his dusty office, testing and re-configuring technology he barely understood.

Which was where Lyla came in.

She, admittedly, had a much greater grasp on the technology Stone was trying to make work.

The holo-agent spritzed in and out around the temporal plating, taking notes.

“You don’t want it that big, right?” she asked cheekily, pointing her pen at the large platform on the ground.

“Obviously not, Lyla. That would be a one-way trip,” he rolled his eyes.

“I was thinking more along the lines of carrying it around on your back like a giant boulder. You already have the attitude of Sisyphus, why not make it the whole package,” Lyla snarked.

Sometimes she reminded him too much of her creator.

But unlike her creator, she was still here.

For a moment, he considered asking Lyla to fake a malfunction. Break her coding. Anything he could use to bring Xina back here. Maybe if the holo-agent she put her blood, sweat and tears into broke it would bring her back. It made her accept his lackluster apology, anything was possible.

And yet he hesitated to do that.

He didn’t… he didn’t want to tell Lyla how much he missed Xina. She would end up putting it in his journals and while he never looked back at them, he would know. And he had to accept she was gone.

Maybe it was better this way.

All he ever did was drag her down…

Lyla blipped in front of him, in her life-size form.

“You really want this to work, don’t you?” she asked softly.

Miguel turned away, unable to meet her gaze.

“I have to make it right, Lyla. For Gabri and Xina and even Ma. Especially for… well, you know. She wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for me,” he said quietly.

Lyla frowned, and he waited for her to lecture him, or remind him of all the way Dana had shocked him over in the last few months.

But she just looked on sadly.

Somehow that was worse.

The holo-agent seemed to find resolve in herself, and blitzed back by his shoulder.

“This was experimental at best when Tyler was working on it, Miguel. They barely understood what they were dealing with, and I don’t… I don’t necessarily think it was time travel they unraveled. I think it was something a bit more complicated,” she started, flicking back to the temporal reader in front of them.

He paused, soaking in her words.

Miguel’s strong suit was never technology. No, his was biology. He understood what made a person, but he couldn’t find the right words. Not with his brother or Xina or anyone who ever really mattered to him…

“So it’s not time travel? But I saw the twentieth century, Lyla. It’s in the journals, maybe—”

“I know what you saw, Migue. But that wasn’t the past. It was a parallel dimension that just happened to look like our historical records of the twentieth century.”

He clenched his jaw, feeling his talons come out on the pads of his fingers.

That couldn’t be true.

After days of toiling and doubting and trying to reason himself a new solution to this never-ending problem, he thought he had finally shocking done it.

But to go through all of this and realize it was another dead end? Another failure?

Shock, no.

“Check it again,” he ground out, turning away from Lyla and the confiscated temporal plating.

Lyla flitted away, her voice echoing in the empty walls.

“I did, but I’ll do it again. For you,” she said placidly.

He grunted.

And then something clicked in what she said, something he was nearly too sleep deprived to notice.

“What do you mean parallel dimension?” he asked slowly, turning back around.

Lyla laughed in delight, like she was waiting for this question all night.

Considering he had had her looking into the Alchemax tech for the better part of the last two days, she had no doubt waited for this moment.

“Glad you asked! From a rudimentary understanding of how we view string theory in the 21st century—”

Miguel sighed.

“Lyla, I do not need a lecture on theoretical science. What did you find?”

The holo-agent stuck her tongue out at him.

“Mature,” he drawled.

“It seems that there are a number of dimensions connected almost like… webbing. I think, and this is based solely on the existence of two Spider-Men, that there must be a connective tissue allowing you to travel between them. Some part of that world is like ours, and lets you travel,” Lyla explained.

Miguel paused.

“So you’re saying that if there wasn’t anything binding us together… when Stone turned on that machine me and Peter would have…?”

“Remember windshield wipers on TwenCen cars?”

“Obviously. Why?”

“Imagine you’re a bug splatter. The wipers would have taken both of you out. Correcting the universe, one molecule at a time.”

He grimaced.

“And… you’re sure it’s not possible to travel through time, too?"

“That’s where it gets tricky. Theoretically, you could. Your atoms could get displaced a week or even weeks back in time. But it’s a gamble. It wouldn’t happen every time. Like clapping your hand enough times to make your hand go through the other,” Lyla explained, strolling around in a lab coat and goggles.

“Randomized time travel that we can’t even predict. Great,” he said sarcastically, balling his fists.

He didn’t want to be so angry.

The anger only reminded him of another man, of one he thought he looked too much like. That he swore he had the same frown as, the same hard look in the eye.

So he pushed it down.

Once, a long time ago, Xina had told him ignoring all his unsavory feelings couldn’t possibly be good for him. And he had dismissed her, telling her some lie about how he didn’t do that.

But they both knew the truth.

And now he stood in front of technology he barely understood, that his biological father no doubt forced and coerced some poor schmuck into making without any idea how it worked.

“But…” Lyla started, hesitation projected onto her features.

He perked up.

“What, Lyla?”

“Well, we could see what these other places are like. I mean, there was another Spider-Man, identical to ours from the past. And, statistically speaking, there have to be other places like our own world. Maybe… maybe you don’t have to travel through time. You can just see how choices splintered off and changed things. Or… if they didn’t,” Lyla said quietly.

Miguel considered her words.

Which of his choices broke off from their world, made it entirely different? What did he do that led them to this awful reality? Was there a world where his brother loved him, he didn’t resent him? Could there be a reality where Tyler Stone wasn’t his…? No, he couldn’t think about that. Not now.

Maybe there was a world where he didn’t ruin his friendship with Xina.

Didn’t ruin her life.

Didn’t make it worse by coming back around.

“Lyla,” he started, a quiver in his voice, “Do a scan of all universes with any similarities between our year of 2099. And do a backlog scan of any known universes of any Spiders. That’s… secondary,” he trailed off.

Lyla nodded, reappearing in a lab coat and goggles.

“So this will take a while, Miguel,” she started, “I mean, it’s only a fraction of the known universes. Could we… maybe narrow it down?”

He pondered for a moment, more for show than anything.

Miguel knew what he wanted.

“Scan for all known universes where Venom doesn’t kill Dana,” he asked quietly.

Lyla made a noncommittal noise, as if she had expected this answer.

Of course she did.

“Oh,” she said after a moment.

“What?” he tilted his head, worry seeping into his bones.

“It’s just… that doesn’t seem to happen, very often. Venom… he usually gets what he’s after. But sometimes it isn’t Dana who dies,” Lyla said, pain in her voice.

He knew what that meant.

Who was lost in those universes.

“Don’t look at those,” he said, ignoring the shake of his hands.

“Roger that,” she saluted, disappearing again.

Standing in this forgotten wing of Alchemax, ignoring whatever “duties” came with his role seemed easier than facing the ghouls of the company.

Foolishly, he had thought he could change things. Make it better. But that wasn’t how a place like Alchemax worked. He got too confident in himself, again. Thought that all this place needed was a better hand to steer the ship.

What an idiot he was.

This place was built on the blood of Nueva York citizens, and thousands more would die in the name of Alchemax.

Xina was right…

She was always right.

His mother left soon after Xina, saying Gabriel needed her more than Miguel did.
Which was more than a relief. He didn’t want his mother stalking around the place, doing what she did best. And he would catch her glancing too long at his office, no doubt wondering if he really was his father’s son.

With her ability to keep secrets it seemed far more likely he was his mother’s son.

Miguel snorted at that, knowing the day his mother saw herself in him was the day hell froze over.

Lyla reappeared, typing away furiously on a holographic computer.

“Any luck?”

“There… there are a few. But we should test the gizmo somewhere else. Somewhere less personal, I think. It’ll be ready in the next three hours,” Lyla explained, tinkering away again in the darkened wing.

“Sure thing, Lyla,” he said absent-mindlessly.

“Miguel?” she asked, her voicing permeating the room.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve also detected something strange. Something with the Spider-Man Protocol. I think something’s wrong,” she frowned.

“Watch it, keep me updated. I need… I need to go leave some messages. For Gabri… and for Xina,” he said, a note of finality in his voice.

Lyla nodded, her gaze going sideways to a separate algorithm she was running.

A back-up plan. She was the smartest holo-agent in all of 2099, a back-up plan was essential.

More blood.

Far, far too much blood.

And it was his this time.

Well, not him. But a version of him. And it was a bit too unsettling to see his face, upturned in a look of shock and a touch of fear.

The last expression that Miguel ever made.

He waited, half wondering what the authorities would say or do. But he knew Downtown and he knew it was still far too much like his own. So, in the shadow of an alley, he watched as two Flyboys were finally flagged down by random passersby.

“What’s the story here?” one of the Flyboys asked someone who had made the mistake of opening their apartment door to the gunshot.

“I don’t know, I opened the door and I heard running the opposite direction, but there was definitely a gunshot. I think this guy was trying to help someone,” they explained uneasily, as if they expected the man with the gun to loop back around and shoot again.

The Flyboy snorted.

“Everybody wants to be a hero, even Uptown losers like this poor schmuck,” the man grimaced, and turned the other Miguel’s head over with his foot.

The second Flyboy squatted next to the body, checking for a pulse that had long since stopped.

“Dead,” he confirmed.

“Obviously, Estevez, you don’t survive from a gunshot would to the chest. Least of all this guy. Looks like he was pretty high up in the societal food chain. Got any ID?”

As quick as they had opened their doors to peer curiously out, the residents of the street had shuttered their doors, trying to keep their thoughts far from the man who bled out. It happened far too often. So they turned up their holo-vids, played their music, and pretended cruelty only happened to other people.

The other man rifled through jacket pockets, looking for some form of identification.
He found a TwenCen style wallet, and muttered something about him being a nostalgic weirdo.

Miguel grimaced at that, knowing who would have given the other Miguel that wallet.

“Guy has a bunch of photos of some lady and a girl. Didn’t know people still printed out photos. Oh, shock,” Estevez frowned, and Miguel heard the man’s heart rate increase tenfold.

“What?”

“He’s former Alchemax Academy. I remember this guy, was supposed to head the Genetics Department right after school but he had some sort of moral qualms about working for Stone and bailed. Stone was pissed about it for months,” Estevez explained, looking through the contents of the wallet like it was a gift bag and not everything left of a man’s life.

The other man groaned, kicking some trash to the wayside.

“So we let some Nueva York big-shot die in Downtown? Shock it all,” he groused.

“I mean…” Estevez trailed off, a plan forming in his mind.

“What?”

“Well, nobody else knows this guy was just gunned down in Downtown. We just… make him disappear, y’know? Plenty of well to-do men up and leave the city all the time. They leave for business or pleasure or anything in between and never come back,” he shrugged.

“Think that would work? What about them?” the other guy indicated to the wallet.

“Just another widow and half an orphan, if you ask me,” Estevez smirked.

Miguel felt his center of gravity shift, and realized he had taken out a piece of the brick wall he was hiding behind, every word the Flyboys said digging deeper and deeper into his subconscious.

The Public Eye’s disregard for human life seemed like it could be a universal constant.
His gizmo pinged.

They’ll leave in the next 10 minutes, Miguel.

Lyla didn’t want to compromise their position, but he missed seeing her life-size. It was even stranger to see messages from her typed out on the screen of the gizmo.

This next bit was tricky. And it depended on a few things. But like he said, Flyboys were Flyboys.

“Just dump the body in one of the Credit Abuser graves. It’s not too full, should be easy enough to throw in with the rest. And less paperwork for us,” Estevez instructed, throwing the wallet into a nearby trash bin.

“What’s that old phrase? Crime doesn’t pay? It does if you’re the one cleaning up the mess,” the other guy grinned, pocketing whatever he deemed valuable from the body.

“Quit it. We gotta dump this damn thing before anybody who actually cared about him comes looking,” Estevez instructed.

The other man grumbled again, and Miguel looked away as the two of them grunted and complained, shuffling a dead man into a gravesite meant for the dispossessed and disregarded of Nueva York.

His grip finally loosened on the wall behind him and his talons retracted, his heart rate finally lowering.

When he had agreed to this universe, to this timeline, he hadn’t wanted to see the other man die.

And he didn’t.

But much like the first time he ended up Downtown, nearly a year ago, it set something aflame in him.

The Flyboys didn’t care. They just dumped some guy into a gravesite and called it a day. Nobody would reach out to his family. To his brother or mother or even his—Xina. Yeah, that’s what she was.

Well, not to this guy.

He could admit to himself that he wanted… he wanted to see what a world would look like where he wasn’t Spider-Man. And maybe this world where he never cheated on Xina had its own intrigue. The morbid curiosity and the fact that that somehow resulted in a version of him being a father.

A father.

By choice.

Not by some shocking mistake or dragging down some poor woman with him, they seemed happy. Actually happy.

The possibility of happiness became his own kind of tunnel vision, forgoing sending anymore messages to an unresponsive Gabriel, and recording and re-recording a final goodbye to Xina.

She was already gone, maybe it would give them both closure.

And it seemed this world’s Xina needed him more than his ever did.

A daughter who was hopefully more Xina than him. Or maybe being half him wasn’t the curse it would be in his own world. This Miguel never had to suffer that awful night in the genetics lab, didn’t have to fear for his life. No one was gunning for Spider-Man because he didn’t exist. Not anymore. Peter Parker was just an old wive’s tale, if that.

Just like the rest of the Heroic Age.

The gizmo buzzed, Lyla’s signal that it was safe to recover the wallet from the bin.

He rummaged a bit, finding the wallet hidden haphazardly.

Miguel glanced back at the dried pool of blood, the scattered groceries.

It would look strange to come back empty-handed.

But how would he explain the scuffed marks on the fruit, the clear signs the groceries had fallen onto the ground?

Clumsy. That’s what he would be. This Miguel still attended Alchemax with Xina, and she was always worried over him. Thinking he’d get into trouble without her.

He tripped on his way back Uptown.

Just as believable as anything else.

Lyla flickered next to his shoulder.

She looked worried, something glittering in her eyes.

They couldn’t be tears. She couldn’t cry. She wasn’t real. Whatever this was was just a funny act in her programming.

“What is it?” he asked quietly, having collected the groceries and wallet, pulling up the collar of the shirt.

The fashion on this Earth was strange, but he wouldn’t complain. He would wear a thousand matching jumpsuits if it meant he never have to suffer in the name of Spider-Man again.

“I—!” Lyla cut herself off, her eyes glazing over.

She was in two places at once, her servers more than capable but a bit strained at the accommodation.

“What do you see in 928, Lyla?” he asked cautiously.

Lyla frizzed out, and for a moment he worried something had happened to her mainframe.

“Everything’s fine,” she said calmly, removing her sunglasses and wiping the lenses, as if she didn’t just glitch out.

“But you…” he trailed off, debating having this conversation in Downtown.

“Had to deliver a message. That’s all,” Lyla said after a moment, reappearing in a postal worker uniform.

He frowned, wanting to know more.

Nope.

928 was fine.

Probably better than fine, since he was gone.

Lyla clapped her hands, her cheery disposition returned for the moment.

“Let’s go see this universe! We’ve got Xina and Gabriel and of course we can’t forget Gabriella!”

He coughed, alarmed at the last name.

“They named their kid after Gabriel?” he asked, grateful the terrible weather seemed to clear out pedestrians as they made their way uptown, Lyla gliding easily beside him.

“Didn’t you see that in the notes I left you on the universe?”

“Been a little busy,” he gave as a half-hearted excuse.

“It’s a lot to take in, you know. It’s okay to be nervous. This world is about as far from ours as we could find,” she said reassuringly.

Even if she was a holo-agent she could see right through him.

He had read, a long time ago, imprints of creators sometimes lived in their creations. Little bits and pieces not always seen by the human eye. But in small ways. Sometimes he wondered if Lyla’s ability to see past his practiced confidence was leftover from Xina.

“This is what’s best for everyone,” he reminded himself, “I’ll stay here, give this Xina and Gabri and… Gabriella their Miguel back. Shock, they won’t even know he was gone to begin with. It’ll be like it never happened. And mine… well they’ll be fine. They’ve been fine without me. It’s just like when I went to private school. And me and Xina were already… she got reminded of all the reasons I’m not a good friend to have in Nightshade and Mexico. No doubt she’s thrilled to have one less burden again. Like I said, this is basically a kindness,” he recited the same thing he had said for weeks now, reassuring himself.

But Lyla never looked reassured.

She disappeared again, this time for much longer.

That was fine.

He didn’t know if this Miguel had a Lyla.

Another bridge he would cross when he got there.

All Miguel was worried about was the first steps through the door. It was late, so the little girl… Gabriella. She must be asleep.

That just meant convincing this Xina he was really him.

There was no reason to doubt.

They were the same person, save for the… differing fashion styles.

And the fact he was a father.

He winced at the word, thinking of the man who sometimes haunted him like a shadow, reminding him what he owed him. How his whole life was given to him by his connections and determination to get him into a good school. And there was the other man. The late reveal in the second-act.

How his mother had kept something like that a secret for so long…

But he wasn’t either of those men.

He wasn’t quick to anger, he didn’t manipulate people the way either of those monsters ever did.

And he would make sure this little girl didn’t cry in anger at a funeral. She wouldn’t be glad to see her father gone. That’s what propelled him forward, even with all his hang-ups.

Miguel swallowed hard, blinking up at the familiar brownstone building.

Xina’s apartment…

The last time he was here she was gone, drifting further and further away.

But not in this world.

No, in this world he didn’t shock it all up. There was a wallet full of soccer practice photos, silly photo booth reels and even some sort of nostalgic TwenCen stylized family photo.

This Miguel didn’t shock any of it up.

He had his brother and Xina and a daughter.

Miguel hesitated on the staircase, knowing one more flight of stairs stood between him and a door that only ever seemed to fill him with dread.

Not that world, not those people.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself and walking up the stairs, another resident coming down the stairs.

“Evening, Miguel!” the old woman said cheerily.

“Hi,” he said, unused to people so willing to acknowledge him.

“Whatever your girls made for dinner smelled fantastic, hope you all have a good night,” she waved, trekking down the stairs once again.

Reaching the familiar apartment door, he reached for the keys he had found discarded with the wallet, hoping he would find the right key before any other neighbors came out.

It wouldn’t look too great if he couldn’t unlock his own apartment door.

His gizmo pinged.

Third key from the left, Miggy.

“Thanks, Lyla,” he murmured.

She sent back a silly little face.

Miguel paused, looking up at his reflection in the stairwell window. The appearance disruptor seemed to be working. No red eyes and no fangs. He looked as normal as he could.

He turned the key, opening the door as quietly as he could, noting how the apartment seemed quiet.

Maybe they were both asleep.

A rustle from Xina’s kitchen—shock, the kitchen—and he realized he was wrong. A light switch flickered on, and he heard the familiar sound of socked footsteps.

Xina appeared, covering a yawn with her hand, smiling up at him and taking one of the grocery bags.

She was like his… but different.

Her hair was longer, up in a bun. And she looked a little older, but a smirk behind her eyes. Miguel was almost certain he had a robe exactly like the one she was wearing back home.

“I fell asleep at the kitchen table waiting for you, Miggy,” she teased.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled quietly, setting down the groceries on the counter, watching as she put everything away with practiced ease.

“You can’t control the weather or the line at the bodega,” this Xina joked, and he looked at her wistfully.

“I missed dinner,” he frowned.

Xina looked at him, something shifting in her gaze.

“Well, I’m sure a certain someone is still reading with a flashlight, even though we’ve told her a thousand times she shouldn’t,” she put a finger to her lips, putting away the grocery bags and pulling him along.

It was like school again.

Xina pulled him along, and he would follow her wherever she wanted.

He smiled softly at her, and she returned it.

Down the hall her TwenCen knick-knacks still sat, but the guest bedroom wasn’t just overflow for her inventions and trinkets. The door was slightly ajar, and he could just barely peek in, seeing soccer posters and even a few that looked similar to his own from school covered the walls.

Xina pushed the door open, and he saw the faint illumination of a figure underneath a duvet cover.

“Sure looks like a lot of sleep is happening in here,” Xina deadpanned, and the blanket moved, revealing the little girl underneath.

“Mom, I—Dad!” the girl exclaimed, rushing out of the bed and hugged him.

He tried to hide how startled he was, hoping the shock looked more like practiced surprise.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he asked, looking down at her, unable to conceal his genuine astonishment.

“Mom said I could read one more chapter…” she trailed off, turning around to grab the book that had held so much of her attention.

The Heroic Age: A Recollection of First-Hand Accounts was held up to him, and he blinked.

“How’s the book so far?” he asked, hoping he sounded normal.

The Heroic Age was a normal thing to be interested in. She was half Xina, after all. There wasn’t any danger in it.

He hoped.

“I just got to this part, about a lady and she met this guy who could climb on walls! And he made all this web stuff to swing around. His name was—!”

“Spider-Man,” he finished her sentence without thinking.

Gabriella looked at him curiously.

“Yeah, have you read Mom’s book before or something?”

Or something.

“I’ve known her a long time, I know everything she knows,” he decided on, watching Xina roll her eyes at him.

“And now that we’re all home, Gabi, you need to go to bed. You have a game tomorrow! Coach isn’t going to be thrilled if you’re dead on your feet,” Xina reminded her.

Gabriella nodded, setting the book on her nightstand and hugging Xina and himself one last time.

“‘Night,” she mumbled, already half-asleep by the time her head touched the pillow.
Xina shook her head, reaching for the discarded flashlight and turning it off, putting it away in the nightstand drawer.

He followed her out of the room again, glancing back at the little girl one last time.

Miguel had never once thought about what the future with Xina would look like beyond still doing science together. Besides a couple of ridiculous fantasies as a kid, he hadn’t… considered anything like this.

He didn’t… want anything like this.

But watching this version of Xina so easily be a mother, and if her workspace they passed on the way to her room was any indication, still a scientist… is this what she wanted?

This Xina, did, obviously.

But what about—?

“LY-LA,” Xina called out, and a glowing figure appeared before them.

“Hi, Xina. It’s currently 22:00, the rain will stop around 4:00 tomorrow morning. The weather tomorrow will be sunny. Miguel O’Hara returned to the apartment at 21:45, 3 hours past his original return time. Gabriella Kwan-O’Hara fell asleep approximately three minutes ago. The project you’re working on—”

“Thank you, LY-LA. Normal alarms for game day, please,” the woman requested, and the alternate LY-LA nodded, waving before disappearing.

He tried not to look around her room too much, realizing it was a perfect mesh of Xina and himself. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Xina left for the adjoining bathroom.

As the door shut, he glanced around a bit more.

Photos of the two of them sat on the nightstand, more than the singular one that used to sit in Xina’s place. Plus one of the little girl, of Gabriella.

On the other wall were photos of him and Gabriel, one of Gabriel and Gabriella and even one of Gabriella with who looked like Xina’s grandmother.

A whole life.

An entire person existed because he didn’t cheat on Xina
.
His head hurt.

Miguel’s head shot up, hearing Xina speaking to her LY-LA again in the bathroom.

He felt a twinge of guilt, knowing he wouldn’t have heard if his hearing wasn’t super-charged.

“… and you’re sure? The energy readings are from around the same time?”

“Yes, Xina.”

“Thank you, LY-LA. Shut down for the night.”

“Good night, Xina. That’s a lovely robe.”

Miguel tensed.

Xina opened the bathroom door slowly, one hand behind her back.

“I don’t want to ask this question more than once,” she said quietly.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked, his hackles raising.

“Where are you from?” she gave him a hard look.

“Nueva York, you know that,” he answered, trying not to fumble over his words.

“I’m sure a lot of Miguels are from Nueva York. So I’ll ask again: which Nueva York?”

Did… this Xina know about the multiverse, too?

Oh, shock it.

Lyla didn’t shocking say anything about that!

“I… uh…” he blinked.

Xina revealed her other hand, some old TwenCen figurine she must have grabbed when he wasn’t looking.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Miguel,” he pleaded.

“You might be a Miguel, but you sure as shock aren’t mine.”

Chapter Text

“What the shock was that?” Gabriel followed his counter-part out onto the balcony.

“You’ll have to be more specific. When I was right about how Alchemax will kill all of us if they find out we might know anything, or that Xina’s holding onto the version of a guy who doesn’t exist anymore?” the other Gabriel dead-panned.

“All of it!”

The other him rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.

They stood there in silence, neither wanting to speak first. 

“Would that be so bad?” he asked tentatively. 

“Alchemax? Are you crazy, of course—”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. 

"You know what I meant. What if… he was the person Xina thinks he was? Even in the end?”

His doppelgänger scoffed, absent-mindlessly picking up the watering can left near one of Xina’s plants. The other him watered the plants, and Gabriel squinted.

The fighting, the over-protective nature, even the casual air this other version of him had in Xina’s apartment. He had only gone there once or twice and he had never felt as familiar with it as this Gabriel did.

He felt like he was missing pieces, trying to understand the extra layer of… whatever this was between these two people who seemed so much like himself and Xina. 

But they weren’t them, that much was clear.

And yet the belief in Miguel… the hope that he wouldn’t become a corporate stooge forever had to stay, right? 

Even if this Miguel openly worked for Alchemax and the Corporate Raider program and the Spider-Cop Nightmare thing… he was still his brother. 

So this Gabriel had had to have had the same determination to get his thick-headed brother to listen.

People couldn’t be that different… right? 

“It’s that hard to believe, isn’t it?” Gabriel asked, leaning against the back wall of alternate Xina’s balcony, watching his own anger and doubt reflected back to him in another person.

“Of course it shocking is! And that’s not even the worst part,” the other Gabriel’s expression was pain-stricken, and he swallowed hard, turning away.

“… because you knew he always could,” Gabriel finished quietly. 

The other him made a disgruntled sound, and if the situation wasn’t so dire, he would have laughed. 

He still felt like it, a little bit. 

Only he could believe his brother could be a better shocking person in multiple timelines. 

Shock, he’s got a bleeding heart. 

“Yeah. And I don’t wanna say that to Xina, I can’t give her that false hope. And I sure as shock can’t let myself get blinded by my hope he was that brother again, the one who watched out for me. And if he was? And he was alone, in the end? I…” the other Gabriel trailed off.

Dying alone.

Dying alone and knowing the one last good thing you did might never be found.

But Miguel put his faith in Xina, and that had never failed him, in this universe or Gabriel’s.

So maybe… 

“He knew,” Gabriel mumbled. 

“But how?” the other Gabriel questioned.

“I dunno about here but, uh, one time I asked Lyla what she does with all the messages Miguel deletes. All the ones where I told him I loved him. She said she doesn’t get rid of them, not completely. Calls it the Recently Deleted Loophole. I think that’s some sort of early twenty first century joke Xina put in, but I never got it. But… Miguel had the messages. And if he had Lyla… maybe he listened to them, again,” Gabriel shrugged, trying not to wonder if his own brother still listened to his voice. 

If he even cared.

Shock, he’s got to get a grip. If not for himself, for this other guy.

“Lyla’s… gone.” 

Gabriel tilted his head, confused. 

“Stone ransacked Miguel’s apartment after he, uh… yeah. Had some guy shove Lyla’s mainframe down the trash compactor. I tried to help Xina find enough parts to put it back together, but, there weren’t enough pieces,” the other Gabriel explained.

He blanched.

“Shock, is anything going your way?” he said without thinking. 

The other Gabriel glared. 

“I—I didn’t mean—it’s just, here… there’s a lot of… it’s just hard,” he tried to walk back, regretting ever opening his mouth.

“Well, your Xina thinks my Xina isn’t completely delusional about how Miguel died, so we have that,” the other Gabriel ground out, animosity creeping into his voice. 

There was a moment of tension, of something Gabriel couldn’t name.

How are you supposed to feel about yourself? About some other version of you, who had it worse? When you’ve been wallowing in your own pain for so long?

It shocking sucks. 

His doppelgänger looked ready to keep going, maybe twist the knife when the doors to the apartment swung open, startling them both.

“They did it, it’s Alchemax. It’s everything,” Conchata announced, watching her son run past her.

He stayed outside, glad that Xina could help her mirrored self.

He couldn’t say the same. 

And apparently he wasn’t the only one who noticed. His mother… well, Conchata, turned to look at him, a piercing look in her eye.

“What’d you say?”

This woman who wasn’t his mother could read him a bit too well for his liking.

He shrugged, turning away from her.

“I’ve said worse to him. Whatever you said, he’ll get over,” she said flippantly. 

“What the shock does that mean?”

“He’s finally hardened up, like I always wanted. You clearly haven’t done the same if you’re squeamish over a few harsh words,” she rolled her eyes.

Gabriel sputtered.

“That’s not—how is that—shock, why are you acting like this?” he asked, trying not to glare at this Conchata. 

She just gave him a look. 

“This isn’t how you… is it because of, you know?” he mumbled.

The older woman fixed him with a harder stare.

“I was like this before my eldest died, thanks for asking,” she sneered.

“No, you weren’t,” he argued, confused. 

“My son used to be like you. Anxious, wore his heart on his sleeve. It was endearing when he was a kid. But kids don’t stay that way, and the world is cruel. Can’t believe you don’t know that,” the older woman scoffed.

“Yeah, sure, the world is—but you aren’t.”

 The woman laughed. 

“My son doesn’t know who I am, so there’s no shocking way you know,” she dismissed.

He didn’t understand.

This woman… she wasn’t like his mother. The person who always encouraged him and read him bed time stories and loved him.

“I know… this isn’t the same place. But you’re still a version of my mother. And this world seems so familiar, except for the Spider-Man thing. So how can you be so… unfeeling?” he grimaced.

“You know what I mean, Ma.” 

Conchata walked past him, leaning against the edge of the balcony.

“I’m not your Ma. I have my son. And that’s enough,” she declared.

“Well, you sure do act like her,” he scoffed. 

“Have you ever lost a child?” she whipped around, anger in her eyes.

 He’d never seen that in her before.

Sure, he saw her annoyed and tired and maybe a little angry, but never at him.

So he didn’t know how to react.

“Not unless Antarctica Amy has some explaining to do,” he joked.

Conchata’s expression didn’t change.

“No,” he answered, eyes downcast. 

“Well, I have. And all I have is that one,” she pointed back towards Xina’s living room, where he could distantly see the other Gabriel and Xina hugging. “And I’m not letting anything happen to him. So you can jest and try to lessen your own pain by being relieved you don’t live here, but I do. Everything I do is to keep him safe. And since he’s always had a soft spot for Xina, her now, too.” 

He tried to understand, he did. 

But his mother… or a version of her, was still the center of it all.

All about her loss and her pain.

And even then she was cold and distant and refused to call Miguel by his name except when she was left with no other choice.

Did she even ask her Gabriel how he felt about Miguel? Did she even care?

And another worse thought struck him.

What would his mother do if Miguel died? 

Was this mirror dimension some version of his future? 

He shuddered at the thought.

“You don’t fight or flight. You just freeze. Typical,” Conchata ground out, shaking her head in disappointment at him.

“I just didn’t—it’s hard to be here, okay? This is a nightmare. A world where my brother dies and I never shocking made it right between us? Where I have to comfort Xina, who didn’t ever get to fix things with him? I don’t… too easily this could be my world. And that shocking scares me, alright?” he said defensively. 

Her gaze softened, and for a moment he saw the mother he remembered when he was a kid.

“Then don’t let it.” 

“You think I would just let something like this happen!?”

“Don’t cut each other off. Don’t act like you’re better than him. And don’t let him act like he’s better than you,” she said after a moment. 

He frowned at her words.

“But you’re the one who would facilitate that. Every time,” he started, giving her a hard stare, “Letting me think I could have some sort of chip on my shoulder. Sure, I didn’t go to the fancy private school, but I was an artist. And that that was better in your mind. But I wasn’t the one who paid for our new house, or your divorce, or even Wellvale. That was all Miguel. Every time something happened, he was there.”

