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cordeliawhohung · 8 months

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From My Corner of the Universe: Lunar Lullabies

Chapter Four: Blue

my master list

warnings: another chill chapter. miguel is an ass. more world building because i'm an idiot.

wc: 4.8k

Miguel struggles to find a way to send you home, and the longer you stay there, the more conflicted you become about being there in the first place. At least the food is nice.

Really, you shouldn’t have been as surprised as you were when they tossed you in that same containment field Alan Stryker had captured you in before. Yet, you had expected better from people who claimed to be so hellbent on getting you home. The red hue surrounded you completely, obscuring your vision with the color and completely trapping you. All you really had the space for was sitting with your legs crossed, elbows against your knees as you held your head up with the palms of your hands.

Despite what Lyla said, who you learned was an A.I., Miguel didn’t fully believe your DNA was unrecognizable. He ended up rebooting the entire system and sending some other anomaly home. It was a terrifying sight, but you found some sort of solace in realizing that they didn’t seem to be in any pain as they were seemingly disintegrated before your eyes. Yet every time you stepped foot on that platform, the screen would light up with that same, annoying red color.

Error. Error. Error.

So to the containment field you went, stuck in some room off to the side, shoved with other anomalies who were taken out of the room one by one to be sent home. Couldn’t have killed them to give you a chair or something, or even something to do. The longer you sat there, the more angry you became, and so you tried to focus on something else, yet your mind kept wandering back to how you even ended up there in the first place.

How Cronus tried to kill you, how Alan Stryker beat him to death. Despite how chivalrous he seemed then, he ended up being the one to drag you to that place. That… different earth. You were still trying to wrap your mind around it. Avi was a science nerd, and it was the subject that she taught to her students down in The Blue; interdimensional travel was something she would spew about every now and then.

You could only imagine the look on her face if she ever found out it was real.

The heavy stomping of boots took you out of your mind, and you found your gaze lifting from the ground of the containment field and up to the area around you. You weren’t surprised to see another spider person wandering about, though you were taken aback by their appearance.

This version of Spider-Man sported the classic red and blue colors that a majority of the others did, and his suit was pretty plain. But there were tons of different things he added on, like a sleeveless leather vest, and a spiky mohawk protruding from the top of his mask, down along the back of his head. Studs adorned his vest and suit alike, as well as buttons and patches that you couldn’t quite make out.

Your eyes watched him carefully as he meandered between containment fields. At first you thought he was going to grab another anomaly to send home, but he seemed rather content on just looking at them before moving onto the next field. Honestly, you couldn’t blame him for his curiosity in the types of people and creatures trapped there. Before he arrived, they had taken away a three headed dog, a man with robotic wings attached to his back, and a guy who seemed to be made of sand. Total freaks of nature lined up one by one to be gawked at.

Apparently you were no exception.

With how interesting everything else was in that room compared to you, you were expecting the man to walk right by you. So when he stopped walking and crouched down to your height, you were completely caught off guard. Head still in your hands, you tilted your gaze up to meet his, attempting to look at his face as best as you could through his mask. Those pure white eye coverings were a little off putting to look at. His silence was only infuriating.

“You know, usually when people stare at me this much they at least give me a good tip,” you barked.

He didn’t seem at all threatened by your annoyed tone, and in fact he took it as an invitation to mirror your crossed leg sitting position. His head tilted to the side, almost as if he were a child.

“You don’t belong here, do you?” he asked. His accent caught you off guard. It was the type that you had only really heard in movies or on shows. He hardly even pronounced the H in the word ‘here.’

“So I’ve been told,” you muttered, yet still refusing to take your eyes off of him. “Several times, in fact. People seem to consider me something of a nuisance.”

“No, I mean here,” he corrected, reaching a hand out and poking against the red barrier that trapped you. “You’re the one with the unrecognizable DNA, right?”

Well, it was better than being called an anomaly. There was something different about this Spider-Man. Unlike the others, he didn’t treat you as if you were some sort of burden, and he wasn’t talking down to you as if you were too stupid to understand what was going on. Though it was all extremely confusing, it wasn’t like anyone was being helpful in telling you what was going on.

“Word travels fast here,” you said, pulling your chin away from your hands and straightening your posture.

The man hummed in response as he placed his hands on his knees. He rocked backwards a little bit, but his eyes didn’t seem to leave you.

“It does whenever Miguel’s mad, anyway.”

