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renaroo · 4 years

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Resonance (2/15)

Disclaimer: Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and associated characters are the creative property of Marvel Comics. Into the Spider-Verse and associated characters are creative property of Sony Pictures. Both of these things and neither of them are true, all I ask is to not be sued. Warnings: Teen Angst, Pregnancy, Mourning Pairings: PeterxMJ in many forms Rating: T Synopsis: Miles Morales is the brand new Spider-Man with all the responsibilities, burdens, and heartache therein. With the crowds being harder to please and his rogues gallery looking more formidible by each day, Miles doubts his competency as the one and only Spider-Man. At first, he looks to his predecessor’s support group for advice, and what he ends up getting is a lot more complications.

A/N: I am late by a whole day and I absolutely cannot apologize enough for those of you who were waiting for this update yesterday! There is no good excuse. As much as I’m still working and teaching, I had time to get this done before today and the delays were all my own laziness. I am so sorry! Hopefully I’ll get better and back in the swing of writing regular updates and have the next chapter out Friday!

That being said, I had a blast writing this chapter and am so excited to lay the ground work for the larger world Resonance will be taking place in! And I’m grateful for everyone who has shown their support for this fic so far!

Special shout outs to @babybatbrat, @secretlystephaniebrown, and @notatroll7 for their support on tumblr and AO3!! It means so very much, thank you!

Chapter Two: A Visit to Forest Hills

Miles looked into the mirror, hands gripping the sink, and turned his chin slowly side to side.

“This sucks,” he surmised to his reflection. He groaned as he reached up and drug his hands down his face only to predictably flinch at the pain from his bruised jawline.

The bruises on his jaw were molted looking, purpled and pinked shining against his dark skin. It was noticeable, especially in how puffy his neck had grown overnight. But, he supposed, it at least wasn’t over his cheek or one of his eyes. That would have been near impossible to cover.

Sighing, Miles looked over and poked suspiciously at the scarf Ganke had offered him.

His thoughts on the scarf did not have too much time to develop, however, as the bathroom door came swinging open. Said roommate shouldered on in, carrying a load of books and papers.

“Hey, man, you need to knock before busting on into places like this!” Miles croaked, voice still sounding off and sore.

“I knew what you were doing in here, you were starring in the mirror and complaining,” Ganke said, putting down the laundry basket full of books and beginning to dump them out on the floor. The moment it was clear, he began picking up the towels sprawled around the tile. He still hadn’t looked up to make eye contact.

“Dude,” Miles groaned, dropping his shoulders to give further effect to his full-body eye roll. “I’m not complaining!” As the eye roll ended, Miles’ shoulders hitched and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. From the new angle, he could see even more of the bruise purpling the skin just beneath his ear. He reached up and tenderly stroked it. “Aw, man.”

Catching himself, Miles glanced down toward Ganke just as Ganke was looking up to raise an eyebrow at him.

Forcing a cough, Miles cleared his throat. “A-anyway, thanks for the scarf. Looks like I’ll definitely be using it today. But maybe I can, like, spider-heal up quick or something.”

Ganke’s brows knitted together in confusion. “You still don’t know all your powers?” he asked critically.

Despite himself, Miles shrugged. “Hey, I had like ten minutes with the first guy and, like, less than a day with everyone else. I’m lucky I learned the web-shooters were mechanical.”

Any time Peter Parker — their Peter Parker — came up in conversation, no matter how casual Miles attempted to make it, Ganke shifted uncomfortably. It was like he suddenly couldn’t get enough room between the two of them when he remembered that Miles was not that Spider-Man.

It was enough to make Miles mildly uncomfortable as well.

“It’s something you’ve got to find out,” Ganke said determinedly. “You’ve gotta find all of this stuff out about your body and your powers and, well, how you don’t end up Spider-Splat. It’s really kind of negligent for you not to, Miles.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Miles said, glancing at the mirror again to get more of a look at the rest of his body.

His jaw had its workout, but it was the rest of Miles’ body that had taken the brunt end of the punishment from his tangling with Electro the day before. And it had definitely been the rest of his body that he had felt that morning after he rolled out of bed an hour later than his morning workout schedule had required.

As far as he and Ganke had been able to determine, there were no broken bones, but Miles’ arms, legs, and ribs were a patchwork of angry bruising.

Worst of all, though, was the ugly open sores on his back, black and red with the skin singed. He had made the mistake of brushing his fingers over it the night before when Ganke was helping him clean them, but he hadn’t attempted again.

“Imagine if that suit wasn’t insulated,” Ganke whistled, his gaze following Miles’ own.

“Dude, after yesterday, I’m not even sure I believe it is,” Miles whined.