Conchata narrowed her eyes at him, and he looked back, trying to match her gaze.

He couldn’t.

“I have given up everything for my boys—and with the way you act, I’m sure I did in your world, too. So how can you say such a thing? To your own mother?” 

He never thinks before he speaks.

“I thought I wasn’t your son?” he countered. 

“You’re just like him,” she spat. 

He flinched. 

“Like who?” 

A picture was starting to form in his head, one he had never really considered. 

After Dana, his mother had come back around his place.

She said he needed her more than his brother did, and he hadn’t bothered to answer. Partly because he didn’t want to mention Miguel and partly because he did need her.

But seeing this woman barely hide her own disgust, her own anger… maybe Miguel was right. He had always complained that she disliked him, that he reminded her too much of their father. His brother never thought he could be good enough in her eyes, and Gabriel always tried to shut down that line of thinking.

Because in his mind, his big brother couldn’t be further from their father.

His mother, though… maybe she did look up into Miguel’s eyes and see a man she spent the better part of her life flinching away from.

And how was Miguel ever going to change that?

The idea his brother hadn’t lied all these years, hadn’t built up some elaborate reason to avoid their mother…

“I never thought he was like him… like Dad,” Gabriel said, acting like she wasn’t choosing to ignore him.

Conchata had turned away from him, gaze focused on some distant Public Eye advertisement in the distance.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she huffed, crossing her arms.

Gabriel bit his tongue, knowing this wasn’t the woman he wanted to fight about this. 

But his mother wasn’t here. 

“Did Miguel ever make you flinch? Did he ever make you feel small and stupid and like nothing you ever said mattered? Has he ever raised his hand against you, Ma? Because I only remember one man doing that in our house,” his voice grew stronger with each word, knowing he was right.

She just shook her head at him, starting to walk back into the apartment. 

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.

“Why do you always shocking do this?! Both of you! I can never say anything too honest to either of you! You shut me out! Every shocking time!” he yelled, pleading for her to see him.

The woman who was nearly his mother sighed, pulling her wrist out of his grasp.

“That was a nice rehearsal. A good practice run, right? For when you get to confront your mother, huh? Because I can’t answer your questions. I can’t tell you why I was disappointed in my… oldest son for so many years. And I can’t tell you why knowing what his final act was filled me with even more regret. So I just get to tell you it did. You wanna know the truth so bad? Talk to your own shocking mother,” her voice died near the end, exhaustion getting the better of her.

He wanted to ask her what that meant, what she could possibly be talking about. 

But Xina caught his eye from inside, running out to meet him.

And he watched Conchata quietly go back inside, a slump in her shoulders he had never noticed before.

“—the day we met! And it’s all there, Gabriel, all of it! The experimentation, the intimidation of employees… she could bring them down. And the incriminating evidence doesn’t just stop at Alchemax. It talks about the other corporations, it indicts them all,” Xina grinned, her eyes swimming with tears.

Gabriel smiled back, surprised when she hugged him.

“He told me to believe in him…” Xina mumbled.

He blinked, confused. 

“Who?” 

Xina pulled away from him, a determined look in her eye.

“I have to tell you something.” 

—x—

“But why here, Ly? It’s 1610, it’s irrelevant to our part of the story. It’s not like we can go to the future of this universe,” Gabriella complained, walking down the street of a New York nearly alien to her own. 

LY-LA buzzed from her watch.

Pay attention. 1610 is important, everything says so. 

“But it doesn’t have Mo—Xina, or him in it. All it has is that destroyed collider and some kid I’ve never met.” 

Trust me. 

Gabriella sighed, knowing it was useless fighting the holo-agent.

Especially when her holo-form looked exactly like her mother. 

She walked ahead, taking note of the busy streets. 

It was so different than her home.

Sure, people still had their eyes glued to their screens. But there were kids on stoops playing games of their own rules, adults laughing and joking with each other. Gabriella noticed a kid a little older than her walking in the opposite direction, mouthing the words to whatever music was playing in his headphones. He had a handful of stickers and she watched as he jumped to meet street signs to put his art up. She noticed his shoes weren't tied. It seemed so much… happier than her own world.

“What’s this place called again?” she asked LY-LA, glancing down at her watch.

Brooklyn. 2018. A week before the collider destruction. 

“What? Can we stop it?” she asked her watch.

A woman gave her a strange look and she stuck her tongue out at her.

The woman rolled her eyes and she walked away. Without a second though, the young girl sent a line of webbing fwizzing past the woman and she nearly tripped on the busy street. 

Gabriella.

“What?” she half-smirked.

You can’t terrorize random New Yorkers.

“I didn’t even do anything.” 

Don’t stick your tongue out at people. 

“You’re not my Mom—”

Don’t be rude.

Her watch shut off, still blinking in the location she supposedly needed to walk. 

Gabriella bit her tongue, holding back her response.

Sassing the holo-agent wouldn’t get her anywhere. And it wouldn’t get her mom back, either.

From the corner of her eye, she felt the stare of an older lady. She was walking out of a bodega, a grocery bag in one hand and holding her cellphone to her ear in the other. 

For some reason… she was compelled by her.

The girl glanced down at the watch again, intrigued by its indicator pointing toward the woman. 

“Is she Spider….whoever, here?” 

Silence. 

“Hope you don’t keep this attitude the whole time we’re in this dimension,” she sassed, crossing the street as the walk sign came on. 

It was so weird to see so many people walking around. People usually took teleports or the mag-train. Nobody walked in Nueva York. Or if they did, not as far as these people seemed to walk.

“Guess I’ll just keep following this old lady,” she drawled out, missing the strange look a man in a business suit gave her. 

Gabriella looked back to where the woman had stood, puzzled when she realized she was gone. 

“Oh, no,” she cursed.

How the shock was she supposed to find this old lady in a city this big?

She glanced down at the indicator again, startled to see it was beeping like crazy.

“Alright little lady, and just where exactly are you from?” came a voice from behind her. 

Gabriella whipped around, surprised to see the lady.

“…Uptown,” she said lightly, remembering LY-LA’s insistence to not let anyone know she wasn’t exactly from around here. 

“Right. You’re not from the Ugly Goggles Dimension or the Over-Sized Jacket World, huh?” the old lady half-smiled. 

She frowned. 

“These are from my family—!” 

“I’m kidding, kid. You’re… you’re like him, aren’t you?” the old lady pointed to a newsstand nearby, covered top to bottom with magazines.

One magazine at the top read: 

WEB-HEAD SAVES PLANETARIUM! 
SPIDER-MENACE AT LARGE? YOU DECIDE! 

THE FISK FAMILY FOUNDATION IN PARTNERSHIP WITH STONE TECH PROMISES...

Gabriella gasped, realizing these would be first-person accounts of the Heroic Age. Even if this wasn’t her universe’s Golden Age of heroes, it was still someone’s. And her Mom would kill for one of those magazines.

The old woman watched her, apparently clocking the way she froze at the Spider-Man memorabilia. 

“Thought so. You’re coming home with me,” she said easily. 

“No, I have to—it’s important that I—!” 

Her watch buzzed. 

Do what she says, Gabi.

She gave her watch one last incredulous look before following the woman down the stairs of something called a “subway.” 

The steps down were alien to her, something her mother had said once floating the front of her mind. This was the old transport system, below the city. And it was considered old long before her grandparents had even been born. 

But the older woman she followed, still a mystery, seemed more at ease than never. 

“This place has to be, like, crazy unsafe,” she frowned. 

“Tourists,” the lady muttered, but she swore she saw her grin.

“I’m not a tourist. I just… this is old New York. I’m from Nueva York. It’s… not like this, like, at all,” she said matter-of-factually. 

The woman nodded, mumbling something about finishing the conversation later.

“Okay,” she agreed, confused as she shoved a plastic card into her hand.

Before she could speak, her watch buzzed again.

It’s for the transport. Tap it when you walk up to the turnstile.  

“LY-LA!”

Don’t talk to your watch. 

“But—”

The lady cast a sideways glance at her, the two of them continuing to walk through the subway tunnel. 

“My holo-agent’s in my watch,” Gabriella said, like that would explain everything. 

“Naturally.” 

“You’re really… normal about this?” she asked, raising a brow at the woman. 

“Trust me, when you have a nephew like mine, nothing surprises you anymore.” 

Gabriella just blinked. 

Without thinking, she took a few pictures from her watch, grinning to herself at the old architecture and ancient tech.

“I take it we don’t have subways in the future?” the lady asked, guiding her down a flight of stairs into an open air space, large enough for trains to pass in and out from.

“Not like this,” she admitted, taking a few additional photos of the tunnels. 

“And these photos… they’re for your parents?” 

She stilled.

“Uh, yeah,” she muttered. 

The woman fixed her with stare, something she couldn’t read. 

“We’ll get on this one,” the older woman indicated to the train pulling in, and Gabriella followed.

She sat down on one of the few open chairs, the woman standing close beside her.

The sooner they could get out of the public eye the sooner she could ask her questions, and maybe get some answers. There were too many thoughts rattling in her head, but one part of the old Heroic Age book her mom loved to read from stood out. Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, was orphaned and had to live with…

“You’re May Parker,” she blurted. 

The older woman stood beside her on the train, holding onto one of the ceiling hand-holds. 

“I’m memorable enough for a history textbook. How nice,” she quipped. 

“Well… not a textbook. More like a second hand account that’s technically been outlawed,” Gabriella shrugged.

“Train ride, first. Me questioning every sentence out of your mouth, second,” the older woman said, slightly exasperated. 

Gabriella just smiled, she couldn’t remember the last time she had had this much fun.

Well… at least, not one she wanted to remember. 

The rest of the ride, she paid careful attention to the train, wanting to recount every detail to her mother when she saw her again.

She would love to hear about the twentieth century tech and the tunnels that were even older than that.

All she had to do was fix the whole in the space time continuum and she could go home.

Easy peasy. 

The walk from the station to May’s house reminded her she still didn’t know what the point of being in 1610 was. Especially if this was the week before the inciting collider event. It wasn’t like she could say anything.

“Maybe…” she hesitated, remembering what that Prophet guy had said.

She couldn’t undo anything or endanger her parents future’s… or well, her not-parents future’s. 

Too lost in thought, she didn’t even realize they had walked through the older woman’s house until the woman turned around, arms crossed expectantly. 

“Alright, kid. Where are you from?”

Gabriella hesitated.

“Like I said, the future. 2099.” 

Aunt May gave her a look.

“I’m not lying!” 

“I’ve already had a teenager come bustling through here talking about alternate universes and a weird burst of energy and flying through last week. So what’s the deal?” 

She blinked. 

“Well, I’m not here because of the collider. I’m here be cause of this,” she waved her watch hand around, “And because for some reason, apparently, I need to be in this universe.” 

May frowned.

“You know about… the collider? And Kingpin?”

She blanched.

“I mean, only a little. Y’know, history,” she lied. 

“Are all Spider-People bad liars?” May asked.

“Technically I’m not… well, I mean—sure, I used my dad’s experimental gene splicing equipment, but—”

Aunt May stared at her. 

“—he doesn’t know! Won’t, uh, know. My Mom, on the other hand, she’s uh… well I’m worrying about that when it becomes an actual problem, y’know?” she shrugged.
“A Spider-Kid…” the old woman said disbelievingly, and Gabriella grimaced.

She wasn’t presenting her case very well.

Shock, she didn’t even know what she was supposed to be convincing this old lady of, anyway. 

“Wait. So you know about Spider-Man?” she narrowed her eyes. 

“My nephew’s a slightly better liar than you. But it’s better to have people in your corner, especially in this line of work. How long… have you had your powers?” the older woman asked, giving her a once-over. 

“I think… a week? Maybe?” she titled her head. 

The old woman made a sound, busying herself at the kitchen counter. 

Taking that as her cue, the girl walked back through to the living room, her curiosity getting the better of her. 

This place was lived in, that much was obvious. Staring up in wonder, she walked up to a set of framed photos. It sent a pang through her, thinking of the ones her mother had chosen to hang up in their own living room.

She had spent a whole Saturday morning sorting through the photos she had taken through the years, joking to her dad that  maybe they could just hang them all up. He had rolled his eyes, saying there would be more photo than wall if Xina had hung up every single one.

Gabriella frowned at the memory.

“So… Spider-Man happened in your past?” the old woman asked, setting down two steaming cups of something on coasters.

Gabriella nodded.

She looked down at the mugs, curious.

“Hot chocolate,” Aunt May answered her silent question. 

“Thank you. Yeah, he… and the rest of the heroes, they all disappeared. None of my school books give a clear answer, but my Mom always said it had something to do with Alchemax and the corporations. They erased a bunch of history books, wanting to act like all we’ve ever had was a bunch of rich evil overlords,” she said. 

The old woman frowned. 

“You have an Alchemax too, huh?” 

She nodded, looking to the other side of the room, excited to see a VHS player.

Her mom had one and they made a game of looking for new tapes. For a moment she wondered if she could ask May for one, before realizing they were all old home videos. 

“For a kid from the future, you sure seem excited to see a tape player,” she joked. 

“My Mom. She really loves all this stuff. The TwenCen was her favorite time period, she collected all this old memorabilia as a kid,” Gabriella smiled.

“And… does your Mom know you’re here? Does she know about… this?”

She froze.

“No,” she muttered. 

“So you’re all… alone?” 

“I have LY-LA,” she said, not sure who she was trying to reassure. 

Aunt May bit her lip, thinking. 

“And you… you lost someone close to you, didn’t you? You said ‘he won’t know.’ About your dad. He’s gone?” 

She felt her throat closing up, she hadn’t said it out loud.

That would make it too real. 

“Yeah, I did,” she mumbled. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” the older woman gave her a sympathetic look. 

She clenched her fists, reminding herself crying wouldn’t do anything.

“Guess it’s just part of the gig, huh,” she said morbidly. 

Aunt May’s frown deepened.

“Now who told you that?”

 Gabriella shrugged.

“Loss doesn’t define you, kid.” 

That didn’t make any sense. 

“But—Spider-Man, he—he lost Uncle Ben. That… that changed everything for him,” Gabriella recollected.

“Sure, my boy is Spider-Man because he wanted to honor his uncle’s memory. But he isn’t letting that grief swallow him up. You can’t… it can’t define you. And only becoming a hero to the people around you because you lost someone… it isn’t sustainable. Doing good, real good, is a choice,” the older woman said kindly.

She took a sip of the hot chocolate, wondering how the 928 versions of her family were doing.

They all suffered loss.

And they all ran away from it, in their own ways.

Xina leaving Nueva York, Gabriel shutting himself off from the outside world and Miguel… trying and failing to fix the world by himself. 

Shock, until Miguel showed up in her dimension, she wondered if they all would have just drifted away from each other forever. 

It all hurt too much.

She said as much to May.

“It does, I won’t lie. But you can't have love without grief,” May said gently. 

Gabriella frowned, knowing that the death wasn’t the cause of the grief, just a symptom. 

“But what about… what about when you lose someone who hurt you?”

May gave her a sideways glance.

“My parents and my uncle… they lost someone who hurt them. And I don’t think they ever really got over it. Not really,” she mumbled.

The older woman took her free hand in hers and squeezed.

 “It’s… a trickier form of grief, I think. There will never be an apology. And you have to give yourself permission to be okay with that,” the woman said quietly.

“How do I get them to do that?” she asked helplessly.

“You can’t. Not as a Spider-Person or as yourself. And… it shouldn’t be your responsibility. You know that, right?” May’s gaze was hardened. 

She shrugged.

“I… I lied. They’re not my parents. I mean, I guess they are. But they aren’t from my dimension. And I’m not from this dimension, either. But I’m scared. Because my dimension froze up. And I’m the only one who got out, so I have to do try to fix it. Even if I don’t know how,” she admitted, hating the way her voice grated with fear.

The older woman stayed silent for a long time, and Gabriella was worried she had somehow upset her. 

Of course she would shock it all up.

"They're out there somewhere, too? Trying to fix things?" Aunt May asked, eventually.

"Yeah..." she trailed off.

"You can't do this alone, and neither can they. You aren't hurting their future by just existing in their orbit. Especially... that watch let's you stay in this dimension, right?"

Gabriella tilted her head, not following.

"Damaging their future isn't possible. Whoever made you that watch made sure of it."

She glanced down at the watch, remembering the number of times she found her Mom still awake, not knowing she was working on looking through the multiverse.

"That's another thing about being a Spider, kid. You're never alone."

Glad somebody finally got it through your thick head.

"LY-LA? You're not mad at me anymore?"

I can't be mad at you. Not really. But I needed someone to get you out of your head. Remind you you're not alone. And that you're a kid. I think Xina and Gabriel are getting their own wake-up call right about now, too.

"I missed you too," she said quietly, sipping away at the hot chocolate.

—x—

“Wait so he’s from the past… but he sees the future? How the shock does that work?”

Gabriel shook his head, leaning forward against the balcony. 

“Your brother is genetically half a spider and took up the mantle of a hero who died over fifty years ago,” Xina deadpanned. 

“Point taken.” 

“I just… I don’t understand how this is supposed to be connected. Something Tyler did in this universe doesn’t have anything to do with our universe. At least, not on the surface,” she frowned, trying to keep from glancing back into the apartment. 

She wanted to give her alternate time to process, to try to plan her next move. 

Whatever they wanted to do, how they wanted to take down Alchemax was their decision.

This world’s Xina and Gabriel and even Conchata deserved that much.

“Why would you connect the Prophet guy to this, though?”

Xina sighed, biting her lip in thought. 

“He was so cryptic when he spoke to me, but he… he wanted me to know my trust in Miguel wasn’t misguided. And I mean given the whole… reality of this universe, that’s a pretty shocking clear message. Almost like he knew we would come here. Which, I guess, maybe he did,” she surmised. 

Gabriel made a noncommittal noise, messing around with his watch.

“What are you doing?” 

He looked up at her, some sort of light-bulb moment going off in his head.

“These have a power source, right? And we could get it from Alchemax? So… what were they working on? Why have the exact thing we need to make the universe-hopping goober thing work?” he questioned, more excited the longer he spoke. 

She looked down at her watch and back up to him, her own theory starting to form.

 “This tech didn’t start from scratch. Miguel’s smart, but tech like this isn’t exactly his forte,” she agreed, unconsciously turning toward the looming skyscraper of Alchemax in the distance. 

“What did he do… after?” she asked tentatively.

Gabriel just blinked.

“I dunno.”

“Miguel with unrestricted access to all of Alchemax’s projects. And he just… let them keep going,” she frowned. 

The younger O’Hara shook his head. 

“No, he didn’t. I wasn’t… I didn’t go out too much, those first few months. But I watched a tech crew working on the surveillance cams. Miguel took them down. I think Ma said it was his first official order of business. I wasn’t… really listening,” he rubbed the back of his neck, an air of guilt nearly suffocating him. 

She didn’t know what to say to that. 

One of the worst arguments they had ever had was because of the O’Hara’s father and his surveillance system.

Who the cameras focused on and why it was always people who didn’t look like Stone.

Why Miguel wouldn’t answer her when she asked how he could possibly justify the cameras. How he shut her out, like he always did. She even thought she heard him mumble she would never understand under his breath. 

But that was always their problem. 

He would assume she wouldn’t understand his side of things.

When all she shocking wanted was to hear his perspective. Because maybe it would finally help her understand him. 

“Nueva York isn’t… under surveillance anymore?” she raised an eyebrow. 

“Not by Alchemax, at least. Don’t know how reassuring that is,” Gabriel grumbled.

"The surveillance tech is probably patented by Alchemax. So the board of directors would just sell it to the highest bidder. But at least... the old Miguel wouldn't have done that. The one who fell hook, line and sinker for Alchemax's beliefs," she murmured.

Gabriel mumbled under his breath. 

She paced, trying to connect what little information they had to go off.

Alchemax and their experiments, Miguel and his revenge-based tunnel vision and the Prophet ominously telling her to believe in said narrow-minded doofus.

“We’re working with this information with one hand behind our backs. The second we got here we should have… Lyla, you there?” Xina tapped at the watch, hoping that just because the portal part wasn’t working that didn’t mean the holo-agent wouldn’t appear.

Lyla appeared in a matching set of pajamas and eye mask, yawning as if she had just woken up for the first time that day.

“You rang?” 

“Lyla!”

“Hi Gabri, long time no see,” she waved, grinning and reappearing in her normal coat.

Xina smiled, the faint glow of the holo-agent grounding her. 

“Lyla, we know Miguel stopped the surveillance in Nueva York. What else did he stop?” she asked.

The holo-agent bit her lip, looking between the two.

“C’mon, Lyla, please. For Miguel,” Gabriel pleaded.

She frowned at that, disappearing behind a holographic door labelled “do not disturb.” 

Xina and Gabriel shared a look. 

“Are you mad at him, Ly? Why?” Xina asked hesitantly. 

“No, dummies!”

“Us?” the woman frowned. 

The holo-agent mumbled something she couldn’t make out. 

“What?” 

“I said,” Lyla started, poking her head around the door, “He’s not the only one I care about. You two matter too. Why do you think I’m doing any of this?” 

Xina hesitated. 

“But this is all some sort of… fail-safe, right? An additional algorithm Miguel tried to put in place to make sure he didn’t go overboard? This is just you course-correcting like your coding wants you to, right?” 

Lyla huffed. 

“I keep telling him—and you—that that’s not how I work anymore! And nobody’s listening!” 

Gabriel shot her a look, and she just raised a hand, having heard a bit about the last time this happened. Even then, she wasn’t exactly… sure Discord could do something like that to Lyla. Her circuitry had only seemed a little burnt, a few pieces here and there needing repaired.

Sure, the malevolent house hologram was a bit overplayed. But Lyla had always had a fair for the dramatic. 

So… how could she be sure this wasn’t just another act? That Lyla really was gaining sentience? 

And why the shock now?

But ever the scientist, a smaller voice in the back of her mind reminded her to take notes on Lyla’s behavior, to try to find some sort of trigger point. If she really was sentient, she wanted to know how and why and when. 

Xina took a deep breath, knowing she wasn’t being fair to Lyla, and any of her curiosities could wait.

“I’m listening now, Ly. We didn’t mean to make you feel like we didn’t care. This is just… new to us, okay?” she said slowly, glancing at Gabriel who nodded along to her words. 

Lyla groaned, sighing dramatically and re-appearing in an off-kilter judge’s wig and gavel. 

“You two promise? You swear?”

Xina crossed her heart with her right hand, and Lyla half-smiled. 

The holo-agent looked to Gabriel and he nodded his head, giving a double thumbs up.

“It’s not just about him… it’s about all of us, right?” Xina asked tentatively. 

“Duh!” Lyla exclaimed.

“Everything he did after Venom was him trying to make up for it. The security system, whatever he did with these watches…” Xina realized.

Lyla laughed. 

“It’s not a watch, it’s a gizmo,” she clarified.

Xina and Gabriel stared at her. 

“Sorry, inside joke,” she shrugged. 

“Lyla… why does Alchemax have a power source for universal hopping? What were they planning?” Gabriel asked.

The holo-agent frowned, zeros and ones flashing before her sunglasses. 

“I can do you one better than that, Gabriel. I can show you,” she said, flicking her wrist and schematics for some sort of device appeared. 

“This looks like… but there’s no way. It’s not functionally possible,” Xina frowned.

“I’m sorry, is the woman who just jumped dimensions with me questioning the existence of time travel?” Gabriel snorted, sorting through the different holo-documents. 

“It’s real. And…” Lyla hesitated, her eyes glazing over.

Xina watched her carefully, wondering if she was somewhere else, too.

And there was only one person who would use up that much of Lyla’s focus.

If she stared long enough in the holographic reflection of Lyla’s sunglasses, she could almost see him. Part of her wanted to run up and hug him. Because he wasn’t dead and that meant they still had time. And another part wanted to have the knock-down drag out fight they’ve avoided their entire lives.

But he wasn’t really there.

She let it go for the moment, knowing they had bigger problems.

Like Stone. 

“Lyla… do you have access to everything? Even Tyler’s private files?” she asked. 

The holo-agent nodded, but reappeared with a theatrically sad face mask.

“But I don’t have clearance,” she frowned.

Xina gave a long look to Gabriel, knowing if anyone could get in, it was him.

He just gazed back, confusion in his eyes.

“What?” 

“C’mon, you’re the best computer guy I know.” 

“Xina, I think I’m the only computer guy you know.”

 “That line works with Miguel because he doesn’t know anybody in tech, but I actually do know computer guys,” Xina countered. 

Gabriel groaned, running a hand down his face. 

“I don’t even know what kind of security—”

“One password. Eight spaces. Would you like to use the Paranoia Protocol, Gabriel?” Lyla asked helpfully. 

“The what?” 

Xina looked away sheepishly. 

“When she broke… I put a few extra safety measures in. To help,” she confessed.

Gabriel sighed, muttering under his breath.

“Fine. I can use this to hopeful break his encryption lock. Then what? We just search for 'super evil plans'?” he asked sardonically. 

“It’s his private files, I doubt he’ll be that secretive about it,” Xina said.

Gabriel shook his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was doing this. 

Xina watched intently, her mind wandering back to the fact Lyla kept disappearing. 

“Hey, Lyla?” 

The holo-agent glitched in front of her, life size. 

“Yeah?”

“Is he… okay?” she asked, knowing it was a loaded question.

Lyla winced. 

“He’s doing as well as he can, uh, considering everything.”

 “So Gabriella’s universe is frozen?”

“Yeah. And, uh, there’s something else you should know.”

Xina’s heart stopped.

Different awful scenarios filled her head, each worse than the last.

Gabriel looked up from his furious typing, her look of fear reflected back to her.

“What?” 

“The prototypes… they were a little glitchy. And I always told Miguel it was kind of touch-and-go,” Lyla started.

“Yeah, we’re stuck until we get another power source,” Gabriel said slowly. 

“And there was a fluctuation, in, uh, time,” Lyla choked out.

Xina froze.

“How much time, Lyla?” 

The holo-agent hesitated.

“Three months.”

“What?!” they shouted in unison.

“You guys are totally handling this better than Miguel did,” Lyla said sarcastically.

Xina felt gobsmacked. 

Three months… just gone.

“Did he know we were gone the whole time?” she asked quietly.

Lyla saw right through her. 

Did he care that we were gone? Did he even notice? She had already ran off, why would he know she disappeared out of the entire shocking universe.

He wouldn’t. He had no reason to know. And caring… he would for Gabriel.

But not for her.

“No, he didn’t. But he’s worried about both of you,” she said, her eyes gleaming.

 “Oh.” 

Gabriel looked far more panicked.

“Three months?! Lyla, what does Ma think? Oh, shock, what does Kasey think—!” 

“I’m assuming they pieced together themselves you were missing, Gabriel,” Lyla said, a hint of guilt in her voice.

“Miguel didn’t tell them!?” Gabriel exclaimed. 

“He’s not in a very chatty mood. He’s not… really himself lately,” Lyla’s eyes were downcast. 

“Both?” Xina was caught on that word, embarrassingly so.

Lyla took a tentative step toward her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

It was nice, even if she couldn’t feel it. 

“He always worries about you, even if you don’t see it,” Lyla mumbled.

There was a ping from Gabriel’s watch. 

“Oh, shock. It’s done. We’ll… have access to Tyler’s files. But I should warn you, once we open this he’ll get alerted that someone’s opened them. The updates to Lyla’s protocols were good but… I guess Tyler’s security was better,” Gabriel grimaced.

Xina hitched her breath.

“We have to open it. Besides, what’s he gonna do? We’re light-years away from him,” she said, her mind still on Miguel.

Gabriel nodded, tapping around until he found the list of files.

“It’s everything from colonization plans for Mars, something about a rogue Public Eye agent…” Gabriel gawked. 

“Look for time travel or multiverse or something that leads back to all of this,” Xina reminded him.

“I know, Xina. It’s just… there’s a lot of shocking stuff here. Proof of every diabolical plan he’s ever had.”

“He’ll go down for every single one,” she said, furrowing her brow. 

“Wait, could this be it? It’s just labelled Fifth Dimension,” he frowned.

“Gotta be,” she agreed.

They looked through the file, and a part of her was intrigued. The idea of a perpetual motion machine, something to create continuous power. Of course, a place like Alchemax would never harness that for good. So it couldn’t exist. Nobody in Nueva York got to experience actual scientific achievement because Alchemax twisted everything beyond recognition.

“Hold on, there’s a separate file. Quantum Collider?”

She wracked her brain, trying to remember everything she’d learned from physics class. 

That was her final year of school. The year her and Miguel… no, get a gripe. Focus.

 “He messed with quantum theory,” she gasped. 

“That’s bad, right?” 

Xina shuddered. 

“These,” she waved her wrist again, “are some sort of… baseline of string theory. We can seemingly go to universe’s connected to our own. I’m not really sure what the connection is, but as long as it has that commonality… travel is possible. All of Tyler’s data shows he was trying to manipulate dimensions nearly identical to our own. But for what, I don’t know,” she frowned.

“Spider-Man,” Gabriel supplied.

“What?”

“He’s been a thorn in Tyler’s side. I mean, it would be pretty shocking ridiculous to discover your former star employee is Spider-Man…”

Xina felt her stomach drop.

“He doesn’t know, does he?”

 Gabriel couldn’t answer her. 

“Gabriel, please tell me—” 

“I don’t know!”

 The feed cut out.

Lyla glitched and re-appeared, nervously biting her nails.

“Tyler knows we were in his files.” 

—x—

“Call them again, Winston.” 

Ring.

  Ring.

Ring.

“We’re sorry, the line you’ve attempted to contact is either unavailable or busy. Please try again later,” an all too perky holo-agent sprang to life, a syrupy sweetness to her voice. 

He clawed her away, walking through the hologram.

“I don’t like this.”

His personal assistant just harrumphed. 

Sometimes he wondered why he bothered. The man wasn’t hired to be chatty. He was hired to do a job.

And currently he couldn’t do that job.

All thanks to his petulant son.

He would be proud if he wasn’t so angry.

This company was his, it was his birthright. And no matter the lineage of his youngest son, who didn’t even know he was his son, he didn’t have the right. 

Not yet. 

So he was shut out of his own company, the place he had worked meticulously to maintain. It was like a garden in so many ways. You prune the dead branches, clip the ones growing out of sync with the rest. Pull any foreign elements out. It was about conforming to the right way of doing things. His way of doing things. 

He thought he had accomplished that years ago with his son and his… extraordinary ability to pick friends. A few small suggestions, a reminder or two of what the cost was for disobeying. And having a friend who so vehemently disliked him well… that simply wouldn’t do.

Ostracizing the little girl playing half-baked revolutionary was easy. Her family lived too deep in Midtown, and nobody really cared to fact-check his claims against her. She had always had too big a mouth, even in boarding school.

He would have thought Angela would have educated that out of her.

But Tyler learned far too late he couldn’t trust the former headmaster to properly…educate any of those students.

At least he still had the element of fear.

And that little girl’s malcontent at his son’s Alchemax hiring? A perfect wedge between them.

Whether the little scandal with his son’s half brother’s girlfriend was intentional or not, it only gave him a better employee. No outside distractions and no nosy little brothers to sway his son again.

Apparently he was wrong. 

“Belay that,” he ground out, watching Winston grimace as the phone line went dead again.

“Yes, sir.” 

“That company is my family’s legacy and after everything, they can’t even properly maintain my security system. Pathetic,” he hissed.

Tyler pressed a button on his desk, pulling up the files the little spies had apparently broken into.

“At least they made it fairly easy to know what they wanted so desperately to see. It seems Spider-Man still has friends in Nueva York. How unfortunate.” 

Chapter Text

“So on a scale from one to ten, how mad is he? Like, realistically?” Peter asked the holographic assistant walking beside him. 