Miguel. From what you were able to gather, he seemed to be the mastermind behind whatever organization you found yourself in the midst of. He came off rather grumpy, and sick of everyone’s shit, and he certainly was less than thrilled to figure out sending you home was going to be more of a challenge than it was for everyone else.

“Yeah, it seems as if I really threw a wrench in his day,” you said, a slight grin creeping across your face.

“Good,” he said, his grin evident in the tone of his voice.

The man reached up and quickly pulled off his mask in one movement, revealing to you that he was hardly a grown man at all. He looked to be in his late teens, early twenties at most. His face matched the style of the rest of his clothes with piercings that could rival the amount of Avi’s. Eyebrows, nose, lip, ears, everything was glinting with silver. Dark locks of hair sat on his head in thick dreads that bounced slightly as shoved his mask into the pocket of his vest.

“Hobie Brown. Earth-138,” he introduced himself.

You suddenly found yourself regretting the rude way you greeted him earlier, and you quickly tried to remedy that by offering him your name in return. He really was just a kid, or at least younger than you, and he was the first person in that damned building that at least pretended to take an actual interest in you.

“You were found on 1717, right? Means Stryker probably brought you here, yeah?” Hobie asked.

A sour scoff left your throat at the mention of his name. He had gone from the hero of Digi York, to Lucia’s secret crush, to the man who saved your life, to the idiot who brought you unwillingly to a different dimension all within the span of a single day. You were less than happy with him.

“Unfortunately,” you confirmed.

“Yeah, that one really gets on my wick,” Hobie said. The slang was lost on you, but something told you he was certainly in agreement that Spider-Man 1717 was a pain in the ass. “How long have you been in there?”

His question stumped you, and you quickly realized you really didn’t know how to answer him. Since you woke up strapped to that bed, time seemed to move all too fast and too slow at the same time. It wasn’t like there was a clock in the room for you to count the passing seconds.

“Right,” Hobie continued, taking your silence as an answer, “and I assume that means you haven’t eaten yet, either?”

Those spider people had to have had some sort of sixth sense or something. Really, food and water was the furthest thing from your mind at that point. Anxiety had been the only thing fueling you throughout the day, and the pain of hunger had been just a simple after thought.

“I imagine they’ll be shoveling the scraps to me any moment now with how long they’ve kept me caged up like an animal,” you joked with a dry laugh.

A small hum of a chuckle came from Hobie and you could see the beginnings of a mischievous smirk begin to pull at his lips. It had that devious, child-like charm that you’d expect to see on Lucia just before she pulled one of her infamous pranks on Dom. His eyes then focused on a watch on his wrist. You realized that it was the same watch your Spider-Man, Alan Stryker, wore. A screen on the face of the watch flashed, lighting up Hobie’s face, and suddenly the field around you vanished.

Without the red color to filter the light around you, everything looked painfully blue. You blinked your eyes rapidly as you attempted to get your vision to adjust, and though it had gotten better, it still wasn’t quite there fully.

“Whoops,” Hobie exclaimed in a completely guilty tone. He stood off of the ground and gently put his hands in the air. “Looks like the containment field malfunctioned… what a pity.”

For the first time in hours you were able to fully stretch your body. You first started with your arms, reaching them high above your head before pushing yourself to your feet. Your knees were painfully stiff, and every muscle in your body ached similar to how it did earlier when you had first woken up. Once you were fully standing up, Hobie turned around and began to walk towards the exit.

“Well, since you’re free, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to grab some grub,” he said, tossing a look at you from over his shoulder.

It was obvious he was trying to get you to follow him, and you were going to, but there was something stirring in your gut telling you to think twice. This was a strange place to you, quite literally a whole new world, and you found your mind flashing to Miguel. You weren’t exactly in a rush to try and have him sink his teeth into you again, as your shoulder was still throbbing slightly from the first time. But if you “escaping” from your containment field added onto the burdens he had to deal with for the day, then that was good enough for you.

With an extra pep in your step, you quickly followed behind Hobie as he led you away from the room, leaving behind the other remaining anomalies. The darkness of the room you were in slowly faded as you traveled back to fluorescent lights and wide hallways. The large windows that lined one side of the hallway no longer showed the bright blue sky but instead something else entirely.