“Considering something like this has never happened, I have no range for what level Miguel’s emotional turmoil could currently rank.” 

“So he’s furious?” 

Lyla grimaced. 

Before he could keep talking, the sound of a dimensional portal opened behind him.

“Peter, what did you do?!” Jess demanded, bee-lining for him.

“Why am I on trial here? He called you here, too,” Peter argued. 

Jess gave him a look.

He stared back.

“Alright, alright,” he put his hands up in surrender. 

“Miguel wants to inquire about a security alert from July,” Lyla explained, tapping away furiously on her own gizmo as the three of them walked to Miguel’s office. 

Jess and Peter shared a look.

“You mean the one in his apartment?” Jess asked. 

Lyla glanced down.

“Yeah.” 

“Miguel wants to know about Dystopian Trench Coat Guy and Too Much Fringe Lady? Why?” Peter rose an eyebrow. 

Lyla’s face twitched. 

This was... too familiar.

Like Lyla was hiding something.

Peter frowned. 

“Lyla, who are they?” 

She sighed, shaking her head and mumbling something unintelligible, and glitched out.

“She didn’t answer the question.” 

“Didn’t or wouldn't?” Jess was still looking at the spot Lyla has disappeared from.

“You ever feel like the more we learn about the multiverse the less we know about Miguel?” he looked over to a group of Spiders gathering to an extraction point for an anomaly pick-up. 

“Because we knew so much about him before all this,” Jess snorted. 

They walked in silence the rest of the way and Peter took note of how messy the lab seemed. Sure, Miguel didn’t mind leaving a piece of tech or two out if he was working. But this… was more disarrayed than usual. 

Something was up.

“You’re just making up problems,” he scoffed to himself. 

Jess clocked him.

“It’s cluttered in here. But he’s just busy. He doesn’t take breaks, never talks about doing anything outside of any of this. And after… after what happened, if that happened to me? I’d be the same. So would you. It’s practically written into a Spider’s DNA,” Jess reminded him. 

Peter grunted. 

He shoved his hands into his robe, feeling strange without the familiar weight of Mayday on his chest. 

Something was in his pocket, something he forgot about for nearly three months. 

Carefully, he pulled the folded up photo out of his robe.

Miguel and the woman they had caught at the security breach. 

The man had an expression on his face Peter hadn’t ever really seen from him before. Happiness. And she looked the same. There was a closeness about them he recognized and he knew the name of, but he didn’t know if Miguel did. 

Especially if she wasn’t around anymore.

“What’s that?” Jess peered down. 

“It was the only evidence of those two breaking into the Society. Figured it had to mean something,” Peter explained, holding the singed photo carefully with two hands.

“He looks… so different,” Jess said.

“He looks happy…” Peter trailed off, thinking of the last year, of a time when Mary Jane wouldn’t answer his calls. 

Jess agreed, looking between the photo, the door to the main lab, and Peter. 

“Are you showing that to him?” she asked warily.

“Depends on what kind of mood he’s in.”

“He called us in randomly, with no notice. Care to guess his mood?” she rolled her eyes. 

“Point taken. Not showing him the photo of his ex-wife.”

“We don’t know—“ 

“Resident divorced guy here. I know.” 

“You can’t cite your divorce like it gives you a PhD in relationships—” 

Lyla appeared in front of them, frazzled and annoyed. 

“Are you two gonna sit out here gabbing forever or are you going in there?” 

Peter shoved the photo back in his pocket, noticing the way Lyla’s eyes tracked his hand.

“I figured Miguel’s little base of operations elevator was still about five minutes from coming down,” he shrugged. 

Lyla rolled her eyes. 

“C’mon, you two. The sooner you three talk the sooner we can deal with actual problems,” she stormed out, disappearing again.

“What do you think she does when she isn’t yelling at somebody?” Peter asked, walking through the main entryway to Miguel’s lab.

“She doesn’t do anything, Peter. She’s an advanced AI. Running a billion and one things in the building,” Jess said disinterestedly, her gaze already on Miguel. 

“Hey, buddy! How’s the multiverse lookin’?” Peter waved.

Miguel glared, the platform having reached the bottom of the track.

“You two,” he looked between Jess and Peter, “have a lot of shocking explaining to do.” 

—X—

Miguel blinked, the harsh flash of light irritating him.

“Photo ID all done, Mr. Big Shot,” the photographer drawled out, looking bored to tears.

He muttered a thank you, shoving his hands back in his pockets, wishing for the millionth time that morning that he didn’t have to attend this stupid Alchemax orientation.

What the shock were they going to teach him that he didn’t already know from a decade of private school? He interned every summer for the corporation and Tyler Stone always showed up at any and all award ceremonies he had to go to. If anything, he should be leading the orientation.

He had better things to do with his time than this charade.

Miguel’s frown only deepened as he walked past the entrance table, wishing for the thousandth time that day he didn’t have to be there.

Former classmates gave him polite nods, for once being smart enough to gauge his expression and not make any small talk.

He had had enough of that, especially in line for his ID badge.

How was he? How was graduation? Did he still talk to Xina? Oh, how’s Xina? What’s she up to? 

It shouldn’t irritate him as much as it did.

She was smart, definitely smarter than him.

But not when it counted.

Not when she had had the chance to make a name for herself in the scientific community, to start her career the right way.

If she wanted to, she could have been the head of Artificial Intelligence Alchemax.

Instead, she was taking odd jobs fixing androids and broken tech and even older contraptions. He didn’t get it. She was the best in her field, had created an entirely new type of holo-agent with her bare hands and a free weekend, and she wanted to do tech repair.

Miguel had told her as much.

Which had started one of the worst fights they had ever had.

She hadn’t let him sleep over after, either. 

But she still sent him a holo-vid this morning, telling him to be safe. And that she hoped he would still co-author their scientific journal together.

Obviously he would. He’d do anything for her. 

But he still wished she was with him, here today.

Miguel knew they could change the world, knew they could fix the broken systems they complained about in school.

And all of that could happen, if they were together. 

The anti-Alchemax sentiments her parents had carried had stuck with her, and she refused internships and job prospects. A part of him thought she would choose to work with him over her parent’s beliefs. Maybe that was a bit pig-headed of him.

He never claimed he wasn’t. 

Miguel was too busy imagining the sarcastic remarks Xina would have said to the front desk about the poster claiming Alchemax’s altruistic intent to notice when a shadow passed over him.

“Well, look who’s finally here. Much better than slumming it as an intern, isn’t it, Mike?” 

He stiffened. 

“Tyler,” he started, “trash pick-up was earlier. It’s shame they missed you.” 

The man laughed.

“Always a kidder, our Mike, huh?” Tyler smirked.

Miguel scoffed. 

“What do you want?” he asked, glaring at the old man.

The once full hallway had become scarce, as if everyone had decided they would rather wait in an empty auditorium than watch Tyler Stone rip into a new employee.

He couldn’t really blame them. 

“Is that any way to talk to your new boss?” 

“I work for the Genetics division, not you directly—”

“I meant to tell you. Since you’ll be heading the division, you report to me. Directly.” 

Miguel’s face hardened. 

“Hopefully you’ll make time to observe our work in between feedings, Dracula,” he retorted.

Tyler’s smirk only deepened.

“That’s a bit of a dated reference, isn’t it? Now, I once knew a girl with incredible potential. Too bad she had her head in the clouds and her heart in the past. How is our friend Ms. Kwan?” he asked, a sickly sweet tone that had Miguel’s hackles raised. 

Miguel shrugged.

“Last I knew you two were inseparable. And yet that promising young woman isn’t here today, is she? How strange.”

He felt his eye twitch.

“And she’s been in contact with some rather… colorful people from our past, hasn’t she? Communications with Ms. Daskalakis who, as we all remember, left Alchemax Prep a disgrace. Sure, she can claim it was a mutual decision. But what was she thinking? She could convince children to rise up against what, their way of life? Not like you, Mikey. You’ve never stood against Alchemax, not a day in your life,” the man said delightedly. 

This was all bait. Tyler knew more than Miguel could ever tell him, there was no point to playing into his hand. Getting mad about his dismissive attitude toward Xina wouldn’t matter. It was just him trying to get under his skin.

But… 

“She’s got more intellect in her pinky than you’ve got in your entire body, Tyler. Something you wouldn’t understand even if you sat through an entire year’s worth of lectures. Maybe that’s where your crazy, knife-murdering son gets it from,” Miguel sneered. 

Stone wanted to hit below the belt?

He’d go for the jugular. 

God, actually going for his jugular… 

Maybe in another timeline. 

“—your fault. But since you’re here, and she’s off playing technological rebel, maybe I can have you remind her of her place.”

The man stared at his apparent boss, having missed the first half of the man’s threat.

“Sorry, what?” 

“I said, you and that… girl are at fault for Kron’s less than stellar reality. And I would remind you who holds the keys to your future. And to hers, as well,” Tyler said icily. 

Miguel rolled his eyes. 

“That worked when I was a kid, Stone. My brother and my mom got out of that house and mom left my stain on humanity of a father, so what exactly do you hold over me?” he asked, crossing his arms. 

Tyler’s eyes glinted. 

“Oh, have you suddenly come into some great fortune, Mike? Has your brother suddenly become some sort of multi-million dollar artist? Or has dear old Connie gone back to the work-force?” he sneered.

Miguel hesitated. 

“No, but—”

“Last I heard, our beloved Connie did divorce your father, that’s true. But a little birdie also told me she’s gone and checked herself into a mental institution. And with your brother barely past the age of eighteen, who would look out for that child, if not for you? But if you don’t work here, where will you go? To Daskalakis? She can’t afford you and your brother and mother dearest’s hospital bill, can she?” 

He felt his shoulders cave in.

This wasn’t what he agreed to—he wasn’t told Tyler was his boss. 

No one said anything about that.

“Fine, I’m here. You get what you want. Why bring up… Miss Kwan?” her name felt wrong to share with Stone, even though the man had known her just as long as he had known Miguel.

Tyler shook his head, smirking.

“Oh, but she isn’t just Miss Kwan to you, is she?” 

Miguel tensed.

“Dunno what you mean, Tyler,” he said disinterestedly. 

“Always running around together at school, going up balconies and thinking you were the only two who were ever around. Well, your classmates talk, Mike. And it seems to me she seems pretty darn important. Hate to see anything happen to her,” Tyler said nonchalantly. 

“You can’t do that,” he argued.

“I can do whatever I want, Miguel.” 

“No, you can’t. You can threaten me and my family but you—you can’t threaten her. Everybody else has the misfortune of being related to me. She didn’t… it’s not her fault that I—” 

“Connie’s little boy, in love. Who’d have ever seen the day. Lord knows she didn’t teach you anything about that. Well, it’s simple, really. You stay here, do the good work we pay you to do, and it’s all water under the bridge. After all, we educated you, gave you a place to stay and let you save your family from their… unfortunate situation. Hate to see anything similar happen to the Kwan family,” Tyler said, contempt in his voice. 

All he could feel was his heartbeat, surrounding his whole body.

He stupidly thought as long as he kept her at a distance from Tyler, Xina would never have to worry about the man.

When he really should have kept her safe from himself.

Knowing him, caring about him… it wasn’t worth it. Especially if it led to all of this.

Shock, if he thought her parents had a dislike of him now, imagine if they ever found out about this conversation. Endangering Xina because he thought he could be above it all. They’d hate him forever. Maybe they should hate him forever.

Tyler had threatened him, more times than he could count.

And yet he always bounced back, always responded with twice the malice.

But this was different.

It wasn’t him versus Tyler, it was Tyler reminding him he had another blind spot. Another weakness. 

Because if anything happened to her… 

That would be on him, on his conscious. 

Maybe she would be better off if she had never met him. Never met his eye in class that day, never bothered to stick around to let him apologize for making a fool of himself in class. He would just be another classmate to her. She could see him like everybody else did: that loser scholarship kid who’s one big break was getting into the school.
Tyler cleared his thought, and Miguel was ripped from his thoughts.

“That seems to have created the appropriate… encouragement for you, Mike,” the man said.

“You’re a monster,” he muttered under his breath.

“Careful, I found myself looking at the Public Eye footage near that dreary little apartment complex Miss Kwan calls a home. It would be a shame if someone dismantled the security protocols, a misstep or two. These streets truly have never been more dangerous. It’s a shame, really,” Tyler said, mock regret in his voice. 

If there was ever a time for gravitational weight to change and crush Tyler under his own weight, it was now.

“Head of the Genetics Department, then?” Miguel asked, all emotion gone.

“Right-o, Mikey.” 

“So I didn’t need to come to this orientation meeting?” he swallowed, already knowing the answer.

“None of our Department Heads do. Just wanted to remind you what’s to be gained by your continued belief in the Alchemax Corporation,” the man said cheerfully, giving a little wave and whistling as he strolled back down the corridor.

—x—

He didn’t like to rank his bad days, because if he started he would never stop.

But today was up there.

Gabriel and Xina missing, the secondary reveal that thanks to his own faulty designs they had missed three months of their lives, and this newest predicament: an unread message from Tyler Stone.

For months, it was silence from the man.

Apparently, after his first couple dozen attempts to regain control of Alchemax (all unsuccessful) he had crawled back into his mausoleum of a mansion.

But that silence was too good to last. 

And he had avoided watching the holo-vid, knowing he had bigger problems. 

The multiverse, for one.

And Gabriel and Xina just… out there, somewhere. God knows why they decided to joyride the shocking multiverse. Or why they were in his apartment to begin with. Neither of them were speaking to him at the time they had shown up at Babylon Towers.

Shock, Xina wasn’t even in Nueva York.

So… why did she come back?

“You can’t avoid it forever, Miggy,” Lyla appeared beside him, sitting life-size on a stool.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Lyla. I’m great at multi-tasking.” 

She reappeared in front of his touch screens, pointing to the unread message.

“He’s dangerous. And maybe something’s happened,” she pressed.

Miguel quirked an eyebrow. 

“Has something happened?” 

Lyla glitched away.

“Lyla!” 

“Check your messages!” her voice came out from his watch, and he ignored his rising heart rate.

He wasn’t some kid and he wasn’t the name head of Genetics anymore, either.

There was no reason to be afraid of Stone. Of… his father. 

Shock, he’d never get used to that. 

Miguel begrudgingly tapped around, looking to his messages. Schooling his face to one of disinterest, he played the holo-video.

A holographic recording on his father appeared, and he pretended he didn’t feel his whole body clench at the sight of the monster. 

“Hi, Mike. Long time no see. We’ll forgive and forget you coup d’état, for now. What I’m more curious about is your seeming connection Spider-Man, and his apparent connection to your little brother Gabe. And, interestingly enough, that old friend of yours. You know the one. Christ, the last time I thought about her was when Dana weeped and moaned about how you were cheating on her with… Gina? That was her name, right? Well, it seem Gina and Gabe have found their way into my personal files. With the help of your petulant holo-agent. I always said it would be a shame if something happened to them. You might be comfortable high above it all, thinking you’ve finally made it big, sitting in my office. But you’re not. And I’m coming for them. And you, naturally. All because you couldn’t leave well enough—”

Miguel wasn’t sure if he turned off the message or if something else cut off Tyler.

But Lyla appeared, again.

“Miguel—”

“What did he mean, Lyla? When he said you helped? What did you do?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even. 

She looked down in shame, her eyes watering.

“I wanted to help them! And you! Everyone icing each other out, it’s wrong!” 

He started pacing around the platform, his talons retracting and detracting. He needed to do something.

He needed to hurt someone. 

He needed to find Tyler. 

Lyla locked him out of the teleportation services in the gizmos, and he grit his teeth. 

“This isn’t helping, Lyla,” he snapped.

“Remember the last time you tunnel-visioned your way to Tyler’s private residence? What happened? Because I do.” 

Miguel froze up.

“Obviously I do, Ly,” he said quietly.

“Please don’t do this, Miguel,” she begged.

He didn’t answer.

What was he supposed to do? Sit back and let whatever evil plans Tyler was making just happen? The man knew about Gabriel and Xina. He said… they broke into his files.

With Lyla’s help.

“Lyla,” he started, his hands starting to shake, “have you… talked to Xina and Gabriel? Recently?” 

The holo-agent looked away guiltily. 

“I’m connected to the gizmos. Even the prototypes,” she reasoned, not meeting his eye.

“This whole time… they were just a call away.” 

Lyla laughed cruelly. 

“Shock, Miguel. They were always a phone call away.” 

He glared at her.

“No, they weren’t.”

Lyla walked up to him, anger in her eyes.

“The minute the Spider Society building was converted, Gabriel started sending you messages again. I have a whole back-log,” Lyla countered.

Miguel rolled his eyes.

“So he wanted to know what Spider-Man was up to, not me. That doesn’t count.” 

Lyla let out a groan of frustration.

“You idiot! Spider-Man is you and you’re Spider-Man. He asked about you. Gabriel got over whatever anger he had at you and wanted to know you were okay. Because he’s your brother and he loves—”

“Don’t finish that sentence, Lyla.”

“God, you’re unbearable.” 

Miguel held his tongue. 

“Fine, don’t think the Gabriel thing is true? Let’s talk about Xina.” 

He clenched his fists.

“She left, Lyla. She left and she was never coming back. And I kept messaging her, too. Even though her android said she had turned off her messages. I left her half a dozen messages that never went through. Shouting into the void to a woman who never wanted to see me again,” he said bitterly. 

Lyla took a deep breath, something flashing in her eyes.

“And why did she leave, Miguel?” 

He didn’t answer her, turning back around to the holographic computers.

Fine, she wouldn’t let him go deal with Tyler? 

Spider-Man could go back to saving the universe. All universes.

Maybe no response was the best response.

One of the screens flickered, showing old Alchemax security footage.

“Lyla, come on—what, what is this?” he asked, turning to the holo-agent.

She looked unhappy, as if it pained her to play the old video.

“There was a reason. And I thought, maybe, eventually, you would look a little further back. I know you don’t always like to, at least when it hurts you. But this didn’t just hurt you,” Lyla said, crossing her arms.

He didn’t understand what he was supposed to be looking at, it was just an empty corridor in the basement of Alchemax.

Wait.

No.

Shock, no.

“Lyla, turn it off.” 

“I’m not making you watch you nearly beat the life out of Kron Stone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He gave her a look.

“Just… watch.” 

A figure appeared, leaning back against the door to the containment area.

He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t paid that much attention that day. There was too much going on.

But this was different than the sadness and survivor’s guilt Xina had had on her face when he visited her place. This was something else.

 An Alchemax employee approached her, asked her what she was doing. And she asked for him, for Mr. O’Hara.

That soured his stomach.

She never called him by anything but his first name. He never told her, but she just knew his last name was a sore subject. Just one of those things they never had to talk about. 

“Now’s not really a good time, Xina.”

Xina hesitated, searching for the words.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… I’ve got all these emotions, and I…” she trailed off.

She looked like she wanted to say more. Or something different, something that wasn’t about his all encompassing determination to get Venom. 

“This Venom madman—”  she started.

“Not a ‘man.’ A xenomorph. We have a sample of it,” he explained.

“An alien? I spend my entire life investigating ET’s…. and this is my first contact?” she asked, disgruntled.

He didn’t comment.

“How are we going to capture—” 

“Capture?! Xina, as soon as we learn how, Venom’s dead.”

“But—”

“Dead!” he shouted, unconcerned with her flinching.

One of the scientists called for him and his mind was already back on Venom.

So he didn’t see her crestfallen expression, or how she closed herself off. Miguel didn’t see the resignation in her. A decision was made about her future in Nueva York in one fell swoop. 

“Coming, Paul. Xina, we finished?” he called, not bothering to look at her as he walked back into the containment zone.

“Yes. I think we are,” she said stiffly, crossing her arms. 

Xina took a watery breath, wiping her eyes quickly and crossed to an exit.

Miguel had never seen this, the moments after. Shock, he didn’t even think he had really heard her last words.

“Do you remember that?” Lyla asked quietly.

“Not really,” he admitted, ashamed. 

“But she does.” 

“Fine. Xina left Nueva York because of me. I already knew that and so did you, what’s your point?”

Lyla pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. 

“It’s not the who, it’s the why, dummy!” 

“Because I let her nearly get murdered by what turned out to be our elementary school bully? Because she carries too much guilt of a murder I caused? Shock, did she put some sort of latent guilt trip programming you or something?” he groused. 

“This. Isn’t. Programming!” she shouted, glitching in anger.

He winced, remembering all too well the last time Lyla had expressed anger. 

“Do you need a diagnostic? I mean, it was one thing when you were running my apartment, but this is an entire building full of Spider-people, we can’t risk—“ 

“I’m not hacked and I don’t have a computer virus and I’m not broken. I’m me. I’m Lyla. And I’m not just the one and zeros of Xina’s programming. I’m… something new. Okay?” she explained, trying to calm down. 

“Okay, okay, Lyla,” he put his hands up in defeat.

“She left because she didn’t feel like you cared,” she said matter-of-factly. 

He just sputtered. 

“Everything I did after Venom—after Kron—it was to keep her safe. So how exactly is that not caring, Lyla?” he asked.

“All you did was be angry. You saw the same footage as me. Does that look like someone who feels safe, Miguel?” she countered. 

No, no she didn’t.

Xina had looked exhausted and scared and anything but safe.

Because of him.

“But… but I wanted to keep her… she was supposed to be…” his voice broke at the end.

Lyla flickered sadly. 

“What’s that quote about the best of intentions?” she asked.

“They pave the way to hell,” he said stone-faced.

“Shakespeare, what a guy,” Lyla joked.

“Virgil, actually.” 

“There he is,” Lyla smiled softly. 

Miguel took a deep breath, trying to re-calibrate.

“So Tyler knows about Xina and Gabriel. He probably knows about Spider-Man and me. There’s the potential he can travel to other universes, too. And you, Jess and Peter have all seen my brother and Xina. It’s not… a lot to work with. But there’s a… rough draft of a rough draft of a plan forming in my head. I think. Probably,” he said, turning back around, typing away on the holographic screens again.

Lyla spun around, wearing her trademark grin again.

“Great! Peter and Jess just arrived.”

His expression fell.

They wouldn’t understand, why he pushed them away. It wasn’t like he did it after becoming Spider-Man. He did it before the accident, before his life was changed. He saw himself as some sort of cosmic mistake long before Delgato made him a biological one, too. 

“Just… alert me when they enter the labs,” he clipped out, turning away again.

Lyla frowned, watching as he tapped through to encrypted files.

Ones had hadn’t looked at in months. 

“…Miguel, it’s Gabriel. Look, avoiding me isn’t going to make things easier. I stand by what I said before. The whole corporate raider…” 

“And they said the Recently Deleted Loophole was a bad idea,” Lyla grinned to herself. 

—x—

ABOUT FIVE MINUTES LATER….

“…have a lot of shocking explaining to do,” Miguel ground out.

Peter let out an awkward laugh, and Miguel cringed for his sake. 

“Whaddya mean, bud?”

Miguel stared at him.

“Well, in our defense—Lyla said not to say anything. And the paperwork was gonna be a nightmare. I mean, your brother, your ex-wife and your daughter? Talk about a clerical disaster. So really, by not say anything—we kinda saved everybody here, huh?” Peter shrugged. 

Miguel looked from Peter to Lyla, flummoxed.

“Daughter?” 

If looks could kill, Peter would be a smudge on the floor.

“That wasn’t what he wanted to talk to you about,” Lyla gritted out. 

“Oh, uh, it wasn’t?” Peter asked nervously, glancing from Lyla to Miguel. 

“What are you talking about, Parker?” Miguel asked, trying to ignore the way he couldn't focus on anything but his heartbeat. 

“The kid. We saw, y’know, the day we checked the security alert. Jess, can you please say something?” he said as an aside, trying to hide his grimace with a smile.

It didn’t work. 

“I don’t see why we owe you an explanation,” Jess crossed her arms. 

Miguel rose an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t know what the deal was with the alternate Spider-daughter, but I would like to know why you’re apparently icing out your entire family? Because it kinda felt like you just lied to us for half a year about that,” she said.

“It wasn’t important,” he grumbled. 

“How is that not important? You know about Peter and his marriage and his divorce and the next marriage and Mayday! You know about me and my baby and my husband. So how is this any different?” she countered. 

“Those are all things you haven’t broken beyond repair,” Miguel bit back. 

“I don’t see how it’s “broken beyond repair” if they were looking around your apartment looking for your sorry butt,” Jess fixed him with a look.

He sighed, exasperated. 

This wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have with them. 

He just wanted to know what Xina and Gabriel said, if anything. That was it. 

Miguel should have known they would make it about how they never hear anything from him about his shocking family. 

Could they even stop and consider maybe he just didn’t want to? 

“Miguel,” Lyla pressed.

“Fine,” he relented, clenching his fists.

“Wait, are you actually talking to us? No take backs?” Peter asked, giving him a look.

Miguel glared at him.

“I don’t… have a lot of options right now. Stone, the uh, former CEO of Alchemax knows about my brother and my… she’s my friend, not my ex-wife. I mean, she is my ex but that's not the point. But he knows they’re connected to Spider-Man. And apparently he’s been messing around in the multiverse for who knows how long so, there’s that…” 

“Would we call her a friend in the loosest definition of the word, or…?” Peter asked.

Miguel stared.

“I’m talking about a guy who probably wants to get rid of every universe that I’m not his perfect Spider-Man, and you’re worried about what the word friend means?” he asked incredulously. 

“Well, yeah. She seems pretty special, that’s all,” Peter said nonchalantly. 

Jess had an unreadable expression on her face.

“Why’s this guy wanna ruin your life so bad?”



“Is it enough if I just say he’s evil?” Miguel dead-panned. 

“Nope,” she popped the ‘p’.

“He’s uh… he’s got a long-standing interpersonal conflict with my family,” he said stiffly.

“I think that is the vaguest explanation I’ve ever heard,” Jess rolled her eyes.

Miguel groaned internally, wishing he didn’t need to have this conversation. He didn’t want to talk about this with them. Shock, he barely wanted to have it with Gabriel or Xina. He could barely handle how they would react to the news, let alone two people who were supposed to look to him as a leader. 

“I just… I can’t tell you because they don’t know. And Gabriel and Xina deserve an explanation more than anyone. So… help me get them back, keep them safe, and… I’ll be honest. Okay?” he asked, barely hiding the pain in his voice. 

“Geez, Miguel. All you had to do was ask,” Peter said cheekily. 

Miguel rolled his eyes and Jess hid her smirk behind a cough.

"So… did they say what they were doing there?” Miguel asked, almost afraid of the answer.

His brain could come up with a million and one reasons they would coming knocking on his doorstep. Most of them involved them yelling at him. And he deserved it, too. All he did was fail them.

“They weren’t exactly chatty. And they both clammed up the minute we…” Jess trailed off, remembering how they had dismissed the idea of Miguel’s family.

“We figured they were confused. The only logical conclusion we had was that they were anomalies, since we didn’t know about you having any living relatives,” Peter finished, fixing Miguel with a glare.

He glowered back. 

“They were as good as gone by the time I started the Society, so I don’t get why they would come back now,” Miguel grumbled. 

“Why?” Jess pressed.

Miguel’s eye twitched again.

He glanced down.

This wasn’t something that came easy to him. Regardless of if they were all like the original Spider-Man… he wasn’t. He didn’t have the spider bite or the nice family and he definitely didn’t save the girl. 

Not that… he wanted that girl by the end of it all.

But his point still stood. Kind of. 

“I tried to do both. I wanted to save two people. Because my psychopath of a—well, Venom. He had an old score to settle with me. So he took it out on people who were close to me,” he explained, trying not to close his eyes.

Every time he did he just saw Kron’s face sneering back at him. 

“There was… a lot of fallout from that. And people got hurt who didn’t deserve it. My friend, for one, she took too much guilt on and… I haven’t seen her since. The video of her was the first time I’ve seen her since the, uh, funeral,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

They both gave him looks of sympathy and he tried to ignore how much it made his skin crawl. 

“You know there’s no how-to manual, right?” Peter asked.

Miguel snorted.

“My Peter Parker died a hundred years ago, all I ever had to go off of was historical accounts of him. That was my how-to manual, Peter,” he reminded him.

“… that’s still not really a guidebook,” Peter said.

“If that’s supposed to be some sort of thinly-veiled insult, it’s really not helping,” he bit back. 

“What he means is you can’t do this job perfectly, Miguel,” Jess said.

“Easy for you to say,” he mumbled.

“You know it’s not,” she dismissed him, giving him a long look.

That broke his stone-faced expression.

A little.

“It’s easy for you two to forgive me. You weren’t there. But Gabriel… and uh, Xina. They were. She watched Spider-Man fail. Right after she decided he wasn’t that bad of a guy, too. And now she hates me. I mean… she has to hate Spider-Man. I don’t think she knows I’m… him. But Gabriel does and he knows I couldn’t save… someone special to him,” his voice broke.

Jess and Peter shared another look.

“I’m sure there’s a lot to talk about with them, Miguel. But you won’t know how they actually feel until you see them again,” she reminded him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lyla flicker.

“Lyla, if you’re connected to the prototypes, why didn’t you just ring one of them the minute you knew?” Miguel questioned.

Lyla frowned.

“My data… and all the tests said—I just want you three to be happy again, okay? So I ran my own algorithm. I wanted to see what it would take for you to talk to your brother again. For you and Xina to… fix what was broken, maybe.”

“That’s not—Lyla, it’s not your job to try to fix my life.” 

Her smile was bittersweet. 

“Isn’t it?” 

“So… you didn’t call them because you didn’t want me knowing they were out in the potentially dangerous multiverse?” 

“Well, you wouldn’t approve. There was a 10.9% chance of you actually letting them take a gizmo, let alone telling them about the lack of anomalies within the parallel 2099 universes. Or the fact that that all started before you ever went to Gabriella’s universe.” 

His shoulders tensed at the mention of the young girl. 

“You two,” he turned to Peter and Jess, “she… she was there, wasn’t she? With them?” 

Peter and Jess locked eyes, and it seemed Peter lost whatever internal debate they had had.

“I mean, maybe it was her. But that doesn’t… that universal collapse was a month ago. The chances of her somehow—I mean, she disappeared in front of you. In front of us,” Peter reminded him.

“If Gabri and Xina ended up in the future… I mean…” Miguel trailed off, trying not to feel too hopeful.

“Whatever can be done about Gabriella’s universe… we have to get these two out of 2099C. The Spiderite Public Eye is starting to jam communications,” Lyla grimaced, her eyes distant.

Miguel stared.

“The what?”

“It’s a similar universe that we… it didn’t fit the criteria you gave me,” Lyla looked away.

“Lyla, what happened there?” he asked, expressionless. 

“2099C Miguel O’Hara, after refusing to create the Public Eye Spider-Men… is killed by Tyler Stone. The Spiderites are not known to worship Spider-Man, but instead are the Public Eye with the enhanced speed and strength of Spider-Man. In a final act of rebellion, Miguel sent privatized files to Xina Kwan that will lead to the downfall of Alchemax. They just… they just broke the code, actually,” Lyla wiped her eyes, hoping no one noticed the tremble in her voice.

Miguel blinked, feeling his throat closing.

“So they’re safe?” he got out, his gaze never leaving Lyla.

“They are. Both versions of them,” Lyla said quietly.

“Great! So they can just set their watches to here and bing-bang-boom, problem solved!” Peter grinned. 

Jess shook her head, remembering Miguel’s earlier words.

“No, they can’t. Because Miguel’s evil ex-boss is tracking them, isn’t he?” 

“He is. Only because… our Xina and Gabriel got curious and cocky and wanted to see what our Tyler was hiding. So I helped them. I didn’t think—“ 

“It’s not your fault, Lyla. It’s Tyler’s. Shock, I should have seen it sooner. It’s always Tyler. Every time something's gone wrong in my life, he’s behind it,” Miguel grimaced.