Clouds had rolled in, attempting to smother the sky as the earth turned away from the sun, but its light only blessed them with brilliant oranges and purples. It was nothing like the sunsets back on 1717, and you found yourself pausing for a moment to look at the scenery in front of you. The way the clouds held the color so well was astounding. You wished you hadn’t killed your phone with the EMP.

Hobie caught sight of your stare, and he backtracked so that he was standing next to you. For a moment his eyes were focused on you, the curiosity in them evident before he turned to look at the view with you.

“First time seeing an actual sunset?” he asked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his vest.

“Was it that obvious?” you chuckled.

“Stryker had the same reaction as you.”

It took everything in you to hold back a sour laugh. With how much of an ass he was being, you had to remember that he was once as clueless as you. Still, it would have been nice if the guy empathized with you more because of it.

“If you think this is great, wait until you see the cafeteria,” Hobie said, taking off once more and waving you along with him.

The thing that caught your attention first as you neared the large cafeteria was the smell. It was strong, and almost overwhelming, but there was no doubting the fact that it smelt good. Hundreds of scents blended together seamlessly in a way that made it difficult to tell what exactly you were smelling. Even if you were able to smell them all separately, you knew that it probably wouldn’t have been anything close to what you would recognize back home.

Though the scent of it was mouth watering, the sight of it was something completely different. Kiosks where workers would make sandwiches with the most fresh looking bread you had ever seen in your life. Ripe produce that still glistened with water, and tangy smelling dressings to put over salads. Everything you looked at seemed fresh, and most importantly, real.

“Is this where you eat?” you asked in awe, looking at the area around you.

“Well, not all the time,” Hobie said, leading you further into the room. “But go on, grab what you want.”

Whatever you wanted? With that kind of permission you were certain you were going to eat half of the food in that place.

“Are you sure? I mean, fuck, this stuff’s gotta cost a fortune,” you side, eyeing the bar of fresh vegetables.

Hobie threw you a confused look, and you had to stop yourself from bashing your head against the wall. Of course it didn’t cost a fortune. And of course he was sure. Clear blue skies, and the lack of Infinity Fires probably meant that this world had a better sustainable food source than the heavily modified and processed cardboard you had to choke down normally.

And you weren’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Soon you sat across a table from Hobie with about two plates full of food. Really, you couldn’t just try one thing, and Hobie certainly didn’t help in minimizing the amount of food you grabbed. Fresh fruits, vegetables, samples of sandwiches, desserts and so much more piled up high upon your two plates. You looked at them with wide eyes as you scanned through the food, trying to figure out what to eat first.

“This one,” Hobie said. He had taken notice of your indecisiveness and pointed his finger to one of the dessert items. Two, small but fluffy chocolate chip cookies shoved together with what you assumed was a type of frosting in the middle. “Always gotta start with dessert first.”

Following his recommendation, you picked the dessert up and quickly took a bite out of it. The moistness of the cookies mixed with the creamy texture of the frosting coated your tongue in a wave of sweetness that had you instantly diving in for another bite. After that, your hunger was insatiable. Apple slices that snapped as you bit into them, some fruit called watermelon that was so juicy you nearly choked in surprise, roasted chicken that had seasonings you never tasted in your life. Even the produce or food items you recognized from home tasted remarkably better than you remembered.

Hobie didn’t even need to ask how you liked it, as the content was evident on your face. A small smile appeared on his face as he bit into his sub sandwich while watching you enjoy the various food items you had only ever dreamed of tasting before.

“So,” he spoke up with a mouthful of food, “they say you’re not from 1717, right? But you seem to know the place pretty well. How’s that?”

You were about to shove a strawberry into your mouth when he asked that question, but you stopped right as it was about to hit your lips. You had almost forgotten the whole reason why you were in that place to begin with. An anomaly. Not belonging to the earth you grew up on and unfortunately called home.

“Stryker kept calling me an anomaly. That doctor, Elizabeth or whatever, kept trying to tell me I didn’t belong on 1717, but I grew up there. Spent my entire life there. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what mistakes have been made, between that and your machines not being able to recognize my DNA, but I swear I’ve never seen another earth in my entire life.” You paused for a moment as you tried to stab a grape with your fork. “Well, until now, anyway.”

Hobie nodded his head as he finished up the last few bites of his sandwich. With his hands now free, he leaned his elbows on the table, his posture curving as he leaned closer to you.

“Things were never weird for you on 1717? Nothing glitched? Nothing felt like you were about to phase out of reality?” he asked.