“Well… it also gets a little worse,” Lyla started, wincing at Miguel’s incredulous expression, “their watches only had enough power for one trip. So they need to go the power source directly from Alchemax or…” 

“They’ll be stuck there,” Jess finished.

Miguel took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He knew what he needed Lyla to do. And what he needed to do, too. Facing the two people he hurt the most… it would be worth it, even if he could only keep them safe from Stone.

Whatever happened after… was up to them. 

“Ring one of the prototype goobers, Ly,” he commanded, acting more confident than he felt. 

Lyla gasped, barely hiding her soft smile. 

“Sure thing, boss.” 

—x—

“—la! Lyla?!” Gabriel panicked.

The second they realized Stone was in the system too, she disappeared.

And that either meant she was off somewhere talking to a Spider-person, Miguel or… Stone got her.

Xina wasn’t too optimistic about the first two options. 

“What the shock do we do now?!” he exclaimed.

She looked back through the balcony door, seeing this world’s Xina, Gabriel and Conchata still deep in conversation. But they had the information, they had the truth and they could finally use it.

… and selfishly, it meant they could finally get to Alchemax.

They had to focus on that, especially if Stone knew they were here. It was one thing if he could just track them, it was another if he had the ability to send his Public Eye goons after them. 

If they were lucky, he only had their location.

“We have to wait for them to drop the files. When they reveal the truth of the corporations to the people and give them the power to fight back… we can sneak right through. It shouldn’t be that hard,” Xina hoped. 

“You realize you’re with the non-Spider-Man O’Hara brother, right?” 

“Completely,” she rolled her eyes good-naturally. 

“Just wanted to make sure,” he shook his head in exasperation.

Xina’s gizmo made a chirp sound, alerting them both.

An orange light flickered to life, and she gasped, unable to hide her surprise. 

Miguel.

Standing in front of them… kind of. 

Half his form was cut off, but it was him. The watch technology didn’t have the capability to run a full holo-vid. She’d have to ask Lyla about it later.

Her mind was running a mile a minute, filling the empty space with scientific questions and technological improvements that could be made. Because the reality was… he was there. He was here. Even if it wasn’t… here here.

But he wasn’t dead. 

Not like… the other him.

And he was in the suit, mask and all.

“Miggy?!” Gabriel exclaimed.

Miguel blanched, giving a sideways glance as someone else came into frame. 

“Miggy? That’s an actual thing?” the man from what felt like forever ago now appeared, still in his pink robe.

“Peter, this isn’t a group project. I need to talk to them—can you just—thanks,” Miguel ground out.

Miguel gave Gabriel a pointed look, then turned his gaze to Xina.

Even with the mask on, she knew when their eyes met. 

A dozen years of silent communication don’t just disappear. 

“You… know?” he asked hesitantly.

Xina nodded, still unable to find her words.

His mask vanished, revealing a face she worried she would never see again.

“How long?” 

She bit her lip, unable to miss the irony. Since their drive home from Mexico, when she first started putting the pieces together. When she would have asked him, because it looked like their friendship was on the mend. But then Doom and Venom and her decision to leave…

Something was always getting in between them and this conversation.

Figures they would finally be able to have it and he was light-years away.

 “I wasn’t completely certain until… Venom. But Spider-Man showing up everywhere we went on that trip made it fairly obvious,” she tried to joke.

“Should have known I couldn’t fool the smartest woman in all of Nueva York,” he half-smiled.

“Only the smartest woman?” she quirked a brow. 

“We never had our trivia rematch, the World’s Greatest Brain mug is still in my apartment,” he quipped.

“Jerk,” she said affectionately.

Gabriel cleared his throat. 

“Mig, I’m relieved to see you—but what the shock, man? You… you just get up and leave? Don’t even bother to say if you’re ever coming back. You didn’t even… you didn’t even say goodbye,” Gabriel’s voice broke.

The hologram of Miguel’s shoulders tensed.

“You…” he started, slouching, any pretense of confidence gone, “you didn’t need me. Shock, Gabri, I ruined your life. At the funeral… you wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t look at me. I figured this was better for everyone.” 

Gabriel frowned.

“That doesn’t mean… shock, yeah, of course I was mad. I was madder than I’ve ever been at you. But you can’t… you can’t do things like this, Mig. I thought… we thought…” Gabriel couldn’t finish his sentence, glancing down. 

Miguel looked from him to Xina. 

Her breath caught, forgetting for a moment that it wasn’t just another pre-recorded message. 

“We thought… I thought the protocols failed. That you… after everything, after what happened… we were scared we wouldn’t find you. Still, um. Around,” she tried explaining, the alternative still too painful.

His expression slowly changed to one of understanding to surprise to shame.

“I—I mean, yeah it was bad. I was in a bad—but you shouldn’t have worried—” 

“When,” Xina started, trying not to let her voice catch in her throat, “will you understand that I—we—will always worry.”

For a moment, they forgot it wasn’t just the two of them.

And everything that had led to this fractured reunion… just gone.

“You had enough problems, I didn’t need to add to it,” he said bitterly, clenching his fists.

“You’ve taken up a sizable amount of brain space for years, Miguel, I don’t see that changing,” she said, reaching up to caress his cheek, forgetting he wasn’t really there.

He forgot, too.

They both leaned in, neither wanting to break the spell.

This was better than looking for his reflection.

Because if she just thought of the last time she held his face, she could pretend there was a warmth beneath her hand.

But his eyes were different.

“Your eyes match your hair,” she said, wishing she could run her hand through his curls.

He got bashful, looking down.

“Side effect of… all of this,” he said quietly.

“When I left, I was half-convinced I would never see you again,” Xina met his gaze.

“I know I wasn’t—”

“Not because I wasn’t ever coming home again. I was going to, eventually. But I… I couldn’t recognize you. In your gaze and how you spoke. Especially after Venom. So I was worried one day I would see you again and I would look in your eyes and I wouldn’t know you.”

“And what do you see now?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Someone I haven't seen in a very long time,” she said softly, feeling her face warm at his half-smile.

He moved to raise her chin, and she moved with him, lost in the face of the man she knew. If they just leaned in…

Gabriel cleared his throat, again.

With that, the spell was broken.

At least, she realized she was holding her hand up to a hologram and Miguel wasn’t really there.

It didn’t stop her heart from hurting when he pulled away.

But his gaze lingered, and hers stayed the same.

Miguel coughed, realizing for the first time that his brother and two of his co-workers had just watched him and Xina.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Gabriel mumbled.

“Me too,” he said honestly.

“But we have a problem,” Xina started.

“You know?” Peter poked his head in, looking like the cat who had caught the canary. 

“Yes. Lyla’s advanced enough to let someone know when they’re being hacked, dingus,” she said, crossing her arms.

"How do you know that?” Peter asked, tilting his head.

Xina laughed.

“Because I remember my own coding,” she deadpanned. 

“You made Lyla?!” 

She stared at him.

“Why are you surprised by that?” she looked from him to Miguel. 

“I dunno, Miguel always gave off a kinda tortured solo scientist vibe,” he dismissed. 

Miguel sputtered.

“Peter—” 

“That’s just his face,” Xina smirked. 

Gabriel snorted.

“That’s not—Xina, why are you—no, we need to focus. Stone knows about your trip. And knows you were looking into his files. What… what were you looking for?” Miguel asked.

Xina met Gabriel’s eye. 

“He’s messing with string theory, Miggy. I think… he wants to do something to Spider-Man. To you,” she said quietly. 

Miguel cursed under his breath. 

“We only got a glance but… he was trying to find universes where Spider-Man was on his side. Or… at least you were. There weren’t a whole lot,” Gabriel frowned. 

“And…” Xina hesitated, remembering what she had noted in Earth-23291. 

She felt both O’Hara’s eyes on her, unsure how her next words would be met. 

“Sometimes… Miguel, you don’t just work for him. In some universes, he’s… your father.” 

Chapter Text

Xina waited for a reaction. For anything. But all Miguel did was look to the left, something hidden in his gaze.

She would have understood a biting remark or an over-exaggerated shudder at the idea of Tyler Stone being anything but the ghoul over his shoulder.

But… he didn’t.

Instead he wouldn’t meet her eyes. And he wasn’t looking at Gabriel, either. Miguel clutched his mask between his hands, anxiously holding it as if it was his lifeline. Maybe it was.

That led her to one conclusion.

“You knew?” she asked, unconsciously taking a step back from the hologram.

Gabriel looked between Xina and Miguel, his expression falling. 

“… about the alternate Miguel thing, right? Right?” he quietly pleaded.

Xina wasn’t sure if Gabriel was coming to the same conclusion she was, but far too many moments started to fall into place.

It would certainly… explain a few things. The finer details of Tyler’s obsession with getting Miguel under Alchemax’s supervision. And how he always had an opinion on him, even in school. The push for Miguel to take over for him, after everything with Doom. The way it always felt like he had eyes on Miguel, regardless of where they went… 

And if it was any sort of universal constant, if such a thing existed, that could only mean…

“I don’t think I was ever supposed to know. I only… I only found out because I had a score to settle with Tyler. The lunatic kidnapped Kasey, nearly had her killed. He had the Public Eye beat Gabriel,” Miguel looked away, unable to look either of them in the eye, “and I couldn’t… I couldn’t let him keep hurting people. So I followed him home. I was going to make sure he didn’t do anything like that ever again. I mean, if anybody deserves to—” he cut himself off, trying to keep his composure.

She took a step forward, bringing a hand up to his face, instead closing it and bringing it to her chest.

While she was still searching for words, Gabriel found his. 

“Does Ma know?” 

Xina’s breath hitched. 

Miguel looked physically pained.

“Gabri, I—”

“Does she?” 

From behind Miguel, Xina could hear some sort of distant quarrel, and the two Spiders made a less-than-stealthy exit. She was almost relieved. This was… Xina nearly didn’t want to be here for it, either.

But there were enough secrets between them all for a lifetime.

“She doesn’t know that I know,” Miguel said stiffly, looking as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world. 

“And were you planning on telling me?” 

Silence.

Xina looked toward Gabriel, almost unable to bear the expression on his face.

“I didn’t know how to, Gabri. Shock, was I just supposed to call you and say ‘hey, you know how our father was a piece of shit our entire childhood? Well guess what, he’s only your piece of shit father! Mine’s even worse!’”

The younger O’Hara clenched his fists, shaking his head.

“Well—I just—don’t you trust me?” he faltered. 

Miguel’s breath hitched.

“Considering I thought the moment you knew we weren’t really… brothers, you’d finally drop me…” he trailed off, gazing down intently at the ground. 

Neither brother could meet the other’s eye. 

“I’d never do that.” 

Miguel laughed humorlessly. 

“You seemed ready to after Venom.” 

The younger O’Hara harrumphed indignantly. 

“Are you kidding me, Miguel? I was mad at you. But I wasn’t… Even after all of that, all the stupid run-arounds and avoidance tactics and all the other shit you’ve ever pulled, I’m still here. And yeah, I’m not the greatest brother, either. I let… a lot of things pass me by. That I should have noticed. Or I should have questioned. But I’m here now. And that doesn’t change. I don’t care who your shocking dad is, you’re still my brother.” 

Miguel stood stunned, processing his words.

Xina glanced at Gabriel, remembering a long expanse of time where this world’s Conchata had gone outside to talk to him.

“She talked to you, about… your family, didn’t she?” 

Gabriel quickly wiped his eyes, clearing his throat. 

“She did. And it wasn’t pretty,” he admitted. 

“Nasty old bat,” Xina scowled. 

“I mean, I don’t know how much here is the same as home… but it’s all pretty similar, otherwise. Besides…” Gabriel trailed off, looking at Miguel. 

The older O’Hara still hadn’t spoken, his head hung low.

“Miguel?” she asked hesitantly, stepping closer to his hologram.

“But I don’t deserve that from you,” he said finally.

Gabriel pressed his lips into a hard line, and Xina watched him clench his fists, clearly exasperated. 

“Well, too bad. You’re getting it anyway.”

Miguel looked up, his eyes glassy.

“I just always figured you had a breaking point… with me. That both of you did,” he admitted sheepishly.

Xina frowned.

“I’m not like…” Gabriel struggled to finish his sentence, to put to words what he knew was finally true, “I’m not like Ma, Miguel. I didn’t stop talking to you when you started at Alchemax or when you kept working there. When I found out about Spider-Man I… I was surprised, alright? Because becoming Spider-Man is something my big brother would do, not Alchemax’s pride and joy Miguel O’Hara. It was… I started falling into old habits. I wanted my big brother to save my day. Every day. Because I knew you had more influence in Nueva York than I ever could. And I don’t regret that. But trying to use Spider-Man to keep my personal life from crashing and burning… that was wrong,” Gabriel confessed, staring intently at the ground. 

Miguel nodded, clearing his throat.

“Uh, then for the sake of honesty, you should know that I wasn’t the one that got Kasey out of Alchemax,” he admitted awkwardly.

Gabriel’s head whipped up.

“What?” 

“That was… Ma. She went to Stone’s, confronted him about it. Her leverage was the truth about how his wife died. That, uh, worked. Then he went on some rant about how he would never really poison me with Rapture. I don’t know if that’s true or not… but Ma talked about how I think she hates me for being like Dad. And then she…. she said it wasn’t because of Dad. Because he’s not mine. Tyler is. And she… she said she sees him in me,” Miguel choked out.

She hated this.

She hated Stone and his manipulations and Conchata and her hatred of her son.

From the first time she met Miguel, she knew he was a good person. Even if he was hesitant to speak out against wrong things when he saw them, Xina saw who he could really be if he had the courage.

But it was never really about courage, was it?

It was about power and who had it over him.

Because if it wasn’t Stone and their private school, it was Mr. O’Hara and his barely veiled threats toward Gabriel. And if it wasn’t their father, it was Conchata. His mother who could never look him in the eye, could never express even an ounce of pride in how well he was doing in school.

And now it all made sense. 

That woman didn’t see a little boy she helped raise, she just saw her biggest mistake: letting Tyler Stone into her life. 

But putting that all onto Miguel?

Whatever sympathies she could have had for Conchata went out the window the moment the older woman put it all on her son. He was a child, not the sum of all her problems. He needed someone to care about him, not a parent who dismissed him at every turn. And if the way he used to flinch as a kid meant anything, Xina wasn’t sure it was just verbal and emotional turmoil she put him through. 

“She’s a monster,” Xina finally spoke, barely containing her rage.

“But… you’re not like him,” Gabriel said quietly.

“And that bluff about the Rapture? There’s no way he didn’t. I’m sorry, Miguel. But we both know he doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. And if he wanted you to stay at Alchemax… then that’s what he was getting. No matter what,” she said.

“I know, Xina. In the moment I just… had this horrible thought. That I turned into some kind of freak for nothing that all of this would have gone away in three shocking days. I’m… I hate to admit it, but I resented S-Man for it. Becoming aware of how awful everybody’s lives was didn’t do anything, it just made mine worse,” he said ruefully. 

Xina frowned at his words.

“It made mine better,” she said quietly. 

“What?” he quirked a brow. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think. And with what Gabriel told me… when you became Spider-Man, you were able to start apologizing. I dunno if you would have been able to say that to me otherwise. Or if you would have bothered,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Xina…” he trailed off, his hand twitching by his side.

She liked to imagine that if they were in the same room, he would do what he always did. A hand on her shoulder, a first step to asking her if she was okay. But they weren't even in the same universe. So her words would have to do.

“So don’t say Spider-Man didn’t do Nueva York any good. I know you probably think I hate him, especially after that last conversation in my car but…” she trailed off, remembering how helpless she felt watching Doom whisk away her oldest friend. 

He inwardly gasped, tensing for some sort of confirmation of that held belief.

“I don’t. And not just because he’s you and, as surprising as it may be to you, I could never hate you. I wanted to… broach the subject. To offer up my theory on you being Spider-Man. I figured if we were alone in my car you might be a little more forthcoming. But then…”

“Doom and Stone and Venom,” he finished, unconsciously clenching his fists at the memory. 

Gabriel looked between the two of them, having a light-bulb moment of his own.

“Wait, you went to Nightshade the same weekend Kasey came home,” he glanced at his older brother.

Miguel stilled.

“Yeah, it was kind of… last minute,” he coughed. 

Xina furrowed her brow. 

“When you came by to give me the gum ball machine?” 

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up.

“You finally gave her that thing?” 

Her eyes went from Miguel to Gabriel. 

“What?” 

“It sat in his room for ages. I think he wanted to give it to you before… before. But it was never the right time. At least, that’s what it seemed like. Although it was kind of weird you were so shocking excited to give it to Xina. And then one day you came back from Alchemax and just… shoved it the back of your closet,” Gabriel frowned. 

The older O’Hara looked ready for the floor to swallow him up.

“While we’re just putting everything out there, I guess…” Miguel hesitated.

Xina watched him, noticing the way his nostrils flared and there was a slight shake to his hands.

“Miggy, whatever it is, if it’s not important… you don’t have to tell me,” she said, wanting to make the pain disappear from his eyes. 

“No, this isn’t about that. It’s about Stone. He threatened you—you and your family—and I just… I couldn’t be the reason you got hurt. So I just… shut down,” he finished quietly, shame rising up in him again.

“He what?” her concern shifted one again to white-hot rage. 

“You were going to be in danger. Because of me. So I just… I knew if I distanced myself, maybe I could spare you the misfortune of knowing me,” he mumbled. 

She blinked.

“Is that why you started being so distant? Shock, Miguel. I thought I did something wrong…” she trailed off.

“Nope. Just me. Like always,” he said scornfully.

“So… why then, Miguel?” Gabriel asked quietly. 

“I just wanted to see Xina smile again. One last time. I guess, I thought if I could do one final act… I knew it would be to thank her for Lyla. For fixing her and… just for her. Even when I cut everybody else off, she was there. And she reminded me of Xina sometimes…” Miguel smiled to himself. 

Xina felt heat rush to her face and dread fill her stomach in one fell swoop.

“One last time? What were you… what do you mean, Miggy?” she asked.

If revealing the truth about his mother and Stone had weakened him, this made him want to fall to his knees.

“I… wasn’t planning on living past that weekend,” he revealed, unable to meet either of their gazes. 

Her world stopped. 

A ringing started in her ears.

He felt so alone that he… he was going to do that? To do the thing she was too afraid to even name to Gabriel. That both of them knew he struggled with, even if he never admitted it. 

And she had lived in a world without him in it, both in that year and now in this universe.

She didn’t like it. 

So for him to reveal… that he had started to plan something like that. Because of his mother and Stone and everything else going wrong in his life…

“Miguel…” she couldn’t find the words, because all she wanted to do was bury her face in his chest. Sure, him standing in front of her was proof enough he was alive. But she couldn’t feel his pulse, couldn’t smell the cologne he started wearing after her off-handed remark about liking it one day.

She needed to feel him, to know he was real.

“I didn’t. Obviously. I, uh… you asked me to go with you. And I’ve always had a hard time saying no to you,” Miguel half-smiled at her, unconsciously reaching to wipe the tears from her cheek.

It didn’t work, but she didn’t care.

If this was the closest she could get to him, she would take it.

“So my TwenCen obsession was good for something. It brought you back around,” she said lightly, moving her hand over her cheek, pretending his hand was there, too. 

“Yeah,” he agreed breathlessly.

Miguel hesitated.

“Where’d it—the gum ball machine—go? I didn’t see it up on your shelf…” his expression was unreadable.

It was her turn to look embarrassed.

“The back of my car. I didn’t… we had just gotten back on good terms. I wanted to remember you like that. Thinking of you lugging it up the stairs to my place. Your sheepish look in the hall that day. Just… I had already lost you once. And keeping it with me meant I got to keep a part of you,” she admitted. 

He preened at her words.

“That’s why I took the picture frame,” he confessed.

“Miguel O’Hara, sentimental? Never saw that one coming,” Xina teased.

“Look who’s talking,” he joked in response.

Gabriel snorted in the corner.

“Shock, when all this is over, I’m getting you two a room and leaving the city,” Gabriel rolled his eyes playfully. 

Miguel’s hand didn’t waver.

Lyla popped up out of nowhere, her hands on her cheeks in shock.

“I’m gonna be honest, I ran a lot of tests. Like, a lot. And yet you guys still managed to surprise me!” the holo-agent exclaimed, grinning ear to ear. 

They both jumped away from each other in surprise, the appearance of Lyla breaking them out of their temporary bliss. 

“Hi, Lyla,” Xina smiled, bashful.

“Did you tell her? About that life-changing snap decision you made a year ago? With the Twen-Cen thing?” Lyla jumped up and down. 

“Yeah, Lyla, she knows,” Miguel muttered awkwardly, looking away from the holo-agent. 

“Good,” Lyla said, smirking. 

The holo-agent turned to Xina, still bursting with excitement. 

“And did he tell you about how happy he was when he saw me again?” Lyla teased.

Xina looked at Miguel again, softly smiling.

“No, but I can imagine.” 

“I tried to hug her…” he admitted sheepishly. 

“And Miggy claims I’m the one that doesn’t get how holograms work,” Gabriel muttered. 

She smiled, not realizing how badly she missed Miguel and Lyla.

“Wait, what is it Lyla?” Xina asked.

Lyla grimaced.

“Okay, so not to rain on our little gang’s parade, but Tyler’s already on his way. He must have had his own portal in-house. It would explain some of the discrepancies in Alchemax’s funding…” she trailed off, disappearing and re-appearing with an abacus and in business suit.

“You were in their banking files?” Xina asked, amazed.

“Please, I’m in everything,” Lyla said, smirking.

“How much time, Lyla?” Miguel questioned, a look in his eyes telling her they weren’t done with this conversation.

Good. She still had plenty to say. And the things… they had to work out. Just because she knew how she felt didn’t make the last few months easier. Or… Venom any easier, either.

“About an hour. The plus side is his system isn’t as advanced as ours. He could track this universe via the watches, but I’ve already scrambled the frequency. If Xina and Gabriel travel again, he won’t be able to find them,” Lyla supplied.

Gabriel grinned.

“That’s great! We get outta here, Miggy shows up here, stops Tyler, and we’re all home before dinner.” 

Lyla frowned.

“That’s not… we can’t do that, Gabriel. The universe is a fragile thing on its own. But our connected universes? They’re tearing at the seams, ripping slowly but gaining traction. The less travel between them, the better. I think I’ve pinpointed what’s caused it and…” Lyla hesitated, looking between the three of them. 

“Every Alchemax has their own collider, right? Well, every 2099 has their own Alchemax and their own Tyler trying to get his perfect son. And none of them know about the other. So… Tyler’s ripping apart the very fabric of reality on every timeline just because of his own hubris,” Lyla explained.

“Shock,” Xina whispered.

“So, any sort of plan we make… you two have to stay out of it, okay? I can’t—you’ve been put in too much danger already. I’m ending it here,” Miguel said, an air finality in his voice.

“But that doesn’t explain 928B’s time loop,” Xina reminded him.

Miguel’s expression fell. 

“It’s what?” 

“The time loop. That 928B is stuck in. I figured you knew about that…?” she looked at Lyla, who had the decency to look ashamed.

“I was gonna tell him. Eventually,” Lyla shrugged.

Miguel sputtered, unable to form words at this latest discovery.

“Yeah. It turns out it didn’t get destroyed. Hurray?” Xina did a half-hearted jazz-hand.

Miguel stared.

“It’s not… I didn’t…”

“Words! We got words outta him. Better than nothing,” Lyla half grimaced, trying to smile.

“No, you didn’t. But she—I mean, they need our help. And I can’t sit around in another universe waiting to hear if you stopped half of the universe-ending problem. Plus I’m not entirely convinced they aren’t at least a little connected,” Xina admitted. 

Miguel frowned.

“You met Gabriella?”

“Yeah. She’s got your non-existent sense of humor,” Xina joked.

“And your everything else,” he said, trying to ignore Lyla laughing at him over his shoulder. 

“I love the way you nerds love,” Lyla said dreamily. 

Neither of them could look the other in the eye, both stiffening at Lyla’s use of that word.

Knowing something was true and admitting it were two entirely different things. 

“And she has my name,” Gabriel supplied, feeling the shift in the air.

“Well it’s not like I’d ever name our baby after shocking Tyler or Conchata,” Xina dismissed, shuddering at the thought.

Miguel froze.

“Have you ever… thought about it, before?” he faltered.

“Not before she crash landed into our lives and declared me the only person capable of fixing the multiverse,” she deadpanned, trying to deflect.

Maybe she had… once. But it was a fleeting thought during a vulnerable time. She wasn’t serious about it.

And now? Shock, now she didn’t even know what tomorrow would look like, let alone ten years down the line. Just because she knew she… she loved him, didn’t mean she would magically want to have a kid with Miguel.

“I’m surprised you went to that universe. I just thought… with your family history, a kid would be the last thing you wanted,” she said, crossing her arms and looking away.

“I didn’t go there for her… I mean, she’s great. Being raised by you and me didn’t mess her up. At least… not that version of you and me. But I went there because it had—” 

“An uncomplicated history?” 

“A version of you who needed me,” he finished.

“So you left because… you thought I didn’t need you?” she asked incredulously.

He floundered a bit at that, shrugging.

“Guess so.” 

“Miggy, I left because I thought you didn’t need me,” she rose an eyebrow at him.

The man stiffened. 

“That’s not true,” he mumbled. 

She just stared at him.

“We’re putting a pin in this conversation, but after we un-shock the multiverse and take care of Stone, you and me… we’re talking about everything,” she said.

He nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eye.

“In… a good way?”

“We still have plenty of academic journals to write, Miguel,” she reminded him.

Miguel smiled.

“Didn’t know… you still felt that way.”

“I never stopped,” she admitted quietly. 

“Me either.” 

Gabriel glanced between them, realizing he had no idea what kind of code they were speaking in.

Lyla flickered up again, a grimace on her face.

“Alright you crazy kids, we have a 45 minutes. Can you, realistically get to 2099C’s Alchemax, grab the stuff to power the gizmos, and leave?” she asked.

“I think so,” Xina replied, glancing back inside the apartment. 

The alternate Gabriel and Xina were gone, apparently having taken Conchata with them.

Good.

She didn’t… really want any of them seeing Miguel. Not that their doppelgängers couldn’t handle it… Xina just knew it was easier this way. And she especially didn’t need him seeing some other version of his mother.

A bright light distracted her, the colors eerily similar to Miguel’s own hologram. In the corner of the balcony, past the wall was—

“Spider-Kid! Long time no see,” Gabriel said cheerfully. 

Miguel froze. 

“That’s not my name. That’s also, like, a wildly un-creative naming device. There’s nothing about having spider powers that says you have to have spider in the name. Or even follow traditional naming conventions—”

“You’re not dead,” Miguel gasped. 

“You have really, really bad bedside manner,” the young girl stared at him in disbelief. 

“It’s a part of his charm,” Gabriel joked.

Gabriella rolled her eyes, glancing between the three of them before pulling out two core reactors small enough for the gizmos. 

“These are the power sources, right?”

 Xina gaped. 

"How did you get those?” 

“Evil Cop Spider-Man universe isn’t the only place that has the reactors. You guys are just really lucky that apparently my universe’s reactors are the same as yours,” Gabriella explained. 

Gabriel looked from Xina to Lyla.

“Or creator and creation are just that similar,” he proffered. 

“Your universe was destroyed. It…disintegrated. We all saw it,” Miguel was still hung up on the fact that she existed at all. 

“Nope. Time loop. And as much as I love waking up to David Bowie every single day for eternity, I had to get out of there. To fix it,” Gabriella crossed her arms.

Miguel stared at her. 

“So… it’s not gone?” 

Gabriella rolled her eyes. 

“You might be the densest version of my dad that’s ever existed,” she snarked.

 “But—”

“Can you just believe me so I can go back to my universe and not relive the day my dad was killed, Spider-Man?” she crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. 

Miguel wouldn’t meet her eye. 

“Sure, kid.” 

Xina tensed at the uneasy feeling between the two, knowing the kid was rightfully upset about the displacement of her universe. But she felt there was more there, something neither Miguel or Gabriella had told her or Gabri.

“We go to this randomized universe, meet up with another version of you and maybe ourselves, explain the situation and hopefully they’ll work with us? Or at least let me work in peace,” she suggested, trying to cut some of the discontentment from the two Spiders.

“You’re assuming a lot about a randomized universe, Xina,” Miguel said not harshly, but with a tone she couldn’t place. 

“We're narrowing it down to the parameters of the year 2099 and a place where Tyler has directly impacted the status of the world? We’ll be there,” she argued.

Gabriel sighed.

“You guys can either do your weird argu-flirting or you can just ask Lyla to randomize it within a few guidelines. This doesn’t have to be a whole thing,” he rolled his eyes. 

“Old habits die hard,” Miguel joked, and she felt heat rise to her face.

What the shock was she doing? 

Two days ago she was dead-set on not coming back to Nueva York until she understood her place in the world. And now she was, as Gabriel so eloquently put it, argu-flirting with her ex-boyfriend. 

But he wasn’t just some ex.

He was… him. 

And that was more than a failed romance or an abandoned friendship.

He was alive and even if he was a little worse for wear from the multiverse, he was still around to get lectured in a million and one ways from her when they finally reunited. So now she just had to make sure that actually happened. 

“You three go to Lyla’s randomized, hopefully semi-functional universe. I know I can’t stop you from trying to help… but just be careful. Especially if there’s a Tyler running around. I can’t… please just try to stay safe,” Miguel stressed the point by giving both herself and Gabriel hard looks. 

“Radio silence, too?” she asked quietly. 

“Until we disconnect the system from Alchemax’s core, yep,” Lyla nodded.

“Miggy, why on Earth did you connect the Spider-People Place to Alchemax’s internal database?” she asked, flummoxed.

He coughed. 

“It was a skeleton, a base to be used. I figured I would have plenty of time to disconnect it before anybody at Alchemax caught wind…” he trailed off. 

“Why didn’t you have Lyla clone the coding and put it into a new system? An entirely new base coding for the watches, away from Alchemax?” she rose an eyebrow. 

“I… didn’t know you could do that,” he admitted.

“We were more focused on if we could do it then doing it safely,” Lyla confirmed.

 Xina took a deep breath, deciding that was another conversation they were having later.

"Fine. Radio silence. But reach out the second it’s disconnected from Alchemax, got it?”

“Promise,” he agreed. 

“Please be safe,” Gabriel mumbled.

“He’s a bitter old man. And it’s not like he can Rapture me again,” Miguel snarked, trying to make Gabriel and Xina smile.

It didn’t work.

“Right. When I get home, you’re disabling the breaks in my car,” Xina said off-handedly.

“What?” he stared at her. 

“So I can have plausible deniability when I ram my car into Tyler Stone and the old man finally kicks it,” she said lightly. 

He smiled at her. 

Gabriella cleared her throat. 

“We gotta go, now,” she reminded them. 

Lyla flickered from Miguel’s side on the holo-vid to beside her, jokingly pulling the lever on what appeared to be a slot machine. 

“I won’t see the result, but the gizmos will send you there. And you’ll see which universe it is once you arrive. Otherwise the gizmos will be defunct. I’ll turn them back on from 928 when it’s safe again. Don’t get into to too much trouble,” Lyla smirked. 

Xina heard Miguel mumble something that sounded like “or any.”

“Thank you,” she smiled softly at the holo-agent.

She caught Miguel looking at her and she knew it was stupid to want to stay here with him.

He wasn’t even really here.

“Sync the watches in three…” Gabriel trailed off, watching her and Gabriella.

She nodded, following the younger O’Hara’s lead.

“See you later, Miggy,” she promised.

“See you later,” he tried not to frown.

Gabriel nodded at him, the brothers had their own language, too.

They pressed their gizmos in time and the last thing she saw before the portal swept them up was Miguel’s holo-feed cutting out.

—x— 

Xina assumed the second time through the portal would be easier. After all, they weren’t crash landing sideways through space.

She was wrong. 

It felt like a pull to her insides, as if everything was jumbled in some sort of blender and she couldn’t get out. Instinctively, she reached out.

Xina felt someone’s smaller hand hold her own.

Gabriella.

“It feels weird the first couple times,” the little girl said, giving her a sympathetic look. 

“Thanks,” she thanked her awkwardly, still unsure of how to react to the young girl.

She caught Gabriel’s eye on the other side of the girl, and his expression matched her own. Looking at Gabriella was like looking into an alternate reality funhouse mirror and she… didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Not yet. 

As soon as it had started, the three of them were spat out on the other end in an entirely different universe. 
Xina groaned, wishing be shot out from a universe didn’t include so much spinning. 

“Why wasn’t that any easier,” Gabriel groused, leaned over a nearby set of bins. 

“Maybe it’s a spider thing,” Gabriella said innocently, a half-smirk forming on her lips.

Xina expected some sort of joke in response to the girl, or anything, really.

But there was just silence.

“Gabriel?” she turned to look at him, seeing his jaw dropped and eyes set on some billboard above them. 

Her own gaze turned to the larger-than-life advertisement and she was sure her expression matched Gabriel’s.

Xina remembered the small list of universes where Tyler had had a somewhat obedient son. It looked like they had their work cut out for them. The smirk, the cruelty in his red eyes spanning across a massive holo-video… this was Earth-23291. 

Gabriella was too busy on her gizmo to look up, but she kept her string of jokes going, seemingly on a roll. Finally noticing nobody was paying attention, she looked up, gasping.

“Oh, come on, what the shock is that?” 

“That… is Miguel,” Xina said hesitantly, remembering Tyler’s information on Earth 23291. 

“Okay, well why does he look like Tyler Jr?” Gabriel blanched. 

“Because he’s not an O’Hara here, Gabri. He’s a Stone. Of course he’s….Tyler Jr…” she grimaced, unable to hide her distain. 

Above them, instead of the classic Alchemax surveillance adverts stood a massive replica of Miguel, pointing as if he was Uncle Sam in the retro American recruitment posters. The bottom words said something about the Avengers, which only confused Xina more, because they were all dead.

At least they were in their universe. 

“So… we went from a place where Miguel died trying to stop the Public Eye Superhuman program to… Tyler’s perfect little angel? And how exactly is this better than going home and facing Stone?” Gabriel crossed his arms, his gaze not leaving the giant poster of his brother. 
Xina couldn’t help but agree.

“We’re sticking with the plan. Scrambling our location and turning off any sort of indicators that could give us away. Including Lyla, so… this will be better because we’ll make it better. If we could help the last universe, who’s to say we can’t help this guy? He can’t possibly be that evil,” she reasoned, hoping her words sounded more hopeful than she felt. 

Gabriella, meanwhile, had found her way into local archives.

“He’s dead,” she gasped.

Xina whipped around, eyes ablaze. 

“What?!” 

Gabriella cleared her throat, embarrassment evident. 

“Shock, sorry—not, uh, Miguel—that Tyler guy. He fell like 40 floors off of the Alchemax building. It was ruled a suicide.” 

Gabriel stared.

“Tyler Stone… is dead?” 

The girl nodded, still reading the rest of the police report. 

“Well, our Miguel would be throwing a city-wide party and putting it all on Alchemax’s tab. So what’s this guy doing?” Gabriel wondered. 

Xina looked uptown, seeing the familiar skyscraper and name she had avoided all of her adult life. It looked far too similar to their own version, except for the massive reconstruction on the 40th floor window.

“Let’s go find out.” 

Gabriel crossed his arms, muttering.

“Walking right up to Alchemax. We’re crazy! This is crazy.” 

“These… Avengers are sponsored by Alchemax. And Alchemax is right there. So, logic would agree we’ll find this version of Miguel there,” Xina reasoned. 

Gabriella nodded, walking and reading on her own holo screen.

“Seriously?” Gabriel watched the little girl, assuming she would back him up.

“He’s there. I don’t really get how this place works, but he has a big main office. And today there’s some big job change happening. I can’t find a lot about it, it’s all encrypted but some Head of Robotic Experimentation in Alchemax Europe is transferring back here. But I can’t find a name,” Gabriella frowned. 

“So we’ll crash their party,” Xina shrugged, walking out of the alley and onto the busy Nueva York street. 

“Remember the last time you wanted to waltz up to Alchemax? Like, five hours ago? Did we forget all the many reasons I said not to do that?” Gabriel asked. 

“He’s right there,” Xina pointed at the building. “A version of Miguel with a dead Tyler. He has to be questioning something about being a Stone.” 

Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“I guess you have a point but…” he hesitated.

“Don’t worry, if Mister Discount Mannequin in the Divorced Section tries anything, I’ve got these,” Gabriella grinned, revealing her own talons.

“Oh good, the ten-year-old is ready to fight Mirrorverse Miguel,” the younger O’Hara dead-panned. 

Xina shook her head, her anger towards Tyler and Conchata and everyone else who had harmed either Miguel or Spider-Man fueling her walk.

“What does your data say about me? Or Gabriel?” she asked, the other two keeping pace behind her.

“Uhhh…” the girl flashed through pages of documents, looking for any sigh of either of their names. 

“There’s a birth certificate here for 2075 for one Gabriel O’Hara, geez, you’re old…” she mumbled under her breath.

“Heard that,” Gabriel grumbled. 

“Xina Kwan attended Alchemax Prep, attended Alchemax University and got her doctorate and is employed somewhere in the company, I think,” she read off her screen, blanching. 

“I work for Alchemax?” she asked, a tremble in her voice.

“Yes. It says here she got into some sort of disagreement with Stone, the board had to vote on… um, the use and discernment of Technological attachments to human subjects,” she said quietly. 

“He was doing what—?!” 

“No, Xina. He wasn’t doing that. I mean, it’s still pretty shocked up he was forcing people to join this Avengers program to be experimented on and join the team. But, the person who faced the board on mistreatment was, uh, Xina,” Gabriella said awkwardly.

She didn’t know what to say. 

Xina had always considered herself to be—well, maybe not the best person but at least not the worst. 

And this version of her didn't exactly sound…

“So instead of firing her the Ethics board just… did what?” Gabriel asked, wincing at the crestfallen expression that was surely on her face. 

“Oh, it’s not an Ethics board. Apparently they just monitor what they consider good business. And tricking members of the Avengers into mechanical attachments isn’t good business,” the young girl shuddered, trying not to picture it. 

“Alright, we have a Tyler raised Miguel, a Xina with, uh…. little to no morals. What about me?” Gabriel questioned. 

Gabriella shrugged.

“What the shock does that mean?” 

“After the birth certificate there’s nothing. Except… well, my tío had this old gamer handle he went by sometimes, and I did see it—” 

“Firelight?!” 

“Yeah. That one. Somebody under the name Firelight is Downtown with the Defenders. And, full disclosure, I only knew what about half of those words meant. Don’t really get the difference between an Avenger and a Defender,” the girl snarked.

Xina’s mind was clouded. Sure, Tyler was dead… but she worked for Alchemax. Willingly. By choice. 

And was so disinterested in the idea of basis of ethics that she got some sort of reprimand for it. 

Taking a deep breath, she tried to remind herself that that wasn’t her. It was just some version that was shaped by entirely different circumstances.

“We’re still going in there. If they think I’m her well… I’ll just lie and say I forgot something in a lab or something. The file didn’t say she was fired, right?” she turned to the young girl’s holoscreen.

“Nope. Just… reassigned,” the girl confirmed. 

The three of them approached the large glass sliding doors of the main lobby of Alchemax and she felt a flicker of fear in her stomach. 
She felt the weight of the watch for the moment, it clearing her head and reminding her that they weren’t alone. Lyla and Miguel would get the system untangled and he would call. That couldn’t take more than a day or two at most if the two of them were working on it.

Xina hoped. 

“Here goes nothing,” she grimaced, pushing the main doors of the building open, trying not to think of the last time she was in Alchemax on 928. 

It all looked the same, except for the occasional holo-poster of a member of the Avengers.

23291 was if the Spider-Man project had been successful, but Spider-Man was a version of Tyler’s son who would do. what he said. And that meant Stone needed a full roaster to complete the set. 

Her Twen-Cen hero history was staring at her from all corners and it made her uneasy.

“This is weird, right? It’s weird,” Gabriel whispered, walking in step with her on the left side. 

“Of course it is. Just… look forward. We just have to make it to the elevator,” she reminded him. 

She unconsciously checked her right side, seeing the young girl close.

Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw a flurry of movement, some secretary leaping from his desk.

“Dr. Kwan!” he exclaimed, out of breath from how quickly he had come to stand in front of them. 

“Uh. Hi,” she offered, internally smacking herself.

Hi? Seriously? 

“The flight plan said you weren’t arriving until later this afternoon, I’m not sure if Mr. Stone is in right now—“ 

Okay.

She could do this. 

“Obviously that changed. I’m standing here, aren’t I?” she quirked a brow.

The young man gulped, looking from her to Gabriel and Gabriella. 

“Wait,” he squinted, “who are these two? If they don’t have clearance, I can’t let them—“ 

“My family. Are you really going to make them wait for me down here, in this pit?” she questioned.

The secretary blinked. 

“No. Sorry Dr. Kwan, go right ahead.” 

“Thank you,” she seceded. 

The man stared at her. 

“…insolent worm,” she finished, internally cringing. 

He shuddered.

“Of course, Dr. Kwan. I, uh, like your new… look,” he said hesitantly, trying to smile.

She didn’t comment, but tucked that information away for later.

A bomber jacket and jeans couldn’t be that weird of an outfit, even by 2099 standards, could it? 

The three of them made their way to the elevator and she trained her face, hoping she didn’t look as mortified as she felt. 

Gabriel erupted into laughter the second the doors closed behind them.

“Insolent worm? Hi?” he giggled. 

“I panicked, okay!”

“Guess it’s a good thing nobody in 2099 in this universe or any still plays Mortal Kombat,” Gabriel teased. 

“Shut up!” 

Gabriella gasped from behind, leaning against the elevator wall.

“She’s the Europe transfer,” the girl realized.

“What, Tyler Stone dies and the next day another version of me is brought back to Nueva York?” she asked. 

Gabriel whistled. 

“Miguel isn’t just in charge of the Avengers, then,” he noted. 

“We don’t know for sure,” she shook her head. 

“Dr. Kwan is arriving this afternoon and the assumption of everybody in that lobby was that she was headed up to see Miguel. I don’t need anymore proof then that,” he shrugged.

Xina crossed her arms, looking away from the other two.

“Fine. And what’s he gonna do when we walk in and he realizes I’m not her?” 

Gabriel bit his lip, thinking. 

“Then we explain how Tyler is trying to destroy the entire shocking multiverse,” he said like it was the simplest thing in the world. 

She looked uneasily at him, but knew it was their best shot.

It was her plan to just walk right into the evil mega corporation, after all. 

Gabriella gasped from behind them, and she whipped around, worried something had happened to the young girl.

“What?” 

The girl closed her holo-screen and looked anywhere but Xina. 

“Nothing,” she lied. 

“Dealing with that after we deal with Miguel. You two just… stay behind me, okay? I’ll explain everything to him,” she figured if he would listen to anyone, it would be her.

The doors to the elevator opened and the three of them stepped out, Xina staring at the entrance to the office.

“Guess it’s now or never,” she frowned. 

Xina pushed the door open, glancing around the office for some sign of life.

The office wasn’t exactly how Tyler had had it in 928, but it still felt cold and disconnected. Well… except for the artwork hanging above the desk. It was her. Or, a version of her. The way this Xina’s eyes looked in the portrait, as if she knew exactly what the observer was thinking while they looked at the painting.

Maybe she did. 

Xina tried not to shudder.

But the chair to the desk was turned away, and that was her best bet.

“Miguel?” she called out, hoping he didn’t catch the waver in her voice. 

The chair spun around, revealing Miguel.

Well… a Miguel.

He didn’t wear sunglasses, his red eyes piercing. He had some sort of metal brace attached to his neck and ears, and it reminded her too much of Tyler. Actually, his entire outfit was far too much like Tyler. Iron-pressed colored khakis and a thin tie and a boring button-up.

But his face burst into excitement, a full toothy smile at the sound of her voice.

His fangs were… charming, she thought.

“You’re back!” he grinned, she blinked-and-missed-it and he was standing in front of her. 

She shrugged, trying to half-smile.

He either didn’t notice Gabriel or Gabriella, or was too focused on her. With the intense gleam in his eyes, she thought it was the latter.

“Surprise?” she joked, trying to remind herself this wasn’t her Miguel.

“I missed you,” he confessed, bringing a hand to her chin and raising it, getting a look in his eye, staring at her lips.

Before she could say anything, he closed the distance between them and she gasped into the kiss. He brought her in closer and on instinct she followed him, forgetting where they were and what she was supposed to be doing. 

Her gasp was read as an opening, and his tongue slid into her mouth.

His arm trailed down her side, holding her close as he began to taste her, one hand cradling her cheek and the other her backside. As he deepened the kiss she moaned, closing her eyes.

But then he pulled away, and the fog began to clear. This Miguel pressed his forehead to hers and she blinked. 

“I would have picked you up from the airport, y’know,” he said quietly, no doubt referencing some argument the other Xina had had with him. 

“You’re sweet,” she joked, quickly realizing she was out of her depth. 

“But you didn’t bite me,” his tone changed.

“What?” 

“A little joke between me and my wife. I bite her and my venom… well it has a paralyzing effect,” he grinned. “She bites me? We get up to things that… well, you get it.” 

She tried to look behind her, seeing Gabriel and Gabriella both held back by a futuristic-looking Black Widow.

“You look like her but you don’t talk like her. And you really don’t dress like her. So what are you? One last trick by my dearly departed father?” this Miguel asked, holding her by the wrist, his fangs shining in the office lighting.

“No,” she said, trying to ignore the fear slowly building up in her.

“I just asked you two different questions. Be more specific,” he said coldly.

“I’m a Xina. Just… not yours. And I’m sure as shock not with that bastard,” she snapped. 

His grip loosened, slightly. 

“You said ‘a’ as if there could be more. Explain,” he demanded.

Xina grimaced, looking back again at Gabriella who was trying to threaten Black Widow with her talons. Black Widow laughed. 

“You’re familiar with string theory, right? And the idea that every decision creates another universe? Well, that’s kind of true. Examples A, B, and C,” she pointed to herself and Gabriel and Gabriella. 

This Miguel looked from them to her, letting go of her wrist. He still had a distrustful look in his eye. 

“And who are they supposed to be?”

Gabriel frowned. 

“He,” Xina started, looking at Gabriel, “is my Miguel’s brother. And she…”

Gabriella glared at this Miguel. 

The man looked from Xina to the girl again. 

“Something funny?” the girl questioned the man, furrowing her eyebrows. 

This Miguel stared, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the fact he was being threatened by her.

“And this small… angry child? What’s her deal?” he asked, feigning disinterest, his gaze never leaving her.

Xina couldn’t help but notice they had the same scowl, wondering if he already knew the answer to that question.

“My name is Gabriella Kwan-O’Hara, jerk,” she stuck her tongue out at the man, crossing her arms. 

He blinked slowly.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” 

Gabriel bristled this time and Xina mouthed the word “please” to him, hoping he would trust her.

“Our Miguel isn’t a Stone. He’s an O’Hara. That’s… one of the differences from here,” Xina explained.

“You and me? Had a kid? On purpose?” Stone rose an eyebrow.

“No! I mean… yes, but not my universe. She’s from a different one. So a different Xina and Miguel,” she explained, feeling like she was a broken record.

“A brother?” he stared at Gabriel. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel muttered. 

“Strange. The way mother talked when I was little… let’s just say I was enough of a mistake,” Stone said, turning away from the three of them. 

Xina shared a look with Gabriella, who had finally broken free of Black Widow’s grasp.

“But there’s…” Xina hesitated.

“We’ll find this guy’s long lost brother later, first we have to talk about the Tyler guy,” Gabriella said matter-of-factly, stomping up to the man.

“Your kid’s either really brave or really stupid,” Miguel said.

She rolled her eyes.

Gabriella kept talking to him, explaining what they thought Earth 928’s Tyler was doing. She nearly didn’t notice Gabriel coming up beside her.

“So you looked like you were enjoying yourself,” he gave her a look.

“I forgot it wasn’t him,” she mumbled, feeling the heat rise in her face.

“I noticed,” the younger O’Hara blanched. 

Xina groaned.

“I was in the moment, alright? Like Miguel wouldn’t do the same,” she waved the question away.

Gabriel snorted, looking at the other Miguel.

“Well, I guess he did,” he observed, still smirking. 

“Don’t.”

“Trust me, I also wish I could forget the last five minutes. That was disgusting,” he stuck his tongue out, shuddering.

“I get it.” 

“Months of therapy. Minimum,” he continued. 

“You wanna explain the multiverse to a therapist?” she rose an eyebrow. 

“Nah, I’ll use that Spider-Guy. Bet there’s a family discount and everything.” 

Stone cleared his throat, giving them both irritated looks.

“Alright, Abbott and Costello, if you two are done, I think your kid explained everything pretty well. So Tyler’s shocking up the multiverse? If I don’t sound surprised, it’s because I’m not,” this Miguel drawled.

“I’m not a kid,” Gabriella snapped, glaring at the man. 

Miguel Stone laughed at her. 

“Whatever you say, spiderling,” he smirked.

“How are you like this! Not even the sad one was like this!” the girl exclaimed.

The man rolled his eyes, walking back around to his desk.

He pulled up his own holo-desk, apparently looking for something. 

“Wanna share with the rest of the class?” Xina asked.

“I took over Alchemax a couple years ago. If the Tyler Stone I knew had anything like this guy, it would be in here. Didn’t think I would need to explain that to someone who looks like my wife. But as they say, looks aren’t everything.” 

Whatever fleeting confusion she had about his resemblance to her Miguel disappeared.

“Well, at least I didn’t get sent across the Atlantic Ocean for unethical scientific malpractice,” she bit back. 

Gabriel groaned and Gabriella’s mouth dropped open.

Stone’s nostrils flared.

“You don’t know everything.” 

“Right. Like I don’t know that Tyler Stone definitely pushed himself out a fortieth floor window,” she deadpanned. 

“Isn’t your problem with another version of that tarpit of a human being? What do you care?” Stone glared at her.

“It’s your whole,” she waved her hands in his general direction, and the man scoffed at her, “deal.” 

“What a way with words,” the man snarked. 

Gabriella groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Xina can’t be any worse than this,” the young girl muttered. 

The man glanced down at her, a humorous expression on his face.

“Have they not invented manners in your dimension, child,” he deadpanned.

“No, but I’ll look into it,” she sassed. 

Xina reached down for her watch, thinking about what her Miguel had said. She didn’t want to admit he was right, they had gambled on the universe and it wasn’t… great.

But giving up wasn’t an option.

“You,” she started, pointing at the man, “are helping us. Can you try to keep the demoralizing words to a minimum?” 

The man laughed at her, shaking his head.

“Whatever you say, Xina,” the man’s tone shifted as he looked down at something on his holo-desk.

Xina and Gabriel shared a look.

“Some old project matching your description was done about a decade ago,” this Miguel said, waving his hands through the holographic files. 

“And?” Gabriel asked.

“Discontinued. Guess the evil old man had enough on his plate here,” the man said.

Xina bit her tongue.

She didn’t say what she wanted to say, what first came to her mind when she looked at this man. In his long coat and tucked-in shirt and gloves. Because even if he looked like Tyler’s perfect son, he had still killed the man. 

“Guess so,” was all she said. 

“You really don’t like me, do you?” he laughed.

“There’s not a whole lot to like,” she said icily. 

“I think I was wrong before, you’re more like my wife than I thought.” 

Xina rolled her eyes.

"Who's like me, Miggy?" a voice came from the portrait, which was apparently not entirely a portrait.

Stone's face lit up, while her own turned to one of shock and unease.

There stood the actual Xina Kwan of Earth 23291, apparently a doctorate holder with a penchant for... less than savory scientific practices.

She dressed as if Morticia Addams suddenly had an interest in nanotechnology. Xina couldn't quite believe this woman had just gotten off a plane with the perfect coif of her hair or the un-smudged make-up.

Stone ignored Xina's cough and Gabriella's gag of disgust, entirely focused on the woman who had entered through the second, seemingly secret elevator hidden behind the portrait.

"I fly all the way back, hours earlier than anticipated, and you aren't mindlessly twiddling your thumbs waiting around for me? Hurtful, Miggy," the woman teased, smirking at him.

She threw her suitcase to the side, her jacket landing on Gabriel's boots, who scoffed under his breath.

"That's all I was doing, Xina," he said, a softness to his voice that reminded her of her own Miguel.

It was entirely possible her unethical counterpart wasn't aware there were other people in the room, but the minute she smashed her face into Stone's, Xina gasped.

They kissed.

And kept kissing.

And yes, you guessed it, more kissing.

Xina grumbled under her breath.

Gabriel snickered by her side, and she glared at him.

"What's so funny?" she hissed.

"Welcome to what the rest of the world sees," Gabriel teased.

Xina flushed.

"That is not what we do! I haven't—even if we did—not in front of—!"

Gabriella rolled her eyes.

"You did in my universe," the girl snarked.

Gabriel laughed.

Before Xina could defend herself, she heard a throat clear.

Her counterpart eyed her, as if sizing up a piece of meat. She was holding her Miguel by the tie, a smirk on her face. He looked love-struck.

"And what do we have here?" this Xina's gaze hardened, looking between the three of them.

She was wrong.

It wasn't Miguel Stone they had to worry about.

It was Dr. Xina Kwan.

Chapter Text

“No, Xina, shock, don’t—!” Miguel exclaimed, trying to dodge her harder and harder hits with the formerly-in-mint-condition action figure.

This other Xina looked at him with fear in her eyes, and he couldn’t live with himself if she was scared of him. Not… again. 

“Who are you?!” she whisper-yelled, glancing at her open bedroom door. 

“I’m Miguel!” 

“Well, which one?!” she hissed. 

He blinked. 

“You know about the multiverse?”

She scoffed.

“Obviously.” 

Miguel tensed up, stepping away from her. 

“Well, this is technically 928B—”

“What if I want my universe to be 928 and yours to be 928B?” she snarked, smirking.

“Fine, whatever, just—why do you know about the multiverse?” he asked, exasperated. 

“Got bored one night. Had a free weekend,” she shrugged. 

“So you just… created inter-dimensional travel?” he rose an eyebrow. 

“No, tracked the other dimensions. I’m not stupid. That kind of travel… well you would have to be incredibly careful with the design mechanisms of the devices. One wrong move and you’re creating a bigger and bigger singularity until we’re all swept up in a giant black hole,” this other Xina explained. 

“Oh,” he said, feeling stupid.

She stared down at his gizmo, apparently clocking its use. 

“And your traveling the multiverse because…?” she asked, still clutching the action figure.

“Something bad happened,” he muttered. 

This other Xina’s expression fell.

“Something here?” she pushed.

“Yeah,” he admitted, crossing his arms. 

Shock, he didn’t think he would have to tell her any of this. Maybe kind of stupidly, he figured he could just maneuver his way into this life and keep her from having to grieve a man who was never coming home.

He was an idiot. 

“Tyler,” she hissed.

Miguel’s eyes widened, not expecting the amount of hatred in her tone.

“What’s he got to do with—?” 

“It’s… it’s Miguel, right? That’s why you’re here. What, you thought you could Twilight Zone your way into another version of you’s life and nobody would be any the wiser? If you think you know me so well, wouldn’t you know I would figure that out immediately?” she asked, glaring at him.

This couldn’t shocking be happening. 

“I’m not fighting you! That’s the whole reason I left! I’m not—this isn’t—I messed up, alright? My Xina was hurt because of me, and I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same from it. But you! You just lost him and you would have woken up in the morning with no idea. Because of the shocking Flyboys! But at the very least—I dunno, I could be a Miguel! But that plan was terrible! Just like every single one I’ve had since—!” he cut himself off, realizing he couldn’t tell this Xina about that night at Tyler’s. 

If he couldn’t tell his Xina, he wasn’t telling this poor woman. 

“What, was I just supposed to let you pretend to be my daughter’s dad? I’m not lying to Gabi about who you are,” she said, looking at him pointedly. 

He withered a bit at that.

“I just… I thought I could solve some other universe’s problems,” he admitted sheepishly.

She stared at him, apparently taking in his appearance for the first time that night.

“You look terrible,” she said flippantly, putting the action figure aside on a shelf and guiding him to her bathroom.

“Yeah, uh, I haven’t really been…sleeping…” he coughed. 

“A lot, or at all?” she asked, frowning.

“Who needs coffee when I can have constant stimuli and never-ending guilt to keep me awake,” he joked.

This Xina fixed him with a look. 

“That was supposed to be a joke.” 

“And I’ll laugh when you don’t look like you’ve been awake for seven consecutive days,” she bit back. 

Miguel’s shoulders tensed at her words. 

“So you… you’ll let me stay?” 

Xina sighed, rubbing her temple. 

“I don’t really feel like I have a choice,” she sighed.

He looked up at her, hopeful.

“I promise, this will be—”

She rose a hand, shaking her head. 

“We aren’t lying to Gabriella. Or Gabriel, who’d figured it out the moment he looked at you, same as me. And my daughter is incredibly smart, she’ll clock you,” Xina explained. 

Miguel frowned, not understanding what she was saying.

“Then who am I supposed to be… here?” he asked quietly. 

She bit her lip, thinking. 

“You’re just visiting,” she said simply.

“I’m what?” 

“This isn’t the first universe you’ve been to, right?” 

He started to follow her line of thinking.

“…no?” 

“Then you’re just an alternate Miguel.”

Miguel shook his head.

“But what about protecting her from—”

Xina scoffed. 

“What, the truth?”

He drew back from her.

“That’s not what I mean—”

“I know. But I can’t protect her from everything. Even if I want to,” this Xina said, looking out her bedroom window, the neon lighting of the city blurring together in the rain. 

Miguel reached out for her, before remembering this wasn’t his Xina.

“It’s okay,” she said, turning away as she grasped his hand.

“How did you—?” 

“You might not be him, but you’re still familiar. It’s not too hard to read you. Like, a different version of a language I’ll never forget.” 

He grunted, afraid of what would come out if he opened his mouth.

Was his Xina as forgiving as this one?

“… so, are you gonna make me ask?” she questioned, still looking out her window.

“About what?” 

Xina shook her head.

“What’d you do that made you think coming here was better? Had to be pretty miserable to wanna come here,” she noted, her frown deepening.

“I hurt her.”

This Xina’s face crumpled, and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed in himself.

“I don’t know if this was that great of a solution,” she mumbled.

Miguel sighed, knowing she wouldn’t understand.

“Yeah, well, we have a lot more… problems than you guys did,” Miguel said stiffly.

Xina let go of his hand, de-cluttering the room of discarded items from the day.

“All I know is, if I was her, which I very well could be save for a few differences… I wouldn’t be happier with you out of my life. Because me and… well we didn’t always have our good times, either. But I would do nearly anything to redo tonight and have him walk through those doors, not you. And if she’s slightly like me, she would think the same,” this alternate Xina said, giving him a hard stare. 

He was never good at arguing with Xina. Seemed it was just the same here. 

“Maybe so,” he said, evading the topic. 

She shook her head, muttering under her breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Xina looked up at him, her brow scrunched in confusion.

“What for?”

He swallowed thickly, trying to not feel the shame rising up in him.

“For not, y’know, being him…” he apologized, looking anywhere but at Xina. 

She just blinked at him. 

“Maybe the guilt complex is universal,” she deadpanned.

Miguel snorted, biting his tongue from saying her sense of humor was just as bad as his Xina’s.

But that would be acting as if he even knew what she was up to…

He knew she wasn’t dead. 

The Proph had showed up at the Society, cryptic as ever, saying his old friend needed time to heal. He hadn’t know what he was talking about, but Tensen had given him a hard look that meant “figure it out.”

And then he threw the silly novelty dice from Xina’s rearview mirror at him.

She was out there, far from Nueva York. And maybe that was for the best. Miguel knew she would eventually find out about the Valhalla Building’s newest residents, the Society and… he didn’t know what she would think. Probably that it was some Alchemax gimmick. That Spider-Man was just another cog in the machine.

Just like the rest of Downtown. 

His frown deepened.

Miguel knew that that was a problem that he would have to face, eventually. 

But running here… trying to solve somebody else’s problems… it seemed easier.

And maybe… everything would work itself out? Maybe he didn’t need to get involved in every problem just because of the emblem on his chest.

Besides, Lyla had the entirety of the Spider Society to call up if anything really bad was happening in Nueva York.

“Where were you? When it happened? Was he still near the bodega?” Xina asked, giving him a look he couldn’t figure out. 

“Yeah, just a little further Midtown. Closer to the entrance of Downtown… why?” he fixed her with a hard look.

The not-quite-the-same Xina nodded, as if he had just confirmed her own suspicions. She reached for her tablet on her nightstand, fingers sweeping across the screen, a determined look on her face.

“Hey, hold on—Xina, what are you doing?” he watched as she bypassed several layers of Public Eye security footage.

“This is footage of the public, shouldn’t the public have access to it?” she asked, no room for questions in her tone.

“You’re not going to like—stop it. Don’t go looking for this, please,” he begged, tentatively trying to reach for the tablet. 

She stepped away from him, glaring with tears in her eyes. 

“If Tyler really did this—” 

“We will make him pay for it. I promise. But not tonight. You just found out… and you still have to tell… y’know,” he looked away awkwardly, thinking of the young girl a hallway and door away.

“Gabriella can handle it,” she snapped.

“Okay, well can she handle losing both of you? Because if you go after Tyler right now, it’s not ending any other way,” he reminded her, noticing her grip on the tablet loosening as his words sunk in. Gingerly, he took the tablet from her, setting it aside on the nightstand again.

“But…he’s gone…” she said bitterly, unable to meet his gaze.

“And your daughter deserves at least one parent,” he said, hating the hammering in his own heart.

“I know she does,” she glared at him.

He took a few steps away from her, creating a sorely needed distance.

 “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he suggested, hoping a topic change would distract her.

“Fine,” she said lifelessly.

“Probably for the best, so she, uh, doesn’t get confused,” he said quietly.

“Sure.” 

He gave her one last look, hoping she understood he was here, that she could talk to him if she wanted.

Miguel had known Xina most of his life. And this Xina… she may have a decade on him, but he still knew the look in her eye when she was going to do something, consequences be damned.

For both their sake's, he hoped he was wrong.

—x—

“Miggy, did you play around in the multiverse while I was gone? Missed me that much, huh?” Dr. Kwan purred, holding his chin while giving the three of them a dismissive glance.

“No, uh—they, they found me,” Stone said, seemingly hypnotized by his own wife’s stare.
That seemed to pique Dr. Kwan’s interest, and she turned from her husband to the three of them, who stood awkwardly on the other side of the desk. Gabriel was tapping his foot, darting his eyes at the exits. Gabriella had unsheathed her talons again, glaring at the woman.

And Xina… 

She didn’t know what to make of any of this.

Sure, on some base level she understood there wasn’t a moral quantifier to her and Miguel’s relationship. That wasn’t how the universe worked. It wasn’t supposed to be how any universe worked.

But she, maybe foolishly… had always thought that the two of them together meant good things for the world.