“Maybe when I get really drunk,” you snorted. However, when you paid closer attention to the look on his face, you realized he was serious. “What… exactly is glitching, anyway? That doctor told me this wristband was the only thing keeping me from glitching but she didn’t really explain it… no one’s explained jack shit to me, actually.”

You looked back down at your plate and saw that you had eaten just about half of everything that you had grabbed. At that point you were completely stuffed, but throwing away food that good felt like a waste, so you forced yourself to eat more.

“To explain it in layman's terms,” Hobie started, “traveling between dimensions isn’t exactly easy on the body. It always wants to return to the original reality for you, and so your body does this thing called glitching. Think of it like when you’re trying to change between channels on the telly, but you’ve got bad signal so it’s all fuzzy. Your body physically glitches out. It’s normally not painful or anything, but it feels weird.”

Every word that just came out of his mouth sounded made up, but the look on his face was too serious to be joking. Never in your entire life had you experienced anything like what he had just explained to you.

“Nothing like that ever happened to me back home,” you tell him truthfully.

For a moment the two of you were quiet. Most of the cafeteria had cleared out by that point, and you were sure the sun had set fully by that point. Your stomach was stuffed with about as much food as you could handle, and your brain was much too tired and foggy to try and process any other new information for that day.

But just like on Earth-1717, you would receive no breaks.

“Hobie!”

Both you and the named boy turned your heads towards the cafeteria entrance to find Miguel marching towards the two of you. Any other soul still left in that room also jumped at the mere shout, and anyone who was smart slowly began to pack up their items before leaving. His height and brooding stare alone was enough to set off the fight or flight feeling in your stomach, but it was a whole different feeling watching his towering stature race towards you and Hobie.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Miguel asked, his brows furrowed at the boy across from you.

Hobie used both of his hands to gesture to the plates in front of you before saying, “eating. Care to join us?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Miguel snapped, shaking a finger at the boy like he was a mother scolding a child. “I wasn’t aware that we were letting anomalies out without authorization, now. Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“She’s got a name, you know,” Hobie retorted as he glanced at you. Though his voice was still relaxed, there was a bit more of a bite to his tone. His eyes then wandered down to the plates of food in front of you. You had done a good job eating a majority of it, but you had gotten so much it was physically impossible for you to eat any more. He pulled the plate towards him and started picking at the rest of the fruit you couldn’t stomach.

For a moment, Miguel actually seemed to take Hobie’s words into consideration, and he glanced over at you before turning a glare back at the boy.

“Taking her out of the containment field was risky, and you shouldn’t have done it,” Miguel continued.

“I didn’t take her out of there, it malfunctioned,” Hobie said with a shrug.

Miguel opened his mouth to say something but sighed instead. His hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he muttered under his breath.

“The point is, I was coming to take her elsewhere, and you moved her. At least notify someone before you do something like that,” Miguel huffed as his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where are you taking me?” you spoke up.

It was almost as if you weren’t even there, or Miguel wasn’t aware you could speak. He looked at you, confused before he glanced down at something in his hands. It was another wristband of sorts, but this one seemed different than the one you were already wearing. It was more rigid, similar to a cuff.

“Someplace more comfortable than a containment field,” Miguel spoke. His tone was… off. It was the first time that he spoke in a way that didn’t seem frustrated, despite how much of a reputation he seemed to have for being angry. The man looked back at you and clicked a button on the cuff. The device opened and he held it out towards you. “Here, put this on.”

Wary of what it was, you found your gaze drifting to Hobie. His expression was hard to read, but if you had to put a name on it, you would have guessed he was somewhat annoyed. Still, he caught your gaze, and understood your apprehension. He gave you a small nod, as if telling you to follow along.

“It’s a tracker, of sorts,” Miguel explained as you took it from him. “Makes sure Hobie doesn’t get you in any more trouble. It’ll notify me if you leave the building, so try not to wander.”

It took everything in you to hold back a snarky comment, but you put the device around your wrist anyway. When you snapped it shut, it locked with a gentle beep. It was tight enough that you wouldn’t be able to get it off your wrist, but not so much that it hurt. Still, it was bulky enough to be frustrating.

“Have you figured out the issue about my DNA, or whatever?” you asked, messing with the cuff. You had hardly got it on and you were already wanting to take it off.