What was all their posturing in school about if a place like this existed? Sure, she got to keep her best friend… he was more than that to her here. But neither of them cared about anybody else, it seemed.

“Why are you making that face?” Dr. Kwan raised a brow at her.

“What face?” Xina played dumb, too stubborn to give in to whatever little game her counterpart wanted. 

Dr. Kwan laughed at her, Miguel Stone smiling along, enamored.

The other woman glanced between herself and her husband, and back to Xina.

“It’s this, isn’t it?” she stroked Stone’s face, the man clearly putty in her hands.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Xina ground out, crossing her arms.

“Sorry, sweetheart. You aren’t the star pupil in this universe. That title belongs to me. And I know my own facial expressions, and I know the look on my face when I see something I haven’t had in a long, long time. So what happened? Tyler send you off somewhere, too? Or is the multiverse your punishment? We’re all friends here. If you want, it can just be Girl Talk. Send the boys and the short stack away. I don’t bite,” Dr. Kwan smirked, moving as if to break from Stone’s grasp, whose brow furrowed at the suggestion.

Xina stood her ground, not giving an inch to this woman.

“The minute you walked in here he lost all higher functions. Why am I supposed to be jealous of that? We’ll tell you exactly what we told him if you spare a moment from your unethical science experiments,” she ground out, glaring at the other woman.

Dr. Kwan laughed, patting Stone’s cheek before sauntering her way closer to Xina.

“Cruel words flung around by a woman who doesn’t have anything she wants. Is that supposed to intimidate me?” the other Xina smirked.

Gabriel coughed beside her, and Xina looked at him, expecting him to help.

“Well, I mean, if we’re being totally honest, Miguel saw a hologram of you and tried to wipe your tears, so—what exactly would we call that?” Gabriel said, not meeting her eye.

“Seriously, Gabriel, you’re going to side with the evil scientist version of me?” she deadpanned, glaring at him.

“No, I’m just saying that Miguel kinda loses his head around you, maybe that’s true here too—”

“Whatever,” Xina clipped out, crossing her arms.

This other Xina looked far too intrigued at every word out of Gabriel’s mouth, as if looking for clues to her life.

“Everybody out,” this other Xina said, giving her Miguel a look.

Apparently that was some sort of signal between them, because he nodded and told Gabriel and Gabriella they could keep working on the multiversal equation in another space down the hall.

Gabriel gave her one last glance, mouthing the words “be nice” to her as he left, and Gabriella’s expression was unreadable.

Xina kept her arms crossed, scowling. 

“What was so secretive you had to kick them all out of the room for?” she muttered.

“Only 20% of that decision was for them. The rest was because you are not in any shape to be making sweeping declarations,” Dr. Kwan noted, lounging in Miguel’s desk chair.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 Dr. Kwan laughed.

“What happened? And no bullshit, no cutting the corners or acting like you’re above whatever he did to you. Because you clearly are holding onto something, and unless you figure your shit out, you’re gonna snap,” her counterpart declared.

She blinked at the woman, aghast.

“I’m pretty sure the multiverse is more important than my love life,” she said.

Dr. Kwan clicked her tongue in disagreement.

“I think you’ll find this particular multiversal predicament is much more tied to your love life than you would care to admit,” the other woman said, half a smirk forming on her lips.

Xina scoffed. 

“How would you know? You waltzed in here five minutes ago, made out with Stone, and now you’re lecturing me.”

Her counterpart frowned, malice in her eyes.

“Why do you do you say his name with so much disdain? He’s Miguel, same as yours.”

Xina harrumphed, taking a seat opposite Dr. Kwan. 

“No, he isn’t. He was raised by Tyler. I don’t even know how the two of you met or why you get along so well. His family’s legacy is the complete and utter control of Nueva York. If you’re me, how could you ever be with someone like that?”

Dr. Kwan fixed her with a long, hard stare. She was used to giving it to people, not being under fire from it.

“That’s not an answer—!”

 “Can you shut up?” the other woman said, rubbing at her temple.

She did.

“You don’t know everything, so quit acting like you do.”

Xina opened her mouth, her disagreement hot on her tongue.

“And,” Dr. Kwan continued, glaring at her, “you don’t know every thing about this universe. Like I don’t know everything about yours. I’ve done things, sure. But how would those things look to you if you had all the facts? Contrary to what you make think of me and him, I don’t want to hurt you or the two that came with you. You’re still me and I’m still you,” she said, turning to face Xina.

“That’s not very reassuring,” Xina sassed.

“Not really what shutting up means, but whatever. So… what happened, really? Why does seeing him happy make you so upset? What did he do to you?” Dr. Kwan pressed.

She hesitated, knowing that the other woman was pulling at strings she told herself to leave alone.

“We’re all friends here,” Dr. Kwan quipped, smirking.

“It’s none of your business,” she said flatly.

“Unfortunately for both of us, you’ve made it my business. I have to know the difference in our universes to help you.”

“We know what the problem is, it’s Tyler. Next question?” Xina turned away from the other woman.

“You end up here. Against all odds, against all the randomized settings in the multiverse and beyond, you’re sitting in my husband’s office. Perhaps that means something,” Dr. Kwan offered, shrugging. 

Xina scoffed.

“I’m sorry, do you believe in fate? Not very scientific of you,” she said sardonically.

“No, but I’m a selfish person. And I don’t like to see myself upset. Even if she’s being a huge bitch about it,” Dr. Kwan snapped back.

“What a humanitarian,” Xina rolled her eyes, looking up to the other woman’s gaze again.

“I wasn’t kidding. Spill.”

 Xina grimaced.

“Seeing as I seem to be the only woman in the multiverse who loses her boyfriend to his little brother’s girlfriend, I don’t really see the point in ‘spilling’,” she said, surprised when she realized Dr. Kwan had gotten her to admit the very thing she wanted to avoid.

Something shifted on the other woman’s face, a flash of disgust and anger.

“He what?”

 Xina blinked. 

“Yeah. It was a couple years ago, now. I don’t like to dwell on it, obviously,” she said, uncomfortable.

“I think you’re confused on who the imbecile Miguel is, darling,” Dr. Kwan said breezily.

“That’s not—I mean, yeah, I was mad. But he isn’t… a lot of things have changed. He had… an accident. He’s not the same man who did that, and I’ve seen… he’s just different now, okay?” Xina defended.

Dr. Kwan smirked.

“Just like you shouldn’t judge a man by name alone, huh? You don’t know how my Miguel became Spider-Man. You don’t know if the ‘accident’ was an unhappy co-worker who wanted to kill him. You don’t know how Miguel and I have spent a year apart, only occasional holo-calls to remind each other we still exist,” the other woman said.

“How was I supposed to know that?” Xina exclaimed.

“Maybe you don’t open your mouth every time an idea pops into your head,” her counterpart drawled, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

She… had a point. Maybe.

Xina bit her lip, anxiety coursing through her.

“I hadn’t heard from Miguel in months. We… well, he had to make a choice in who to save between me and… someone else. How am I supposed to carry that weight?” she asked, her walls crumbling a little.

Her counterpart gave her a long look.

“Did you make him choose?”

“Excuse me?”

“Were you the one holding the stakes over his head, making him choose?”

“… well, no, but—”

“Then you hold no responsibility.” 

“But, it wasn’t even Venom who killed her it—it was the Public Eye, and—”

“And yet I’m still not hearing your name,” the other woman reminded her.

“But…” Xina hesitated, never having voiced her next worry out loud.

Dr. Kwan looked at her expectantly.

“It was never supposed to be me. I’m just the ex-friend, ex-girlfriend, ex-you name it. I’m not… I’m not important enough to be someone he would save. I just got lucky,” she admitted, trying to ignore the humiliation rising up in her.

Her counterpart pressed her lips into a hard line, most likely collecting her thoughts.

 “And you still believe that? I mean, why did you end up leaving your universe, anyway?” she asked.

She reached for the watch instinctively, glancing quickly down to see if it had lit up yet.

Dr. Kwan noticed.

“Giving me so much grief for simply loving my husband, and you’re waiting for a call from a man who you haven’t seen in a year?”

 “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

The other woman stared at her expectantly.

“I left Nueva York and I was going to stay gone,” Xina said, crossing her arms.

“And?”

 Xina glared.

“Then he left me a really fucking cryptic message, alright? I was… well, my Miguel isn’t the best with… he gets deep into his own head and I didn’t know… if anything happened to him, I would never be able to—”

 “I understand,” Dr. Kwan said, gaze downcast.

“Oh,” she mumbled.

“Like I said, don’t assume,” the other woman said stiffly, her gaze drifting to the double doors of the office.

Xina glanced between Dr. Kwan and the doors, thinking of the background information Gabriella had tried to impress upon them to this universe. She remembered the girl’s hesitation to remark on the marriage.

“So you haven’t seen him in a year?” Xina asked quietly, feeling her anger dissipate. 

“No, Tyler made sure of that.”

 “Well, we have that in common,” Xina said sardonically.

“Oh, lovely, a universal constant,” Dr. Kwan said, her cadence nearly identical.

“It’s been a year and six months, actually,” she whispered.

“What?” 

“We lost three months in the first jump we made. And… that year passed. I saw Miguel again for a month or so, and then Kron happened. And now six more months have passed. I spent so much time with him as a kid, I didn’t ever think there would be a day I didn’t see him. And now…” she trailed off, playing with her hands in her lap nervously. 
Dr. Kwan’s eyes flickered in recognition.

“Kron? Miguel’s sniveling older brother? What’s he got to do with any of this?”

 Xina’s heart rate sped up, and she tried not to notice how warm she felt. She couldn’t have a panic attack, not in front of this shark of a woman. Dr. Kwan would smell the blood in the water.

“The symbiote and him had an arrangement. Or the creature just took his half-dead body and used it however it wanted. I don’t really know the particulars,” Xina said icily, realizing for the first time how much underlying resentment she still held over the first extra-terrestrial encounter in a hundred years and it going to waste because of Miguel’s pride.

“He was Venom? But he’s so… pathetic,” Dr. Kwan blanched. 

Xina scoffed.

“Where I’m from, he’s a ‘pathetic’ knife-wielding blood thirsty creep. Who’s tried to kill me at least twice. I’m probably forgetting at least one other attempt,” Xina deadpanned.

Dr. Kwan hummed, her clicking her tongue.

“You’re upset about the alien? Well, what was the alien trying to do?” 

She frowned.

“Well… kill me, I guess,” she said quietly.

“And Miguel didn’t want that to happen, obviously,” Dr. Kwan said, giving her a look.

“Yeah, but—”

“I know it’s not the same, and that we have different experiences. But the man you’ve described to me… maybe he was lost, for awhile. But maybe he’s find his way back around to you, too.”

Even after meeting another version of herself, Xina couldn’t shake the uncanny feeling of looking at her own face and expressions. Especially this one. Seeing herself so determinedly push for Miguel when he wasn’t even in the same universe… 

And it made her realize something, too.

“I wasn’t that upset about the creature. I felt… abandoned by him. Like we had finally reached a good place in rekindling our friendship and then the rug was pulled out from under me,” she admitted, wondering if this uneasy reflection of herself could relate.
Dr. Kwan’s self-assured mask slipped for the first time and Xina saw something akin to understanding flicker across her face.

“He wants to be a better person. To be able to look into his reflection and not see every disappointment staring back at him. I didn’t… I don’t understand exactly what he wants. I mean, he threw his father out a window two days ago. Allegedly. And the minute he calls me, he wants to talk about integrating the Avengers with some underground group called the Defenders. Talked about doing more for the city, being more for the city. But I like our lives. I know what I’m skilled at, and… honestly, what am I supposed to do in his utopian fantasy? I’m a pariah, only tolerated because Miguel says so. But I don’t see how I fit into his new outlook on life,” Dr. Kwan confessed, and Xina was surprised to hear a quiver to her voice.

If this version of her, who seemed so casually confident was worried about her relationship… what hope did she have? 

“Trust me, for the two full minutes he thought I was you, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Xina snorted.

 Dr. Kwan didn’t look convinced.

“Chemistry isn’t the only essential in a relationship,” the other woman deadpanned.

“Don’t you see how he looks at you?” Xina tilted her head, genuinely confused. 

Her mirrored self chuckled to herself, shaking her head. 

“What was it your friend said, that he tried to dry your tears when you weren’t even in the same universe? How can you not see that?” Dr. Kwan sighed.

“Maybe we’re more alike than I thought,” Xina admitted.

“And perhaps we both need to give our respective Miguels more credit,” Dr. Kwan said.

“I hate admitting when I’m wrong,” Xina mumbled to herself, never really saying it out loud before.

 “Agreed,” Dr. Kwan sighed, rubbing her temple.

—x—

Tyler Stone’s mansion could be called many things, but homey was not one of them. With overly tall ceilings, a fireplace that always burned cold and its isolation on a floating platform near the edge of the city, it was the perfect place to reconsider his moves against his son.

“The signal was jammed, sir,” Winston said, looking through the multiverse data stored in his system.

 “Fair is fair, Winston. I gave Mike a warning and now we have to play this game of cat and mouse.”

His cyborg assistant gave him a questioning look.

“Don’t you want to search the Earth they just left?” the cyborg asked.

 Tyler waved a hand dismissively.

“I don’t care about that place. A dead Mike is even more useless than a living Mike with a savior complex,” the old man blanched at the thought. 

Winston hummed noncommittally, still searching through the files.

Tyler pace the length of his fireplace, irritated.

“Look into his little… Spider project, again. I want to know as much as I can about it. Mike’s been busy and I’ve gotten sloppy,” the old man demanded, creasing his brow in frustration.

Winston cursed under his breath.

“What?”

“The holo-agent must have discovered us, she’s locked me out.”

Tyler grit his teeth.

“Well, can’t you unlock it?”

 Winston nodded, rerouting his technique.

“I can’t. They’re removing massive amounts of information at once… almost as if they’re moving to another server,” the cyborg explained, grimacing. 

His eye twitched, trying to remind himself he still had all the resources of Alchemax at his disposal.

“Guess he spoke to Gina. Fine. Find them,” Tyler ground out, knowing that damn girl must have tipped off his son to the reality of having his multiversal system connected to Alchemax.

Winston blinked.

“Sir, I don’t have any—”

“Damn it, Winston, I gave you an order. So figure it out,” Tyler snapped.

The cyborg didn’t say anything, just went back to his holoscreens. 

Tyler paced again, finding his way to his bay window, looking out at the neon expanse that was Nueva York in disdain.

“Huh.” 

“What?” he asked, irritated.

“Well, there is… something. But it doesn’t make any sense.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Spit it out, Winston.” 

If the cyborg was annoyed at his clipped responses, he didn’t show it. All the better. He knew what would happen if he talked back.

A little rewiring never hurt anybody. 

“I found another trail. Nearly identical quantum readings, but slightly off. It must be a sister universe,” Winston explained, reading the data before him.

“Well, follow it,” Tyler said as if it was the most obvious conclusion in the world.

Winston nodded, pulling up the universal designation.

“The watch owner is from 928B. It’s nearly identical to our own, but from time displacement they’re 10 years into our future. According to files from your counterpart’s computer, there was a coordinated plan to kill Miguel O’Hara tonight in their world,” Winston explained.

 “Another uncontrollable Mike, huh?”

 “Yes. There are stipulations in this plan should the need arise to subdue this universe’s Ms. Kwan, who has been married to Mr. O’Hara for a little over ten years. They have one child,” Winston said, no trace of emotion in his voice.

Tyler frowned. 

“He had Dana and he still decided to have a child with her?” 

“On 928B, Ms. Kwan and Mr. O’Hara never broke up. Your counterpart tried to convince him to stay at Alchemax, to no avail,” Winston supplied.

“I know the feeling,” Tyler snarked.

“It should be noted—the universe appears to be in a state of constant flux. It’s as if it's in a constant causal loop, unable to break out,” Winston frowned.

“Whatever, that’s unimportant. Do we know who has the watch?”

 Winston mumbled to give him a second, parsing through localized footage.

“There was a similar energy reading a few months ago, near Babylon Towers. I believe I’ve identified who was using the watch,” the cyborg said, projecting an image of a young girl with a grimace on her face. 

Tyler smirked.

“I was wrong, Winston. Can you find a workaround into her device, reconfigure the ability to teleport here?” Tyler’s eyes glinted.

“Sure thing, boss.” 

“He thought he was so clever, leaving the universe, trying to find zen or happiness or whatever else he lied to himself about. That’s fine. But he’ll coming crawling back to me when that girl, the one piece of evidence that he and Gina could ever be happy, is in my hands.”

Chapter Text

“Miguel.”

“Miguel!”

“Miiiiiiiiiguel!”

“MIGUEL!”

He looked up from the half a dozen screens he had loaded in the lab, irritation coming off of him in waves.

“What?”

Lyla had a giant, blinking stopwatch reading at over 23 hours and counting.

“What’s that keeping track of?” he asked, sighing.

“How long you’ve been awake, Miguel!” Lyla said sternly, glaring at him.

He scoffed.

“So?”

Lyla muttered under her breath about him being impossible and he just shook his head.

“Sleep isn’t going to make them come back any sooner, Lyla.”

“But it will make you less of a grouch,” she said, smirking as every screen slowly locked him out of the system.

“Lyla—!”

She gave him a look, one that reminded him far too much of Xina.

“I’ll wake you up the minute it’s done, okay?” she pleaded with him.

“Fine.”

He webbed up a hammock in the corner, giving Lyla a hard stare as she watched him, grinning in satisfaction.

“This is only because it’s strategically smarter to be well-rested to cross dimensions—!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll wake you up in like two hours.”

He glared at her.

“You said when it was done, Lyla.”

“And it’ll be two hours,” she shrugged.

“Whatever. Just keep me updated on Peter and Jess’ progress in dismantling Stone’s security system.”

“When you wake up,” she wasn’t budging.

Miguel huffed, mumbling under his breath as he jumped into the hammock.

Maybe he wasn’t being entirely truthful with Lyla when he’d lied about why he wasn’t sleeping. Yeah, he was worried. But that seemed to be his modus operandi these days.

He just kept having these awful nightmares. Knowing Xina was in danger, knowing anything could happen to Gabriel… reliving the worst parts of the last year of his life. It wasn’t doing him any favors. And his brain, like always, seemed to hate him. Making him remember in vivid detail fights with Venture, the Public Eye and even the all-too-real moment he thought Xina could have died in Mexico.

When he had thought the two of them were done with him, he hadn’t had any nightmares.

At least… not about them.

Miguel thought it meant he was over it.

Apparently, he wasn’t.

But lying down and closing his eyes had lulled his body into some sort of false security, and the next thing he knew he wasn’t staring up at the darkened ceiling of his lab anymore.

—x—

“… and I know you’ve been busy, but I was kinda hoping—Miguel, hello?” Gabriel waved a hand in front of his face, pulling his gaze from the cafe seating ahead of them.

“What?” he asked mindlessly, gaze still fixed on the older woman sitting with her tea.

“I was gonna ask if you and Dana wanted to go out for my birthday this year. What are you looking at?” his little brother followed his stare, gasping when he saw who Miguel was staring at.

“Is that Xina’s grandmother?” Gabriel asked a little too loudly, and Miguel elbowed him in the gut.

“Hey!”

“Will you shut up? I’m probably the last person she wants to see,” Miguel frowned, unable to tear his gaze from the elderly woman.

She took another sip of her tea, seemingly unbothered by the loud commotion just outside the shop.

He breathed a sigh of relief, trying to pull Gabriel in the opposite direction of the woman.

“Miguel?”

He cursed under his breath.

“Are we really gonna keep walking?” Gabriel whispered.

“She’ll just assume she thought she saw me or something,” Miguel said unconvincingly.

“Miguel O’Hara!”

“Or not,” Gabriel snorted.

He grimaced, adjusting his glasses and feeling the tips of his fingertips out of nervous habit. 

Xina’s grandmother didn’t need to know about his little incident in the genetics lab.

As he turned around, he braced for the impact of an elder’s glare.

Instead she was… smiling and waving him over?

"That doesn’t look like hate to me,” Gabriel whispered.

“Shut up and stay here,” Miguel ground out.

“Whatever,” Gabriel shrugged, and Miguel pretended he didn’t notice his brother getting a little closer to listen to whatever conversation he was about to have with Grandma Kwan.

“I thought that was you. What are you doing out in Midtown?”

He sat down in the seat opposite her, still nervous to be in her presence.

“I was out with my brother, Gabriel…” he said awkwardly, pointing behind him.

Gabriel noticed, waving.

Miguel wanted to disappear into the ground.

"Nice boy,” the older woman said fondly.

“Yeah…” he trailed off, unsure of what she would want to talk about.

“And how are you doing?” she asked, fixing him with a curious look.

“Um, okay, all things considered.”

The older woman could always see right through him, and it had unnerved him as an Alchemax student and it unnerved him now.

“I think she misses you,” she said, staring out at the busy Nueva York street.

“Oh,” he coughed, looking away.

He hadn’t seen Xina in nearly a year. Miguel hadn’t… he hadn’t known how to talk to her after she found him and Dana. When it had happened he was filled with too much pride to talk to her, somehow having it in his mind that he wasn’t really the one to blame.

But days turned into weeks turned into months.

And even if he wanted his best friend back, it wasn’t like she would ever want to see him again.

Besides, he and Dana were together. And he had proposed. It was… whatever they were, it was over. The only reason he got to keep his brother in his life was because Dana told Gabriel time and time again how much she and Miguel were meant to be.

He wasn’t so sure he believed that.

But he wasn’t going to argue, not when it could mean he would lose Gabriel, too.

“You don’t believe me,” the old woman said matter-of-factly.

Miguel panicked, feeling his talons scratch the surface of the table.

“Well, I mean… it’s not like we ended on the best of terms,” he said quietly.

The older woman hummed, taking her tea spoon and stirring, setting it down again on her napkin.

She seemed completely nonplussed by his presence, as if they were two friends simply catching up.

“You didn’t,” she agreed.

He blinked.

“Then why would she miss me?”

The old woman laughed, shaking her head.

“You’re both very stubborn people,” she said, apparently deciding not to elaborate.

“Yeah, but I—!”

“Whatever happened between you two is between you and her,” the older woman shook her head, frowning.

“Oh,” he said awkwardly.

“You’re even more tongue-tied than you were as a kid,” she clicked her tongue.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t ever really expect to see you again…” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Grandma Kwan laughed into her hand, and he felt even more confused.

“She told me if you had just gone after her or said anything… the day you broke up, things would be different,” she said, giving him a sad smile.

He cringed.

“Really?”

“It’ll take far more than that now, though,” the woman gave him a stern look.

He felt his throat dry up.

“Mrs. Kwan, I’m not—I’m… I’m getting married,” he explained, trying to ignore the feeling of his talons unsheathing again.

She gave him an unimpressed look.

"Oh, are you? When’s the wedding?”

He looked away, embarrassed.

“Haven’t set a date yet…”

“Mhm.”

Miguel forgot how much Xina’s grandmother was like Xina.

He frowned. Something in her words, it reminded him…

“That’s not changing,” he mumbled.

The older woman looked up at him, curiously.

“What?”

“None of this is real. You and I met a year ago, yeah. But it’s been over a year. Dana’s dead. Xina… Xina’s in danger. And Gabri isn’t even here, either…” he looked back to where his brother was supposedly sitting, his stomach dropping when the goggle-headed man wasn’t there.

The old woman clicked her tongue.

“I’m not here, but that doesn’t mean you don’t remember what I said.”

Miguel’s throat dried up.

"I do,” he confirmed, unable to meet her eye.

“You weren’t some fairy tale or cautionary ex story to Xina, you know. You were her best friend. If I may be so bold, you probably are still her best friend. And from the look of things…” the old woman trailed off, looking back to where Gabriel should be, “she’s probably still yours, too. Things have a funny way of working out. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here.”

He scrunched his nose, somehow surprised that Xina’s grandmother had been right. More or less.

“My son always thought I filled Xina’s head with too many fairy tales. That’s what he called my stories from the Heroic Age. And my son means well, he always has, but they weren’t fairy tales. Those stories were true. I wanted to give her a piece of my past,” the old woman said sagely.

Miguel fixed her with a look, realizing he couldn’t remember this part.

“What?”

“She deserves to know yours, too. And I don’t just mean the accident. I mean Spider-Man, too. Like what happened on your road trip…”

A bright light.

Just like the one in Mexico, when he met Strange…

He was on a rooftop, in the familiar unstable molecule suit. It all felt too real… he looked down and saw his mask in his hand, his eyesight still a little blurry.

“Why am I here again?” he muttered, pulling the mask on, frowning.

A distant scream snapped him out of his confusion.

Xina.

She was supposed to be with Gabriel and Kasey.

Without thinking, he ran toward the sound, forgetting none of this was real.

Three rooftops later, he found Xina in an alleyway, a group of skeletons cornering her.

"Isn’t winning the costume contest good enough?” she quipped, unease coming off of her in waves.

“Shock, Xina,” he muttered.

With a flick of his wrist and a soft fwizz , he subdued one of the skeletons.

Miguel leapt off the side of the building, knocking out another of the undead with a punch.

There were still three left, with one cornering Xina against a wall. She was in the devil costume she had bought last minute. Before the waking of the undead hours ago, he was supposed to be in a matching costume with her. Like when they were kids. Just friends goofing around.

Just friends…

“Get off!”

Shock it, he couldn’t get distracted right now.

He had to be careful, the closer he was to her the greater the chance was that she would clock him. She was already suspicious of Spider-Man, he didn’t want her thinking he was stalking her.

Or worse, figure out it was him under the mask.

He had his doubts about that, but she was the smartest person he knew.

“Don’t panic, I’m here to help!” he called out, trying to make his voice sound nothing like something she would recognize.

Instead, she just stared at him.

“Spider-Man?”

He didn’t respond, instead kick-flipping two of the skeletons and turning toward the last one, who now had Xina in a chokehold.

In one smooth motion, he had ripped the skeleton off of her, talons out. The skeleton fell to pieces, and he shielded his eyes as another bright light encompassed the city. Strange must have pulled it off.

That was fine by him, he had bigger problems to worry about, like—

Xina coughed, her hand going up to her neck to examine it for any damage.

He stilled.

If he spoke to her now, the jig would be up. She had known him too long, there was too much shared history.

“You sure do a lot of web-slinging,” she said after a moment, trying to stand up.

Without thinking, he reached his hand out to her, lifting her up with ease.

“First Nightshade, now here…” she trailed off, giving him a long, hard stare.

He shrugged.

“Sure you didn’t hitch a ride on the back of my car when I wasn’t looking?” she snarked, and he hesitated.

If Xina knew…

She was his equal, and in some ways probably his better. Her grandmother had told her countless stories about the original Spider-Man, and when he was younger he was admittedly a little jealous of her hero worship of him.

And here he was now, more spider than the original man and he couldn’t tell her anything. He wouldn’t needlessly endanger her life. The first week with these powers he had almost gotten Gabriel killed by Venture. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Xina sighed, shaking her head, as if knowing she wouldn’t get any answers out of him.

“Before you inevitably end up on the same street as me in Nueva York, could you at least give me a lift back to the hospital?” she asked.

He silently nodded.

"Not the chattiest person in the world, are you?” she joked, giving him another once-over.

He shook his head.

Trying to hide his apprehension, he pulled her into his side, hoping she didn’t notice the pounding of his heart.

With a quick eye, he found a building to sling from, Xina watching with earnest at the webbing that shot from his forearm. She fit in his side easily, and he tried not to notice how nice this felt.

“Organic webbing… so your powers are at a genetic level, then?” she asked curiously.

She wasn’t making this easy on him.

He nodded again.

Xina gave him another look.

“I used to think you were an Alchemax shill. Some sort of distraction to keep all of Nueva York occupied while they kept slowly destroying the city,” she said quietly, holding onto him a little tighter as he released another web and had them gliding past building after building.

He tensed.

“But,” she continued, “I think… I was wrong about you. Maybe.”

Miguel froze up.

Xina never admitted she was wrong, ever. He could count on one hand the number of times she had said she didn’t have all the answers, too.

They reached the entrance of the hospital and he set her down, anxious to glide back up the side of the building and to the room he was supposedly asleep in.

She took a deep breath, as if gearing up to say something else.

He was almost afraid, seeing something in her eyes he couldn’t name.

“Thanks for the ride, Spider-Man.”

He waved her off.

She looked down at the ground, then looked back at the hospital doors.

“You’re not a coward, either,” she said quietly.

Miguel nodded slowly, clutching his fists in apprehension.

Xina glanced back at the entryway to the hospital, seeing Gabriel and Kasey through the glass.

“My friends… we’re here, waiting for someone else. He got blinded by whatever brought those skeletons to life. But I think he’s doing much better now,” she said, giving him a knowing look.

Panicking, he gave her a thumbs up.

She gave him one back, trying to hide her smile.

He ran off, catching words he hadn’t heard the first time around.

“See you around, Spider-Man…”

Suddenly nothing was the same, the late evening light replaced with the artificial lighting of Nueva York. He was falling. Why was he falling? There was a weight attached to him, too. Something keeping his web foils from catching the updrafts…

“This is all your fault, Spider-Man!”

Gabriel?

“Why are you doing this?!” he asked, trying to claw his way out of the Goblin’s grip.

The two of them were plummeting, and Miguel knew they only had so much time before they became two unsavory pancakes.

“You lied. You said you were going to change things, that it wouldn’t be the same old world. But look around, what’s changed? That’s right. Just the schmuck in the chair,” Gabriel sneered.

Miguel glared, pulling away from his brother.

“Thought you and Kasey were over, so why are you still pretending to be some great revolutionary?” Miguel snapped, feeling his brother hesitate.

That moment was all he needed.

He slid one hand out of his brother’s grasp, releasing the web foiling behind him, an updraft came at that exact moment, lifting them back up into the air.

The Goblin mask covered Gabriel’s entire face, seemingly attached to nothing.

Miguel briefly remembered his brother’s body modification for easier access to virtual reality before flinching as Goblin lunged at him again.

“I don’t care about that. I care about you being a liar and a hypocrite,” his brother ground out.

He maneuvered with the web foils, noting that even with his big talk, Gabriel hadn’t let go of his shoulders. If he could just get them out of the sky, maybe on a rooftop—they could talk this out, right?

Suddenly, searing pain in his right shoulder.

Gabriel—Goblin—whoever, had sunk his mechanical claws into him.

They were losing altitude again, and fast.

“You know if the cape goes out we’re both dead, right?” Miguel asked him, trying to pull the younger O’Hara off of his back.

Goblin laughed at him, the sound distorted by the mask.

“We’re all dead anyway, so what’s it matter?”

Miguel’s expression shifted.

Gabriel didn’t talk like that. At least, never around him.

He had to get them out of the air.

Risking a glance down, he slowly moved his right arm, getting his spinneret in place to shoot a web out at one of the nearby buildings.

Fwizz.

The webbing hit its mark, and they both grunted at the lost inertia, pulling them into a perpendicular direction.

“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Goblin muttered, clawing at his mask.

Miguel flinched, but not quick enough.

He felt the air between the mask, the wind stinging the cuts on his face.

Trying to ignore the pain, he pulled them up over the rooftop connected to his webbing, relieved when Gabriel finally let him go. The other O’Hara fell to the ground, apparently collecting his own bearings. Miguel faced away from his brother, foolishly hoping he would turn around and his brother would be standing sans Goblin mask.

He knew he should try to take stock of the damage, see what repairs he would need to do on his suit. What he would need to do to his face, if he needed stitches…

But Gabriel was eerily quiet.

“Gabri? What’s going on?” he asked, turning back to his brother.

The mask was still on, the frozen expression of glee becoming more unsettling the longer his brother stayed silent.

Nobody was up this high in Nueva York, except them.

If he took off the mask…

Something stopped him.

The way Gabriel talked, it didn’t quite sound… well, like he said. Something was wrong.

“You’re just a false prophet,” Goblin sneered, voice modulator on again.

Miguel bit his lip, wished they would do anything but spin around in circles over an argument he didn’t even know they were having.

“All these promises. You placated the Spiderites, treated the Thorities as if they sought nothing but fool’s gold. And now this, a supposedly new era for Alchemax. How does it feel, Miguel? To know you cannot change anything from the inside,” Goblin snarled.

This wasn’t… this wasn’t how Gabriel talked.

“Who are you? Really?” he asked, clenching his fists.

The talons had slowly pushed out, a tell of his barely concealed anger at this copycat.

“You’re no better than them, you know. You just think you are. A man of science, above all these simpletons who are foolish enough to believe in something greater than themselves.”

That wasn’t Gabriel.

Sure, his brother had every right to resent him. His brother could write entire novels about the way he had failed him as a brother. But this tone, this language… it wasn’t him.

“We can have a nice long chat about it after you stop wearing my brother’s face,” Miguel tried to placate the Goblin.

Goblin hissed, muttering something about “self-obsessed” and “know-it-all.”

“Not self-obsessed,” he corrected.

Even if he couldn’t see it, he felt the stranger’s glare.

Goblin sheathed half their claws, pulling off the mask and revealing Father Jennifer.

“What?”

She shook her head, a deep-set grimace in place.

“For all your calculations and astuteness, this is the one thing you couldn’t predict?”

Miguel stared.

He didn’t know her that well, it was true. But her grievances were always with Miguel O’Hara, not Spider-Man. What could she possibly have to gain from terrorizing him?

She watched his expression closely, unable to find whatever she had wanted.

“You don’t see it, do you?”

He shook his head, taking note of a floating billboard about thirty feet above them.

If she got too talky, made one too many threats on his secret identity he could just bring it down. Not too hard, just enough to scare her off.

“I thought you liked Spider-Man,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Jennifer laughed.

“I did. Until he didn’t do enough. Until he became too familiar with Alchemax. Until he authorized lethal force to a bunch of trigger-happy Public Eye goons,” she said icily.

Miguel’s blood ran cold.

“I didn’t—that wasn’t supposed to—!”

“That doesn’t change what happened,” Jennifer snarled.

“I never wanted—!”

“Spider-Man is a farce. He isn’t doing anything I wasn’t already, and the difference is I didn’t need to get dropped thousands of feet downtown to realize people worse off than me needed help. That mask is a lie and you’re just the latest charlatan to wear it,” she sneered.

He didn’t disagree.

He didn’t say anything at all.

Miguel ripped the torn up mask off his face, knowing it was useless.

“At least a rapture addiction would make you just as human as anybody else that works at Alchemax. Whatever you are now… it’s beyond description. You can walk amongst us, you can wear your oh-so clever tinted glasses and mumble and never unsheathe those talons. But you’ll never be one of us again. Maybe you never were one of us,” the woman croaked out, her voice breaking in anger.

She was right.

He wasn’t human, he wasn’t like Peter Parker… he was something worse.

Something nudged Miguel, something far away from this day and this rooftop and this conversation he still wasn’t sure was real…

“MIGUEL!”

He jolted awake, lashing out at whatever was in front of him with his talons. His breaths were too quick, his heart rate accelerated from the less-than-stellar sleep.

Rubbing his eyes with his palms, the talons sheathed and he tried to distance his mind from the dreams that plagued him.

Lyla gave him a knowing look, before popping up beside him as he jumped down from the webbed up hammock.

“Is it done?”

She nodded.

“And one more thing, you’ll never believe where our little gang ended up…”

—x—

“…you just stole your father’s work, no hesitation?” Dr. Kwan stared at Gabriella, one eyebrow raised.

The little girl shrugged, mumbling something incomprehensible.

Xina rolled her eyes, focusing once again on the data from 928B.

Two days had passed, still no word from Miguel. Xina had however received a “status update” from Lyla, who claimed they were in the clear from Tyler for now, and that she was “taking care of it.”

She had a sneaking suspicion that the holo-agent had all but forced Miguel to take care of himself, for once.

Good.

The kind of conversation she wanted to have with him… she didn’t want him half-delirious. She did care for him, and she wanted to try things again. But she couldn’t talk about everything she needed to if he wasn’t even conscious.

“If you woke up every single day to David Bowie, you would also do whatever you could to snap out of it,” Gabriella groused.

Both herself and Dr. Kwan gave the young girl a disappointed look.

Gabriella looked between them, muttering something like “why do I bother” under her breath.

Dr. Kwan sighed, rubbing her temple for the tenth time in the last hour. Xina didn’t think she was very good with kids. Neither was she, but that's besides the point.

“I gave you a sudoku game an hour ago, how are you already bored?”

The little girl glared at the doctor, crossing her arms.

“If you have a doctorate, why are you so stupid?”

Dr. Kwan’s eye twitched.

This was pretty much how the last day had gone. Sometimes the other Miguel was there, offering his two cents to the project, otherwise he was off dealing with the Avengers or Alchemax or Doom, who was apparently incredibly demanding of his Baron of Nueva York.

Go figure.

The less questions she asked, the better.

Gabriel had taken it upon himself to find this dimension’s Firelight, convinced that if he just reconnected the two long lost brothers, Miguel Stone wouldn’t be… like this.

Xina wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Quit it,” Dr. Kwan snapped at her.

She blinked, not noticing the aggressive clicking of the pen in her hand.

Dr. Kwan clicked her tongue, gliding easily across the office space, waving a hand and pulling up a separate display of temporal data. She worked quickly, discarding a few superfluous data points, an air of disinterest about her.

“Wanna share with the class?” Xina asked, raising a brow at the doctor.

Dr. Kwan cast her a sidelong glance.

“Why are you so focused on 928B? There were ripples in this subset of universes before that night. What makes this particular day so special?” Dr. Kwan pressed, fixing her with a hard look.

Xina hesitated, knowing that the little girl was still sitting on the office couch, no doubt giving her an equally hard stare.

“It has to have something to do with Miguel’s death that night, don’t you think?” Xina asked quietly.

“But nothing’s off from that night. If anything, the readings become wonky that afternoon,” Dr. Kwan argued.

They had gone through the timeline, even asking Gabriella to recount the day for them. There was something… an off-hand comment made, something the girl had dismissed. How her mother had apparently gone out several times that week, on errands.

Or so she had said.

But Xina knew herself, and from the matching expression on Dr. Kwan’s face, she was coming to a similar conclusion.

Gabriella had a watch to travel the multiverse with and she didn’t just happen upon it. Her mother was studying string theory and alternate dimensions on purpose. And if 928B was like the other universes, that meant Tyler was, too.

Tyler… 

That night and the circumstances of 928B Miguel’s death had seemed so strange, they still didn’t make that much sense. A murder over a purse? It seemed… out of place. But that Miguel wasn’t the same as hers or Dr. Kwan’s, he wasn’t anyone. Not by Alchemax standards.

He left the company.

So, that much easier for Tyler to take care of him.

But why Miguel?

Unless… unless Tyler knew about this other Xina’s experiments and data. If she had made the watch, it would give off its own energy signature. He could have found out about it, known she was involving herself in something…

Miguel’s death wasn’t a final act against him.

It was a warning to the Xina of 928B.

The two of them whipped their heads up, looking at Gabriella.

"Where did your mother go?” Xina asked, keeping an even tone to her voice.

Gabriella tilted her head, not catching the secondary, unasked question.

What did your mother do?

She shrugged, burrowing deeper into the couch, not meeting their eyes.

“I dunno,” she grumbled.

The two Xinas shared a look.

“Gabriella, you’re not in trouble. We just need to know. To… to fix this, we need to know where your mother went,” Xina explained, pressing her lips into a hard line.

She looked conflicted, something on the tip of her tongue.

“Mom said she was going to Midtown to visit my grandparents, but grandma called and asked me what I wanted to do that weekend with her. I was supposed to spend the weekend with her…” Gabriella explained, looking away from the two of them.

Xina bit her lip.

“Is there any possibility she went Uptown instead, confronted the human waste of a man known as Tyler, and unknowingly caught everyone in a time-loop?” Dr. Kwan asked, trying to hide a grimace.

 The young girl let out a small gasp, realization dawning in her eyes.

“So that’s a yes,” Dr. Kwan said breezily.

“But—but!” Gabriella started and stopped like that a few more times, and Xina felt guilt gnaw at her.

“Wait a minute…” Xina trailed off, remembering something the girl had said.

“But he played house and now I’m suffering for it.”

Gabriella was wrong, it wasn’t Miguel’s unconventional plan to fix another universe that did the place in, it was another version of her… someone who knew the dangers multiversal travel could do if in the wrong hands could do. Who more than likely went to Tyler to try to use his tech, to try to bring back her Miguel…

It wasn’t Miguel’s fault at all.

It was hers.

Before she could dive too deeply into that spiral, her gizmo buzzed.

Buzzed.

And buzzed some more.

She lifted the gizmo, worried there was an update from Miguel.

Shock, how would he take learning this…

“—Xina! Helloooo, earth to Xina?!” Lyla’s voice finally cut through the fog in her mind.

“Lyla?” she asked dumbly, still too shell-shocked to take in her surroundings.

“You… well you should see this,” Lyla said somberly, fizzling away and instead what appeared to be camera footage of a darkened lab took her place. A familiar silhouette stood at the edge of the platform, playing back old holo-net footage.

“Like I said, we’re fully disentangled from Alchemax’s system, Miggy,” a life-size hologram of Lyla approached his silhouette, glancing over his shoulder.

"Your mom once told me you were hard to love. Not because of anything you did on purpose, but all those unintentional moments of selfishness and a tunnel vision for your own self-interest. I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time, still hopelessly head over heels. But I get it now…”

That was her voice.

“Lyla, what—?”

The holo-agent shushed her, and she raised her hands up in defense.

“Thought we were done being Espresso-Depresso-Sweatpants-Miguel? Why are you listening to that? You know Xina doesn’t—!”

“Doesn’t what, Lyla? This is just… a reminder. I’m not walking into another dimension with expectations. I should just be grateful she even wants to be… work acquaintances,” Miguel said quietly, his brows furrowed.

Lyla blinked.

“Sorry, what?”

Miguel chuckled with no humor in his voice.

“You heard her, Ly’. She wants to write scientific shockin’ journals together, not… forget it, it’s stupid.”

The holo-agent blinked again, and then an old-fashioned light bulb appeared over her head.

“Oh! But, she—and you—and the whole thing you had going on. Geez, Miguel, we could all feel it over a hologram! You think that doesn’t mean anything?”

He gave her a cold, hard stare.

“It can’t.”

“But—!”

“Shock it, Lyla. Can you focus for five minutes on what’s actually important? Stopping Tyler and unfreezing that universe are our priorities. Not… just put all your energy into our next plan of action, alright?”

Lyla’s expression was unreadable.

“Whatever you say, Miguel.”

Xina lurched forward, disorientated from the speed at which Lyla’s recording stopped.

She felt two sets of eyes on her, plus one set of holographic ones, too.

“Oh, so you’re both hopeless,” Dr. Kwan said drily.

There wasn’t really a good response to that.

“But he isn’t,” Xina frowned.

Gabriella kept her gaze firmly at the ground.

“Oh, isn’t what?” Dr. Kwan smirked.

Xina flushed.

“You know what,” she muttered.

The other woman gave her a long, hard stare. When she didn’t budge, her mirrored self narrowed her eyes, clicking her tongue in disappointment.

“If you can’t even say it to us, how are you supposed to say it to him?”

She floundered.

“What, you want me to tell him I’ve been in love with him since I was twelve-years-old, is that it? How is that supposed to help anything!?” she exclaimed.

Dr. Kwan shook her head in disbelief.

“It could help everything, you idiot. Do you think my husband and I just magically got our relationship to work? Tell him how you actually feel or the two of you will be stuck spinning just outside of each other’s orbit for the rest of your lives.”

She… didn’t have a good argument to her doppelgänger’s point.

The more she wondered, the more she saw of universes not quite her own… could so much of what went wrong be because they hadn’t ever really said it? Sure, she knew she felt the way, but… Miguel wasn’t exactly forthcoming with his emotions on a good day.

And she didn’t want to seem too vulnerable.

For so long, she thought that that was a good thing, with how he had imploded their relationship…

Would things be different if she had said what he actually needed to hear?

Xina talked a lot. She knew it, her parents knew it and all her teachers in school had known it.

But when it came down to it, maybe she hadn’t said the one thing that could have saved them so much grief and confusion and miscommunication.

The elevator made a lurching sound, and Dr. Kwan looked between Xina and Lyla.

“If that’s who I think it is, me and the Little Spawn are out of here,” Dr. Kwan said.

Lyla gave a silent nod, an apprehensive expression on her face.

Gabriella blanched.

“He’s here?” the girl questioned, frowning.

“Let’s go, Spawn,” the doctor said in a sing-song voice, pulling the girl by the hand out of the room.

Her multiversal twin gave her one last little wave and a wink, and she tried not to feel sick.

He was here. Really… here. Not a hologram or a prerecorded message or old holo-vid footage from Lyla.

The last time she had stood in the same room as him, she had made up her mind to leave Nueva York and never see him again.

So much for that.

Chapter Text

The elevator floor numbers lit one by one, somehow prolonging the moment. Xina wanted to make a dumb joke about the elevators being just as slow in the evil universe.

Instead she tried to remember to breathe.

Lyla was still in her life-sized form, standing by her side as if in reassurance.

“Just be honest with him,” Lyla encouraged quietly.

“That’s easy for you to say,” she muttered.

“Yes, it is. Because it’s what you both need to do,” Lyla said firmly.

The elevator dinged.

Lyla blipped out.

Xina could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Muffled voices from the elevator confirmed Lyla was with Miguel. She tried to not to think about what they were talking about.

“—be realistic about what we’re doing here, Lyla,” Miguel’s voice carried through the sliding doors.

He sighed, and she felt every modicum of confidence slip away.

She tried to look nonchalant, tempted to lean against the desk chair closest to her. But then she pictured herself doing so, the chair wheeling away and landing flat on her face. What a great first…re-impression that would be.

Miguel stilled in the entryway, having more than likely assumed the elevator would come out in a hallway or something similar.

Not… what was Tyler Stone’s office in their dimension.

“…hi?” Xina said, fighting the urge to give a little wave.

He froze.

“Xina.”

Miguel blinked, as if surprised to see her standing in front of him.

“That’s what they’ve called me since, y’know, they took me home from the hospital,” she joked.

He didn’t crack a smile.

Lyla, still in her life-size form behind Miguel winked at Xina and fizzled out, a frown tugging at her lips as the holo-agent left them alone.

Miguel glanced around the room, an eyebrow raised in an unasked question.

“Dr. Kwan and Gabriella left. She said it was probably good to give us some… space,” Xina said quietly.

“Dr. Kwan?” he asked, perplexed.

Xina resisted the urge to roll her eyes, surprised that that was what Miguel latched onto in an alternate universe.

“She didn’t grow up resenting Alchemax and their institutions the way I did. A doctorate in biotechnology, or so she says,” Xina explained, still wondering at the strange glint in her doppelgänger’s eyes when she had explained her degree.

“Oh,” he mumbled.

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

He hadn’t looked anywhere but her eyes in over a minute, and with a flush she remembered the turtleneck Dr. Kwan had let her borrow. A normal turtleneck would have worked just fine, but this woman didn’t own a shirt that didn’t show off her chest.

So she was in a turtleneck that for some shocking reason had a rather large… window on it.

Either he’s mortified or still finds me attractive , she thought snidely.

Or both.

“And why… exactly are we in Stone’s office?” he asked, taking another step away from the elevator entry.

“That’s because it’s not that Stone’s office anymore,” she explained.

He blanched.

“Right,” he started, “Lyla and I discarded this universe as a possibility pretty quickly. And we didn’t really consider it for the Society, either, considering…”

“This Miguel is morally dubious?” she finished for him.

“I was going to say evil, but sure,” he snorted.

“He’s not. He’s just… a little misguided, sometimes,” Xina pointed out.

Miguel gave her a hard stare.

“That’s one way to put it,” he grouched.

“Yeah, it is . Because he actually agreed to help us,” she snapped.

Miguel’s eyebrows rose at her tone, before furrowing again.

“Can we please just… do this?” he asked quietly.

Xina hesitated, unfamiliar with this version of the man she thought she knew.

“Save 928B, stop Tyler and get everyone back to their correct universe?” she clarified.

“Yeah – Preferably without you finally ripping me apart for every ill-conceived choice I’ve made in the past year. And that’s before we get into every reason you have to hate me that doesn’t have to do with Spider-Man,” he said, unable to meet her eye.

Xina frowned, stepping up to him again, not unlike she had when they were only holograms to each other.

“Weren’t you listening?” she asked him, raising a hand as if to reach for his cheek, looking to him for permission.

But this wasn’t like last time.

“A lot of things were said in the heat of the moment, Xina,” he said, pulling himself out of her orbit.

“That wasn’t—!”

“You and Gabri were stuck in another universe, worried about ever getting home again. Not only that, but you had just helped an alternate version of yourself decrypt Alchemax files that could topple the whole system. Emotions were running more than a little high,” he reminded her, a force to his tone that told her that little speech wasn’t just for her .

She gave him a long, hard look.

He returned it.

A stalemate, then.

“You can yell at me and tell me how much of a loser I am after this is all over, alright?” he said firmly.

“You never cease to amaze me,” she deadpanned.

Miguel frowned.

“Xina, I know you. And I know getting caught up in my mess is the last thing you wanted. Shock, you left Nueva York to get away from me,” he said. “I’m just another bad habit you need to break.” 

Maybe that would have worked on her a week ago. Maybe even three months ago. It definitely would have struck a nerve half a year ago when she first left Nueva York.

But not now.

Because for better or for worse, Xina wasn’t that person anymore. And Miguel wasn’t the selfish prick who broke up with her. They weren’t the same.

And everything she had seen with Spider-Man and how bizarre Nueva York had gotten, she hoped it was a good thing.

“September 7th, 2084. Do you know what’s so important about that date?” she asked, staring up at him intently.

Miguel’s brows furrowed, frowning.

“Xi, what are you—?”

“C’mon, Miggy,” she gave him an expectant look.

He looked down, away from her.

“…the day I got shipped off to Alchemax?”

“Close, but no cigar,” she quipped.

Miguel looked out of his element, as if he couldn’t possibly predict her next words.

To be fair, she had never said them, either.

“I heard a distinct splash of water and a loud grumble of annoyance all the way from my dorm. To be fair, my window was open. I followed Angela’s annoyed-as-ever clicking heels, which led me to the entryway of the school,”Xina explained..

Miguel tilted his head, a ghost of something she couldn’t name on his lips.

“And standing there was this disgruntled red-headed kid who looked out of his element. I booked it back to my room because nobody wants to be that kid. The one poking their nose where it doesn’t belong,” she said and shrugged, watching Miguel’s shoulders relax. As if he could let a bit of his guard down.

“But I saw you—!”

Xina smirked.

“So you do know what that day was,” she said, feeling the warmth rise in her chest.

“First time I ever saw you… how could I forget that?” he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

“Well, I…” she hesitated, realizing what came after her clever words and snarky one-liners.

The truth.

Miguel’s gaze hadn’t left hers, she had his full attention…

“Yeah?” he asked, something akin to hope in his eyes.

“I lied,” she admitted.

He rose an eyebrow at her.

“When we… when we dated. You asked me once, how long I’d had feelings for you. And I lied.”

Miguel frowned, stepping closer to her. He was close enough to touch, but she couldn’t. Not when she hadn’t said what needed to be said. She had come this far, after all.

“I said I found you tolerable around senior year. That’s… not true,” she said quietly.

“Oh,” his frown deepened, head bowed as he waited for the final verbal blow.

Xina felt panic rising in her chest,, knowing Miguel was getting the wrong idea from everything she was saying. She had to just rip the shocking bandaid off.

“Because…”

—x—

This is it, this is when you find out she never liked you at all, this is when she finally dumps you, as a friend, as any sort of prospective scientific part—

“…because I’m pretty sure I’ve been at least a little bit in love with you since we were 12,” Xina finished.

Miguel was vaguely aware his jaw dropped.

And more than aware his heart rate had elevated to an alarming degree.

But Lyla hadn’t risen up to the occasion to make fun or belittle him, so… she knew .

She knew that this was what Xina was going to confess.

And he was sure she encouraged it.

Based on Xina’s expression, whatever noise he had just heard had come out of him was uncharted territory for the both of them. He’d never heard that one before. Filing away that problem for later.

Miguel just needed to collect his thoughts, to say something… to do something.

But the second he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. And the woman he thought was about to cut him out of her life forever just looked concerned.

It wasn’t April 1st, was it?

No, and she wouldn’t do that, he thought to himself.

Blinking again, he turned around, knowing he would be more than capable of speaking after he had taken a moment to recollect himself.

Instead he was met with a giant oil painting.

Of Xina.

Shock, not Xina.

Well, yeah, Xina . But not his.

Shock, not his.

Xina! Of Earth-928! Not his!

This was… a Xina. Who seemed as far away from the one he knew as Miguel Stone was from him. Sure, the smirk was familiar but everything else…

Was that much skin allowed in a lab?

Miguel panicked, whipping away from the portrait. He felt like big portrait Xina and regular Xina were both fixing him with impossible to read stares.

And he really, really didn’t need twice the number of Xina stares right now.

He absent-mindedly fell into the office chair to his left, holding his head in his hands, already feeling the soft throb of a headache.

She couldn’t love him. That wasn’t possible. Between how distant he was to her and everything else that had happened since their break up… No, she just meant she used to be in love with him. That was her shedding some light on an old situation. Just some old guilt working through her system.

Naturally.

Xina and Gabri had just traversed other universes for the first time, no wonder she was working through out-of-date feelings. The multiverse tended to cause that kind of introspection.

“Right,” he mumbled to himself, more than aware of the gaze that hadn’t left him.

Xina took a step closer to the desk, her brows furrowed.

He didn’t like it when she looked worried.

Her expression stayed the same as she came back behind the desk beside him, reaching for his arm. He finally turned to face her, instead of only reading half of her body language.

They never used to need to say anything to understand each other.

And right now… almost felt like it used to, before when it had seemed so much simpler.

With two taps of her hand to his forearm and a gaze that told him he could either stand up or she would come down to him, he left the chair, nerves still eating away at his insides.

He wasn’t entirely sure if she pulled him up the same moment he decided to stand or if it just felt that way, but her hand moved up his arm, waiting for something from him before she went anywhere else.

Miguel vividly remembered earlier, when he couldn’t touch her, and Xina had cried and all he had wanted to do was stop it.

He gave a little nod, mouth slightly agape at Xina, who was drawing closer and closer to him.

Her hand touched down lightly on his cheek, as if she too worried this might all be a dream they would wake up from. She stroked his face and he froze for a half a second, before remembering he hadn’t shaved in three… five, maybe six days?

But she didn’t seem to mind.

Her gaze shifted, and in the back of his mind he realized what that portrait of other Xina was trying to convey. It wasn’t her leering down at everyone who dared enter the space. No, those eyes were reserved for a select few. He considered himself one of the few lucky bastards who ever got to see them. There was no malice in those eyes, just unquestionable devotion.

There wasn’t an exact moment it became the two of them being pulled toward each other, it just happened.

Like it always did.

Miguel paused for a millisecond, the panic rising to the front of his brain again, what if this wasn’t fair to her? Shock, he was Spider-Man and she didn’t deserve—

Xina pulled him down, her hands clasped behind his neck, and suddenly she was kissing him.

She was… kissing him.

Xina didn’t hate him.

And based on… well, a fair few things currently happening, maybe she did love him.

He was… admittedly a little rusty. Spider-Man wasn’t running around kissing people, and he sure as shock wasn’t wooing anyone as Miguel O’Hara, either.

Kissing her back, he nearly didn’t notice when his fang snagged on his lip. But he heard her gasp of surprise and tried to pull away from her.

But she wouldn’t let him.

“…sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly.

Xina rolled her eyes at him, still holding onto him, and he wondered if she planned on letting go anytime soon. He hoped she didn’t.

“Can’t believe I didn’t notice the fangs sooner,” she joked.

“I can’t believe you still like me this much,” he blurted.

Miguel would have thought she was glaring at him if he didn’t recognize her determined face.

“Yeah, I love you. Red eyes and fangs don’t change that.”

He looked away, flustered.

“Not even if the fangs are venomous?”

Xina smirked.

“You know I’ve always been up for a challenge.”

He couldn’t help but smile at her, the familiar banter warming something in him.

“Yeah, I do.”

She pressed her forehead to his and if he had had the choice between staying in this moment or talking about the hundred and one problems they faced, he would stay right here.

But he rarely got what he wanted.

“Can’t believe that Prophet guy was right,” Xina laughed as if she couldn’t believe it.

Miguel frowned, realizing he could finally ask her what Proph had exactly said.

“You met Tensen?” he asked, pulling away from her to look at her expression.

Xina grumbled and he worried he had already done something wrong, but she reached for one of his hands, as if she still wanted to have physical contact even as they had this conversation.

“I made it a mile or two down the road from Nueva York when I saw him on the side of the road,” Xina explained, tracing the top of his fingers in her hand.

Miguel held back his first reaction, wanting to admonish her for letting some stranger into her car in the middle of nowhere.

Because she was talking to him and here and she didn’t hate him. And she had said she loved him. On purpose.

How the shock did he deserve something like that?

She held his hand, walking away from the desk and portrait to a secluded corner of the office, a nook with a couch and a reading lamp.

Miguel briefly wondered if Miguel Stone had an even worse work-life balance than he did.

…maybe he wasn’t in a place to judge his alternate universe self at the moment.

“I was being dumb, you can say it,” she said, as if reading his mind.

“It’s not dumb, just dangerous,” he muttered.

“It only got dangerous when that maglev semi-truck nearly hit us,” Xina shrugged.

Miguel stared at her.

“Sorry—the what?”

Her small smile vanished, as if she hadn’t realized what she had said to him.

“… I mean, it’s fine. Obviously. He did his whole teleport-y thing,” she explained, looking down.

He sighed, hoping she didn’t notice the way his eye twitched at the confession.

They sat on the couch and he noticed how she still hadn’t let go of his hand.

“And then he told me about how I shouldn’t stop believing in Spider-Man,” she said quietly.

Miguel felt his pulse quicken, unsure how Xina really felt about… any of that. The last time they had had any sort of meaningful conversation about him she had said maybe she was wrong about him…

But what about now?

“I didn’t know for sure, y’know. I just had a hunch,” she admitted.

“Your hunches usually aren’t wrong,” he argued.

“This was different. If this one was true… that’s what snapped you out of it, isn’t it?” she asked, tracing on his palm nervously.

“What do you mean?” he answered with a question, not intentionally evasive but… coming to terms with being Spider-Man and actually wanting to try to change the world hadn’t come the easiest to him. And he sure as shock hadn’t talked about it out loud to anyone.

It was one thing to wax poetic at his piece of shit father’s grave, it was another to bare his soul to Xina about it.

“Snapped you out of not giving a damn,” she said bluntly.

He tried not to cringe away at her words, knowing that was exactly how she and Gabriel were supposed to view his involvement at Alchemax. Nobody who cared about him could get hurt if he stopped caring about them.

Shock, he was stupid.

“I had a breaking point with it all, too,” he mumbled, trying to pull away before she did. He didn’t want to feel the warmth of her hand leave his, so he would save them both the trouble.

Xina frowned at him, placing his hand back in her lap again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she reminded him.

“Right,” he took an uneasy breath, realizing he would have to tell someone about how all of this started. The only other person who knew everything was Lyla and… her personhood was a recent development.

“They wanted to rush the project… start human trials early. I wasn’t going to allow that. I know I wasn’t the best friend or brother or anything to have but I wasn’t… that couldn’t be allowed to happen, alright?” he said, turning away from her on the couch.

“I believe you,” she said quietly.

“It—I wasn’t ever consulted, and it just… we weren’t ready for that level of testing. The… he didn’t make it, lasted a few seconds in his altered state before… I tried to quit, Xina. I did. I went into Tyler’s office, I told him I was done. And then he… he drugged me. Wanted to tighten the Alchemax shaped noose around my neck a little tighter, I guess.”

While her touch was gentle, he saw the storm of emotions pass over her face.

Wait until she hears about the meat locker, he thought grimly.

“So I went back and thought I could just superimpose my own genetic code back onto myself, the pre-Raptured DNA I had had that morning. We were using mine to experiment with the spider genetics anyway…” he trailed off, remembering how unmoored he had felt that night.

She stopped tracing his fingertips, instead holding onto his hand again. Her grip tightened.

“Remember how Angela used to lecture on the time and place for overt sass?”

Xina looked up at him, raising a brow.

“Yeah?”

“Guess I should have listened a little better to that advice. Had a former coworker try to kill me with spider DNA. Didn’t work,” he huffed, glancing down at her again.

“I’m sensing a pattern,” she mumbled.

“The only reason I started running around in the old costume was because I needed to get a bounty hunter off of my trail. And then from there I just kind of… kept getting in situations where the kind of things I could do would do more good than bad,” he explained.

Xina’s hand traced up his wrist, to the spinnerets.

Miguel tried to keep the tension out of his shoulders.

He failed.

“Spider-Man didn’t have spinnerets, you know. He had web fluid cartridges. If the stories are true, they seemed to run out at the worst possible moment. Guess you don’t have that problem,” she murmured.

“So I’m even weirder than the guy who ran around in spandex by choice, great,” he said sardonically.

“You know me. Automatically makes you at least the second weirdest person in the room,” she said easily.

“Not like this,” he grumbled, turning away from her.

“Hey, don’t do that,” Xina said, her hand coming up to his cheek.

“Do what?”

“Shut me out and act like you’re some kind of unknowable mystery. You aren’t, and never to me,” she reminded him.

Miguel snorted to himself.

“Yeah, well, you would have found me borderline unbearable the weeks after the accident. I wasn’t exactly… pleasant. I mean… talons on my hands and feet? Spinnerets? And hiding the fangs and my eyes so I could just walk out the door…”

Xina kept her hand on his cheek and he briefly tried to remember the last time someone was this gentle with him. He couldn’t.

“I mean I’m not… human anymore, Xina,” he murmured, eyes downcast.

She shook her head.

“You are, in all the ways that matter,” she said, wiping a tear from his cheek.

“I wanted… I was going to—once I decided I didn’t want to die—I wanted to solve it. To fix whatever I had done to myself. But then things just kept happening and now I think it’s too late,” he nearly whispered.

Xina brought her hand down to his shoulder, resting her head in between his neck and his shoulder.

“If you still want to undo it, I’ll help, Miggy,” she said.

“I think… in a weird way, I’ve accepted it,” he mused, comforted by the sound of her heartbeat.

“Still if you want, I can go over your genome? Maybe you missed something?”

Miguel froze, preemptively wincing at what he had to confess.

“I… uh, never did map it out. After it changed. I had Lyla take notes here and there but I just kind of considered it some sort of scientific miracle that I didn’t just drop dead.”

Xina just sighed, as if this didn’t really surprise her that much.

“I think I miss when I was the dangerously reckless one of the two of us,” she griped, still holding onto him.

“Don’t go around saying that in the past tense like it’s true,” he snorted.

Xina gave a non-committal sound and for a moment they just sat there in silence. It reminded him of when they were still students, both lost in their own work on each other’s beds. Or sneaking in after Angela’s loose definition of curfew and reading books side by side.

“So every time Spider-Man was running around, making things harder on Alchemax, that was you?” she asked.