“Not yet, but we’ll work more on that later. Lyla’s working on it for now,” Miguel answered before turning his attention back to Hobie. “Since you enjoy leading… people around, why don’t you show her to the temp living spaces?”

Hobie hummed in agreement as he quickly stood from the table, the almost empty plate in his hands. He turned to you and offered a small smile before nodding his head towards the exit.

“Tomorrow then,” you said as you followed Hobie’s lead. “Hopefully that damn machine will be fixed and you guys can send me back to 1717.”

If Miguel gave you a look, you weren’t able to see it as your back was quickly turned to him. Hobie continued to snack on the extra food left on your plate as he led you out of the cafeteria and back into the hallways.

You should have been glad to finally be able to sleep, especially with the day you had, but you were more frustrated than anything else. Or maybe you were just confused. Avi and Nova were waiting for you back home, not knowing what had happened to you, and you were certain they were worried sick, especially after everything that happened with Cronus. Yet you found yourself in a different world, a better world.

One that you knew they couldn’t follow you to.

Eventually you found yourself standing in a small room that was akin to a studio apartment. A simple plain bed, a kitchenette, a small bathroom, all painted a plain white. There was no glow of any neon lights that Avi had strung up around the living room, or fake plants Nova had stolen from some corner store; it was empty.

“Should be some more of those temp clothes in the dresser there,” Hobie said as he set the remainder of your dinner on the nightstand next to the bed. “Should be a variety of sizes, but I’m sure there’s more somewhere if you need it. Also, I’ll just leave this here. Midnight snack, yeah?”

A polite smile crossed your lips as Hobie shoved his hands into his pockets and began to wander towards the exit. There was a relaxing aura about him, and despite everything that had happened to you that day, no not just that day but that week, he managed to calm your nerves about everything going down.

“Thanks, Hobie. For everything,” you said, standing by the bed.

Hobie stood in the doorway of the room and glanced at you from over his shoulder. “Sure. I’ll come find you sometime tomorrow.”

With that, you were alone again.

Apparently spider people didn’t have a need for any comfortable pajamas, or at least it looked that way as you tore the dresser apart, unable to find anything except for the same baggy sweatpants and plain shirts. Sighing, you decided to strip down to just your undergarments before turning the lights off and casting your small temporary living space in darkness.

The bed smelt stale but it felt clean nonetheless as you sunk down onto the mattress. Thin blankets covered it, but you weren’t complaining as it wasn’t really all that cold anyway.

As you began to settle into bed, you became aware of a slight glow coming from the other side of the room. White curtains covered a window, and despite the cloth being in the way, light from outside continued to fight to seep into the building. Curious, you tore a blanket off of the bed and wrapped it around your body as you stood up, your bare feet gently trotting on the hardwood floor beneath you.

When you moved the curtains to the side you were greeted with a city view much different from what you were used to in The Blue. Which you weren’t really sure why you were so surprised at the lack of lights. Sure, there were still some, but since the city of Nueva York wasn’t nearly as dense as Digi York, the lights were more of a soft yellow glow than an assaulting, blue hue.

Your gaze shifted upwards, expecting to find the stars sprawled out in front of you, but you were instead greeted by a dark, black sky. A part of you was a little upset about that, but whatever disappointment you felt was quickly washed away when your eyes caught sight of the moon.

The moon on 1717 was a blood red on nights when the smog didn’t completely snuff it out. Smoke from the never ending fires turned both the moon and sun that terrible color. But as you learned earlier that day, the sun really was yellow, and you thought that the moon would have been the same color, but it was a beautiful, dazzling white instead.

Suddenly, it made sense why jewelry of the moon was made of silver instead of gold.

You stood there for a long while, staring at it. The crescent shape of it was burning into your retinas; you had no idea it was so bright. You loved and adored everything about it, from the dimples of its creators, and its silvery sheen.

Damn. You really wished you had your phone.

“Io, huh?” you wondered out loud. You pulled the blanket tighter around your body as you turned around to lay back down, not bothering to close the curtains behind you. “I think my pick would be the moon.”

tags: @ashableketchup

ngl i totally fucked up my tag list so if you wanted to be tagged in this and i didn't yell at me or smth a;lskdfj

#it has been brought to my attention that i haven't updated the story here lmao #i promise to one day fully get back into this i just def bit off more than i could chew with this series #i'll post the other part here tomorrow #miguel x reader #miguel x you #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel x fem!reader #miguel o'hara x fem!reader

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