“Yeah… guess I let out all my frustration with S-Man. Couldn’t do it as myself, so…”

Xina gasped, pulling away only to give him a pained look.

“When Spider-Man fell Downtown? And everyone said you were dead? How… how come—?” she cut off the question, something in her too unnerved to finish the question.

He tensed, flashes of bright hospital lights and a too cold examination chair flooding his memory.

“Some doctor turned Thorite saved me,” he explained, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head.

Xina mumbled something into his chest he couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“And every other time?”

He frowned, never having given more thought than he needed to in the moment.

“Slept it off, I guess,” he said quietly.

She pulled at his wrist with the gizmo on it, and he furrowed his brow.

“…Xina?”

“This is a means of communication, right? Direct line with Lyla? That means direct line to me, too. The next time you’re nearly bleeding out in a gutter somewhere, you call me,” she said firmly, her eyes glistening.

Keep her safe, don’t let her in, Xina knowing more about this would put her in—

“Okay,” he agreed quietly.

She gave a nod, but something in her expression was still bubbling to the surface.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You were running around as Spider-Man, making everything harder on Alchemax—shock, Miguel, why didn’t you just quit?”

He’d rather have the Spider-Man conversation an infinite amount of times before they addressed… Alchemax.

“I couldn’t,” he said, hoping he hid the pain in his voice.

“Then give me a better explanation. I… help me understand, please.”

Miguel knew she would ask—he knew Xina, what drove her and what would seem morally black and white to her. And working for Alchemax had always safely resided in the morally repugnant side of her brain.

But she didn’t have a father threaten the rest of her family. Or a boss who seemed dead-set on controlling her for the rest of her life. She didn’t find out said boss, said man who ran every single part of the company was also her real father.

“Tyler—I mean, Xina, he threatened everyone I cared about. Gabri and Ma and—and you, too. I couldn’t do anything that put you in his sights. You didn’t… everybody else just had the misfortune of being related to me. You just got unlucky enough to be somebody who knew me,” he explained, hoping she would understand.

Xina frowned, something lighting a fire in her eyes.

“He shouldn’t have been able to do that to you,” she said, venom in her voice.

He was half relieved she wasn’t giving the advice of her teen self. When she would say to just kick-flip away his problems. Even if he could now deliver a half-way decent kick-flip, it wouldn’t stop Tyler.

“But he did.”

Xina’s anger morphed, unable to hide the spite in her voice at her next remark.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Miguel knew this line of questioning was coming—even if it felt like they kept having it, back and forth.

“‘Cause you’d probably stick around and try to help me out of it,” he muttered.

She glared.

“Of course I would! I’m not going to let Tyler Stone ruin the rest of your life!” she argued, pulling away from him.

“But you would have been safe,” he argued, feeling himself losing the debate.

“Yeah, for how long? I don’t know if you remember this, but you aren’t the only one that Tyler had a vendetta against. I know… I know I don’t have the same history with him. Or have some sort of terrible Star Wars-esque reveal to boot, but he’s never liked me. And me being alive meant there was always going to be a chance that I could ruin his plans. You get that, right?”

He tilted his head at her.

“Why is Tyler being my father like the… space show with the spaceship?”

Xina groaned.

“Miggy, that’s Star Trek. Star Wars is the one with the guy who finds out his dad is the big bad evil of the universe,” she explained, the smallest trace of a smile on her lips.

Miguel hummed in response, taking in the rest of her words.

She was right, Tyler had never liked her. Of course, that leech of a man didn’t like anyone, but he had never really forgotten Kron’s expulsion and who had played a part in it.

“I just wanted to keep you safe,” he mumbled.

Xina clicked her tongue, clearly exasperated by his continued insistence he want to keep her out of all of this.

“I don’t know how much you ever looked through TwenCen heroes or Spider-Man’s history, but keeping things from the people he loved never worked in his favor. It did the opposite. And forgive me for wanting you to not end up alone, living on an internal monologue of paranoia and self-assuredness that this is the only way. It’s not, and I’m not going to let you keep telling yourself that it is,” she said firmly.

He didn’t have an argument prepared for that.

And a part of him wondered if he… really wanted to have one, either.

Even if they were in danger for knowing him, Gabriel and Xina were safer now that they were in the loop, weren’t they? As opposed to somewhere out in Nueva York oblivious to everything in his life as Spider-Man.

If Lyla hadn’t reached out to Xina, Tyler could have easily found her and dragged her back to Nueva York. He could have used her as a bargaining chip for anything related to the Spider Society… and Miguel would have given it to him.

“You’re right,” he said finally, hoping she would meet his eye again.

She had pushed herself away from him, standing up and pacing by the couch. He hated the distance between them, wanting to pull her close again.

“And before you say—what?” Xina stalled, having expected more of a fight out of him.

“You’re right. Pushing you and Gabriel away didn’t work. And it could have gotten you both killed if Lyla hadn’t involved you.”

She blinked.

“Did you just admit I was right about something?” she asked, genuine surprise on her face.

He stood up, coming to stand in front of her, looking from her eyes to her cheek, checking if they were still okay, if he could still hold onto this new found intimacy between them.

She nodded, blinking again.

“I know… I know you’ve always had to pull that out of me. And even then you didn’t get me saying it, just glares and scowls and me being an all-around jerk about it. But I…” he trailed off, his mind shutting down again.

Miguel hadn’t had this much of an honest conversation with Xina since… he wasn’t sure if they had ever had a conversation this truthful before.

And he apparently had a mental block on the rest of what he wanted to say.

But she needed to hear it, needed to know he did… she wasn’t the only one who felt the way she did.

“What is it?” she asked, looking up, putting her own palm over his hand on her cheek.

“Guess there’s still stuff I can’t… that needs to be pried out of me. I want to say it, Xina, I do, I just—!” he cut himself off, worried he would put his foot in his mouth

“I know,” she said quietly, kissing the corner of his lips

He smiled softly at her.

“Did you just Sulu me?”

Xina stared at him.

“No, I Han Solo-ed you.”

She giggled and even if he didn’t get it, he liked seeing her smile again.

A commotion from the front of the office pulled him from gazing into her eyes, recognizing the familiar clomp of Gabriel’s boots. Without thinking, he pulled Xina closer to him, unsure what to expect as the doors clambered open.

“We have a problem!” Gabri barreled through the doors.

Miguel internally groaned, wishing for the briefest of moments his brother hadn’t chosen the worst possible moment to run into the room.

Old habits die hard, apparently.

Chapter Text

“What is it, Gabri?” Miguel sighed.

Gabriel blinked, frozen to the spot and mouth agape.

“Miggy?” he gasped.

“Hi, Gabri.”

Then the younger O’Hara gave Xina and Miguel a harder look, something between relief and disgust on his face.

“So… you two made up?”

Xina felt her face heat up, realizing Miguel still had her held close against him. She hesitated, half expecting him to pull away at Gabriel’s observation.

He did, but not before clasping her hand in his own.

“Something like that,” he mumbled.

Gabriel had a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Oh, so more than made up?” he teased.

Miguel’s brow twitched with annoyance but Xina noted the way his mouth nearly tilted upward.

“You said there was a problem? Is this a new one or…?” Miguel trailed off, looking expectantly at his brother.

The younger O’Hara’s expression shifted at once, seemingly remembering why he burst through the door in the first place.

“It’s Firelight!”

Xina blinked.

“Your… Virtual Unreality persona?” Xina stared at him, trying to keep her expression neutral.

“No—wait, you remember that?”

She shrugged, looking up to see Miguel surprised as Gabriel.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you haven’t taken any interest in Virtual Unreality in like… a decade? And I thought you… didn’t like me?” Gabriel raised a brow.

Xina frowned, giving him a long look.

“Wait, you’re not… joking?”

Gabriel and Miguel shared a look.

“I like you!”

“I mean…” Miguel trailed off as she squeezed his hand, her frown deepening.

“That wasn’t because of you. And I know I don’t have to explain misplaced anger to you two. I remember Firelight because you refused to answer to any other name for a full year in middle school,” Xina said.

The indignation on Gabriel’s face morphed into something more akin to surprise.

“Oh.”

She rolled her eyes playfully, catching Miguel’s matching amused look.

“So what happened?” she pressed.

Gabriel grumbled.

“Sorry?” Miguel rose an eyebrow.

The younger man looked between the two of them, fiddling with his scarf.

“… so I went to go see this universe’s Gabriel, just to see if he would be… open to having a brother,” he said.

Miguel’s eye twitched.

“I may have given him a crash course in the multiverse and hemaybekindofresentsmeandyouguysforlettingStonetakeoverNuevaYork,” Gabriel said, refusing to meet their eyes.

“What?” they both exclaimed.

Gabriel blinked.

“You understood that?”

“He thinks we’re to blame for Alchemax?” Xina blanched.

“…more like, if you guys have the power to travel around why didn’t… you do anything?”

Xina’s brows furrowed, letting Miguel’s hand go and pacing the office.

“I’m sorry, Miguel’s known about other universes for maybe six months and you and I—counting time displacement—have known for three months at best! We cannot be held responsible for the entirety of the multiverse!”

Gabriel shrugged.

“Not a very convincing agreement there, Gabri,” Xina said, crossing her arms.

“I mean, I kind of see where he’s coming from,” he said.

She gave him a long look.

“Not entirely, obviously! I think he’s… a little lost. He just doesn’t know it. And then I throw the idea of the multiverse at him, tell him about my brother and our… Xina and he’s jealous. Having a brother to deal with Ma and the asshole? It would have made things… a lot easier for him,” Gabriel said, looking down.

Miguel’s expression hardened, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“It’s not your fault,” Gabriel said, watching his brother closely.

“Even if I accepted that was true, it doesn’t make the guilt magically go away,” Miguel said, raising his gizmo and tapping a few commands.

“Can you pass some of it around, then?” Xina came up behind Miguel, tentatively reaching for his hand again.

“You don’t—”

“She wants to, we both do,” Gabriel said.

Miguel rolled his eyes.

“Fine.”

Xina squeezed his hand and she smiled as she felt him squeeze back, even if there was still a tension in his brow.

“So how do we fix it?” Gabriel asked.

She bit her lip in contemplation, not sure if Gabriel understood the weight of his question.

Gabriel and Miguel’s relationship was complicated on a good day in a normal universe, let alone a place like this, with the raised-by-Stone of it all. And that didn’t even scratch the surface of this universe’s Gabriel.

Xina had to assume he was raised by Conchata and George, alone.

… from what she had seen of their parenting style, that could have only spelled disaster.

Miguel took a deep breath, seemingly steadying himself.

“Do we have to do this now, Gabri?”

Gabriel looked flummoxed.

“What do you mean?”

Miguel clicked his tongue, looking away from his younger brother.

“With our time constraints, we have to look at this objectively. Undoing our Tyler’s ability to track you is the most important thing. And that’s well on its way, thanks to Peter and Jess. We can’t… magically fix a damaged relationship too,” Miguel said.

Gabriel’s expression shifted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Shock, Gabri, you know what our dynamic looked like for so long, how can we be expected to unpack and fix this one? Ours isn’t exactly perfect, either,” Miguel continued, giving his brother a knowing look.

“But they don’t know what they’ve lost,” Gabriel argued.

“Gabriel, they don’t even know each other,” Xina reminded him gently.

His frown deepened, balling his fists.

“But they could! And it’s practically a clean slate! There’s nothing to fix because they don’t even know it’s broken!”

Xina blinked, realizing what this was really about. Sure, to an extent Gabriel might have wanted his and Miguel’s doppelgangers to become true brothers beyond genetic truth.

But this wasn’t a conversation she needed to be present for, let alone something she was sure either O’Hara wanted her to witness.

“I’m going to go check on Dr. Kwan and Gabriella,” she said, giving Miguel a peck on the cheek and giving Gabriel a wave before disappearing through Stone’s office doors.

—x—

“Yeah, I think it's a Banksy.”

John Tensen rolled his eyes, passing through the stalled group of New Yorkers.

This wasn’t what drew him to this universe or this time. But it was a symptom of something much worse that could unravel everything. The window of opportunity to solve said problem was closing faster and faster.

He hadn’t lied when he told Xina Kwan she was the key to salvaging the pieces of Miguel O'Hara back together again. But he hadn’t been entirely truthful about why that was so important, either.

Tyler Stone was a thorn in the side of the universe, of all universes, really.

But he wasn’t the only problem, not by a long shot.

He did his best not to play God, knowing the ramifications of such an act. But this wasn’t like those other times. This was something much worse.

Grief made people behave irrationally, especially if they believed themselves to be acting entirely rationally. John would never defend a man like Wilson Fisk, but he knew what loss could do to someone.

What loss could do to the universe, or even universes.

Given the nature of this gash in all of space and time, Tensen couldn’t simply barge in and undo Alchemax’s actions. One couldn’t just undo this chord in the music of the universe, it had to be done delicately.

So here he stood, watching in the distance as the electricity fluctuated throughout all of Brooklyn. The crater in the multiverse was about to be created and he had to stand by and watch.

Fisk was warned, repeatedly. By more than the average number of Spider-people, too. But he carried on, regardless. And the temporal and spacial displacement of a subway car was about to rearrange the fate of the multiverse.

Elements of that disruption could be stopped. Tensen had already reconnected Miguel and his closest allies. That had to have stopped at least a fair few futures.

He hoped.

Tensen knew the dangers of letting Dr. Ohnn acquire his inter-dimensional powers, but it didn’t matter. Earth 1610 needed Miles Morales as much as it had needed Peter Parker. And the origin of Ohnn was just as much tied to Alchemax as the young Spider-Man’s was.

The sky illuminated itself four separate times, the ghosts of other New York City skylines flashing before disappearing. To the average eye, he was sure tonight’s event looked more like a freak lightning storm than a near cataclysmic multiversal disaster.

But the hole in the multiverse wasn’t closed, not yet.

The air shifted, and his eyes glowed a deep purple.

It was happening.

“I can’t wait to kill one more Spider-Man,” came Kingpin’s voice from below the earth.

Tensen blinked and he was watching the rise of 1610’s own hero, Miles Morales.

The rise of a hero and the beginning of the end of the multiverse.

“Is this what you want, man?”

“Wilson, what are you doing?”

“What are we doing here?”

“I don’t know, Richard.”

“Vanessa. Vanessa! It’s me. You know me!”

“We’re leaving now.”

“Don’t go. Stay with me! Please.”

No one else could hear it, but John could.

The crushing of an unknowable number of Fisk-owned SUVs. The sound reverberated through every universe. At least, in every universe where Vanessa Fisk chose herself over the Fisk family business.

There were just enough of those that it created a commonality.

A common trait amongst too many universes, and a certain stubborn man with the help of his artificial intelligent assistant would deem it an “event.”

Something that needed to be maintained across universes.

When, prior to Wilson Fisk’s tampering, no such thing existed.

But Tensen believed he had changed enough to alter that future.

His gaze began to refocus, drifting out of the Alchemax underbelly as Miles’ vision clouded with the multiverse.

He knew what that looked like, and he couldn’t gaze too deeply into it without finding another problem that needed his attention.

This was where he was needed, not another universe. Not yet.

The building collapsed in on itself and he heard a distorted scream strangled scream of pain. It reverberated through multiple universes, but could only be heard by a select few. While the man in question who would one day wear the moniker of The Spot didn’t understand his newfound power, Tensen knew far too well what the man could do with his inter-dimensional gift.

Dr. Johnathan Ohnn was now nearly as powerful as him, but with far less control over his abilities. And a penchant for pain with too much anger bottling up inside of him. If this was a different event, maybe he would reconsider Ohnn’s interpersonal life after this incident.

But he knew the chances of changing the man’s life after his accident with rewriting his genetic code were slim.

Because “the Spot” as he would come to be known would tell a different story to young Morales. Sure, the larger beats were much the same. The horrific accident altered his body at a microscopic level. He could no longer work at Alchemax. But the man left out his attitude and his bitterness. Ohnn didn’t expand on why his friends and family abandoned him, why they couldn’t help a man who was so far sunk into his own misery he just wanted to drag everyone else down, too.

Lying to the teenaged Spider-Man was easier than accepting the truth: that his altered appearance didn’t drive away those closest to him, he did it himself.

The Spot had deluded himself into believing a narrative that fit so perfectly to his own feelings of persecution he refused to even flirt with the idea that he was accountable for his own actions.

Unlike other damaged ex-Alchemax employees Tensen could name.

For all of Miguel’s faults, at least he had never had the audacity to believe himself above his actions.

Tensen smirked, opening a portal to cross the river to the ruins of Alchemax. He glanced up at the freshly webbed up Kingpin left with a cheeky sign for the PDNY. The man didn’t go around checking in on too many other Spider universes, knowing the dangers in wandering, but it was always nice to see another Spider gain their confidence.

“Nice job, kid,” Tensen called out to the young Spider-Man, trying to keep from chuckling at the startled expression on Miles’ face.

“Uh… thanks, sir?” he tilted his head.

“Keep an eye out, things like this tend to have… ripple effects,” the man said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miles webbed down from the nearby building, giving the man an up-down, trying to figure out his motives, no doubt.

“Be careful. Spider-Man makes enemies, in every universe. Including this one,” he continued, unperturbed by Miles’ staring.

“…right.”

“It’ll be different this time. I promise,” John said, trying to keep his voice even.

No reason for Miles to know about a future that was never going to happen.

“And that’s my limit for weirdly creepy sentiments! Have a good night, man,” Miles gave him a little wave, before thwip -ing away again.

John laughed to himself, waving a hand before an indigo portal appeared before him. With a final look at 1610, he walked through, his eyes glowing the same violet hue.

—x—

For a moment after the door shut to the office, not a sound could be heard except the slow tick-tick-tick of the holographic clock projected onto Stone’s wall.

Miguel didn’t know if it was better if he spoke first or not.

His brother gave the door another look, as if half-convinced Xina would reappear.

“She’s giving us privacy, Gabri,” he answered the unasked question.

“Uh huh.”

“I know her segue wasn’t great, but…”

“How many universes, Miguel?”

Miguel tilted his head.

Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“How many universes… are we not brothers?”

“We are brothers, Gabriel—“

His brother shook his head.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Miguel answered, crossing his arms.

“Really?” Gabriel raised a brow.

“Contrary to what you think, I don’t enjoy self-flagellation.”

Gabriel stared down at a scuff in his boot, unwilling to meet his gaze.

“But doesn’t that mean something? Something about us and our family?”

He understood where Gabriel was coming from, it was a philosophy Miguel himself had wanted to hold true. That there was something intrinsic in him that made him this way, that kept creating certain events and that there was no other way things could be.

But that wasn’t true.

The timeline of their lives meant an infinite number of choices could be made and those choices stemmed from other choices, et cetera to ad nauseam.

…and fine, maybe he had wanted some proof that everything that happened to him was for some shocking reason. He had never wanted this power, this abnormal life that would not let him rest or reconsider. Because once he fell out of that window, nothing was the same.

Miguel had wanted to know if the only way he wretched himself out of Tyler’s iron-clad hold was through Spider-Man.

It wasn’t always the catalyst.

His accident in the transformation chamber had altered the course of his life.

His life.

Not every single Miguel’s life, but his.

And the same held true of his and Gabriel’s relationship.

The way the splintered multiverse worked, it wasn’t always the most distinct choices that changed a life. Sometimes it was little moments, or multiple moments piled together.

A world where he wasn’t sent to Alchemax Prep, for instance.

But then he never met Xina.

Both him and Gabriel went to public school and his father drove them apart regardless, still seeing one son above the other.

And sure, there was a world where the exact opposite happened.

Another where Conchata was the catalyst to the destruction of their relationship.

But that didn’t matter. There wasn’t a set pattern.

Like he said – he had done the research.

“I know it may seem like there’s a set structure to our lives,” Miguel started, giving Gabriel a pleading look, “but statistically, there isn’t. There can’t be one. Infinity means infinity, Gabri.”

“But why one where you’re Spider-Man and that ruins everything?”

Miguel scoffed.

“Would we really call this guy S-Man?”

Gabriel gave him a look.

“…as far as this place is concerned, it’s still connected to Tyler and his obsessive need for power.”

“Fine. But what about back home?”

Miguel felt his talons extend and his heart rate increase.

“You think me being S-Man ruined everything?”

Gabriel bit his tongue, cursing. “That’s not what I meant. I mean… shock, well, our lives didn’t exactly get any easier with you being S-Man, right?”

Miguel frowned.

“Gabriel, I can’t just pick and choose when I have to web across town. I wish more than anybody else that I didn’t have to, but that wasn’t in the cards I was dealt.”

His brother fixed him with another look, something he couldn’t read.

“So… this really was never an ego thing, was it?”

Miguel sighed.

“No, Gabri.”

His little brother exhaled, wiping a hand down his face.

“But the smarter-than-you ego thing that was real, right?”

“Only so much as to get you to leave me alone. Didn’t work,” Miguel said.

Gabriel grumbled under his breath, pacing back and forth.

“I don’t understand why you were so dead-set on doing that, Miggy.”

“Trust me, if you were in my head, it would have made perfect sense,” Miguel replied easily.

Gabriel scoffed.

“Mind letting me in sometime?”

Miguel’s face darkened.

“Trust me, you really don’t want that.”

“I am sorry, Mig,” Gabriel said after a long pause.

“Can you stop apologizing already? It’s making me uncomfortable,” Miguel joked.

“But I am sorry. I can’t believe it took me traveling to another dimension to get it through my shocking head but… I was so deep into my own troubles with Pa and even Ma sometimes I just… couldn’t even imagine you having problems. You were the perfect son,” Gabriel crossed his arms.

Miguel sighed, something uneasy spreading through him.

“Gabriel, it’s the past. We can’t do anything about it. They both saw what they wanted to see in both of us. And… a part of me was resigned to it. That’s just how my life was, and if it meant you did get a childhood? If it meant protecting you from the worst of our parents? I would do it all again.”

His brother clicked his tongue, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I know it’s the past, but I’m pretty sure talking about it will help our future.”

He tried to stop himself from scoffing at his brother’s fortune cookie statement, but he failed.

“Come on, Miggy. I’ve said some pretty shitty stuff to you. And yeah, maybe you can be selfish, but… not in the ways I thought you were. Not in the ways that really mattered.”

For so many months, Miguel had gotten it stuck in his mind that because of his failures as Spider-Man, he had lost his brother. He failed to stop Kron, and Dana lost her life. Every time he thought a moment too long about the scathing looks his brother had shot his way at his funeral he would spiral so far down he couldn’t find his way back up again.

And here Gabriel was, knowing as much of the truth about their childhood as Miguel bothered remembering and… apologizing.

Maybe a younger version of Miguel would feel vindicated or self-righteous.

Instead… he was just tired.

What he had understood to be fact for so much of his life had caused earth-shattering changes in both Gabriel and Xina.

And here he stood… nearly apathetic to it all.

“Miguel?”

He was pulled from his thoughts, reminded his brother was standing across from him, looking for some kind of sign his older brother understood what he meant.

“It’s hard for me, Gabri. This is something I’ve just accepted as an abject truth for so long. The sky is blue. The stove top burns you. And our parents saw me as a means to an end. So… even if I will eventually be relieved you see our family for what it was, right now it’s just… background noise. To everything else wrong I have to fix,” the older brother explained, sighing as he finished his last sentence.

Gabriel’s brow furrowed, but whatever thoughts he had about Miguel’s explanation he kept to himself.

“Okay, Miggy.”

Miguel raised a hand, expecting Gabriel to shake on it.

Instead, the younger O’Hara pulled him in for a hug.

“You know I don’t think you’re the same as Miguel Stone, right?” Gabriel murmured into his shoulder.

“Obviously. My sense of style is way better,” Miguel smirked.

“He’s evil and happy, though. Makes you think,” Gabriel replied, pulling away from the hug with a smile on his face.

“Bigger jerk than me, though,” he said.

“Oh yeah, huge.”

“But this Gabriel does get to live out your Virtual Unreality dreams,” Miguel pointed out, holding back a laugh at Gabriel’s comically large frown.

“Not fair,” he pouted.

“Wait,” Miguel started, a question rising to the tip of his tongue, “if you’re with me, where did you leave Miguel Stone?”

Gabriel shrugged.

“He said something about wanting to expand his horizons.”

Miguel stared at him.

“And that didn’t sound ominous or anything to you?”

“I dunno, Mig! He’s evil! Everything he says sounds ominous!”

Miguel groaned, wiping a hand down his face.

“Let’s go make sure he’s just being ominous and not anything else,” he said, pulling Gabriel along with him out of Stone’s office. 

“I mean, if we’re in here, it’s not like he could be amorally plotting anywhere else, right?” 

Miguel rolled his eyes.

“You absolutely are giving me and Xina that two month vacation when we get back.” 

—x—

Gabriella let out another long, deep sigh, spinning around in the office chair Dr. Kwan had shoved in her general direction.

“If you hadn’t given up on the sudoku you wouldn’t be bored,” the woman said, rolling her eyes.

The girl gave the woman a hard stare, knowing that the doctor had a few places she would rather be than in her own office with an alternate version of herself’s child.

And Gabriella had a hypothesis she needed to test.

So if she could just convince Dr. Kwan to leave her alone, she could fix one of the many problems her mother’s lookalikes had uncovered.

…or at least try.

If she could maneuver her watch, timing her return to her universe just right she could stop her mother from ever going after Tyler Stone. And then all of this could be avoided! No problems in any Nueva York-adjacent universes, here or otherwise.

That trench coat guy had said her mother was the key, and this had to be what he had meant, right?

Dr. Kwan sauntered over to her chair and she kept her face as neutral as she could, hoping the woman didn’t see any lingering ideas in her eyes.

“Want to share with the class?” the woman raised a brow.

“Huh?”

“I’m not stupid, child. And I know what someone’s face looks like when they are considering something exceptionally stupid.”

Gabriella glared at her.

“What makes you think I’m gonna do something stupid?”

“You’re not mine, but I still see myself in you. And your brow furrows the same way as Miguel’s when he’s doing something stupid,” Dr. Kwan said.

The girl pressed her lips into a hard line, annoyed that she couldn’t hold her composure long enough to leave.

“…can you pretend you didn’t notice any of that?” she asked.

Dr. Kwan scoffed, shaking her head before giving a long glance to her office doors. The woman made a bee-line for her desktop, seemingly changing her focus from Gabriella to the computer.

For a few minutes, the only sounds were Dr. Kwan scrolling through something. And as Gabriella peered over her shoulder, she saw security footage placing the other four adult variations of her family in unrelated rooms.

“…hello?”

The woman sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before muttering something unintelligible under her breath.

“I think I can—!”

“No, do not tell me. I don’t want to know. But do you think your plan will work?”

Gabriella hesitated, considering the question.

“I think it could undo everything that’s happened,” she said after a moment.

Dr. Kwan crossed her arms.

“Really?”

The girl felt her wrist vibrate, no doubt LY-LA calculating the odds of her success rate.

“Really,” Gabriella said.

“Okay,” the woman said, shrugging.

“Okay? I can leave?” 

“Yes.”

“Really, really?” Gabriella squinted at her.

“Yes,” Dr. Kwan sighed.

“Oh… okay,” the girl nodded to herself. 

“Okay,” Dr. Kwan gave her a sarcastic thumbs up.

She shrugged it off, deciding this lady’s terrible sense of humor wasn’t as important as saving her entire universe.

“See ya!”

Dr. Kwan ignored her, already having picked up the discarded sudoku puzzle. Gabriella hurried out the doors of the office, pulling up LY-LA’s calculations on her watch.

They weren’t… the best.

“For the record, I don’t advise this course of action,” LY-LA said.

“Our watch is more precise! We just enter in the coordinates, set the time to right before Mom goes to Alchemax and none of this ever happens,” Gabriella said sternly.

“Doesn’t this go against everything John Tensen told you?”

“He said Mom was the key. Maybe he did mean the 928 version of her, but timelines change. We can change the timeline! We don’t need this other version. They all…. have enough problems on their own.”

LY-LA snorted.

“What?”

“That’s what humans do. They have problems,” LY-LA said.

Gabriella scoffed, surprised at the holo-agent’s response.

“There’s a difference between having problems and putting entire universes at risk because of your own selfish behavior,” she said.

“Grief makes people act irrationally,” LY-LA responded, a glint in her eye.

That snapped what little restraint she was working with, the frustration bubbling up inside again.

“Not my parents!”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re upset at the possibility your mother could be what undid time and space back home,” LY-LA realized.

Gabriella wiped her eyes with her fists, refusing to look at the holo-agent. 

“Mom is… she wouldn’t do something like that. She’s the smartest person alive, she would know the consequences of something like this!” 

“And she loves your father. So she would do anything to get him back, Gabriella.” 

A part of her knew it was true, even if the rest of her was angry beyond reason.

“It’s not fair! My parents didn’t cheat or ruin their lives or shut out Uncle Gabri! They didn’t do anything wrong.” 

LY-LA clicked her tongue, “I think you’re giving your parents too much credit.”

Gabriella frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean, LY-LA? I thought you didn’t give opinions.”

LY-LA fixed her with a look of hesitation.

“This is not an opinion, this is fact. I run security in the house. I hear and see everything, Gabriella. Your mother was running secret universe-splitting experiments while your father was tinkering around with DNA fragments of the original Spider-Man. And they never told each other,” LY-LA pointed out.

She faltered, never considering those points.

How could she?

Gabriella had run from universe to universe trying to stop this for weeks.

She was followed around by a cryptically annoying old guy who refused to elaborate the finer details of his worries about the multiverse.

And now she was here, with multiple versions of her parents and even her uncle.

But that didn’t convince her she needed them, either.

“Fine, every version of my parents and my uncle are a telenovela. Wouldn’t that stand to reason why I need them even less?” she crossed her arms.

LY-LA shook her head, muttering something about “stubbornness.”

“Fine. We’ll do this your way. We’ll go back, see if you can stop your mother from ever going back there that day,” said LY-LA, “It’s not the worst plan, but the success rate rapidly increases if you take your soap opera stars with you.”

Gabriella clicked LY-LA off, too mad to respond to the holo-agent.

LY-LA didn’t understand why she felt she had to do this herself.

She tapped away on her gizmo, pressing a bit too hard at every number as her brow twitched.

“I’ll show her! I don’t need help. I can do this all on my own. I’m the smartest kid in my class, the daughter of two of Nueva York’s brightest,” she muttered.

She turned on the portal, walking through it and ignoring the briefest moment of trepidation that passed through her.

The universe changed around her, spinning through a familiar vortex.

But something shifted mid-way.

Gabriella wasn’t on course, she pulled her gizmo closer to her face, alarmed at the blink-and-you-miss-it change to her coordinates.

She tumbled through less than gracefully, face-planting into what she thought was the wall. Gabriella groaned, raising her head only to realize she hadn’t run into a wall. It was a force-field.

This wasn’t right.

She was supposed to turn up outside her family’s apartment building, stopping her mother before she went to confront Tyler Stone.

Instead she was on a circular platform, unable to leave due to the force field surrounding the entire circumference of the space.

“…huh?” she squinted, feeling disoriented as a mysterious blue gas filled the top of the containment area.

“Gabriella! Gabriella! You didn’t reach 928B,” LY-LA’s voice came from her wrist.

“What?”

“I can’t get a geographic read. You’re in 928, but I c-c-c—,”

LY-LA disappeared.

She felt too woozy to stand, leaning back on the force field and raising a hand to her temple.


Everything was fading away.

“Quite the strong-willed little creature, aren’t you? Especially for being the child of someone so easily pushed around like Mike. Half this amount knocked Kron unconscious. Oh, well. Winston, raise the dosage.”

The last thing she saw before everything went dark was the glint of a toothy smile and triumphant, malicious eyes.