“Oh, it definitely is, or else you’d be crispier,” Ganke replied easily, picking up the basket of dirty towels to take out of the bathroom. “Remember those pictures we looked up last night?”

Gagging, Miles shivered. “How could I not, dude? I’m scarred for life now!” He looked worriedly at his back. “Um, hopefully only metaphorically.”

“Look on the bright side,” Ganke offered, shrugging his shoulders. “The worst of it can be covered with your uniform. People may notice you walking stiff, but at least it’s not going to be visible like it is on your face.”

“Yeah, real great,” Miles sighed, finally reaching for his neatly folded uniform on the side of the sink’s basin. “Guess I should think ahead for those situations, though. Never really worried about it before, but I guess that could be something kind of regular if that’s what one of the old Spider-Man’s basic baddies is capable of doing.”

“You could just not get hit,” Ganke deadpanned. “Always the best option in my opinion.”

“Gee, thanks for the stellar advice, man,” Miles grumbled as he pulled on his undershirt. Try as he might maneuver around it, the fabric grazed over the burns and caused a chill of pain to rush outward through his spine. He bit his lip to keep from getting too loud, but couldn’t avoid the rush of strung together expletives from sputtering out of his mouth.

Panting, Miles felt the wave of shock pass him. He opened his eyes to see Ganke’s shocked expression.

Grimacing at himself, Miles finished tenderly pulling down on the rest of his undershirt. “Um. I meant ow.”

“Hmm,” Ganke said in response, leaning back against the doorframe.

“Hey, my dad’s a cop. I’ve picked up a few choice expressions,” Miles defended, grabbing the rest of his uniform.

“It’s not that,” Ganke dismissed, tilting his head curiously. “Did you think about what I said yesterday? About getting some medical-grade supplies to keep in our room for stuff like this? I think it’s going to be a smart move.”

“I thought the best option was to not get hit,” Miles retorted.

“I’m being serious here,” Ganke said in earnest.

“And I’m definitely not using my weekend trip to stock up on my mom’s nursing stuff,” Miles groaned. “Do you know how much she’d freak if she even saw this bruise? I got a scab on my knee once and she had me elevate it and ice it for the rest of the afternoon!”

Ganke hummed again, glancing toward the door to leave. But he lingered instead of making his way out.

“Miles, you gotta get supplies, start being more prepared,” Ganke lectured. “Like with your web-shooters.”

“I know, man,” Miles grunted, popping his head through the cream vest of his uniform and finally putting on the last layers of clothing. “How quick do you think we can whip up replacement fluid in chemistry lab today?”

That caused a sputtering of noise from Ganke before he violently shook his head. “What? No way, dude, I told you. Until I know exactly what I’m doing, I am not going to make that web shooter fluid for you. I don’t want to—“

Throwing his head back, Miles moaned at the ceiling. “I know, I know. You don’t want to be the guy who killed the new Spider-Man. I get it.” He rolled his head carefully, avoiding the sporadic shots of pain from his jaw as much as he could. When he met Ganke’s gaze, he tried to look as emphatic as possible. “If we don’t make our own, though, I’m going to have to go get some. And if I do that, it means I’ll have to, you know,” he motioned with his arms, “go and see, like, her again. And I just don’t know if I can handle that level of awkward.”

“You’re going to have to,” Ganke said pointedly. “And why wouldn’t you want to see her? She seems like a cool old lady. And you said she was supporting you. And made tea. What more could you want?”

“Uh, to not remind an old lady constantly that her nephew-slash-son died and I’m going around wearing his hand-me-downs like a skin suit and taking his identity,” Miles countered quickly. “That’s kind of how I would like to live my life — spider-wise or other — if I could.”

“Well you can’t, at least not today,” Ganke argued, shouldering the door to leave.

Miles was more than prepared to leave the conversation where it stood. He stepped forward, though, and immediately felt his foot slipping from beneath him. Catching himself on the wall, Miles glanced around the floor of the bathroom. Where his foot had been was one of the several notebooks and papers.

“Hey! Wait!” Miles called, just in time to get Ganke to half step back and look over his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Ganke asked back.

“Why’d you throw all my books and stuff on the floor? What was the point of that?”

“Oh, while you were healing up last night, I did some partial work for the classes you skipped the homework for,” Ganke answered nonchalantly. “It’s not everything, but it’s better than zero and failing.”

Miles blinked in surprise. “Whoa, really? I don’t even know what to say to that, dude, that’s really cool of you. And unexpected. Thanks.” He then looked back down to the mess on the floor. “Wait, no, that still didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, I knew the teachers needed to believe it was yours and had been shoved into a backpack overnight, so some wear and tear needed,” Ganke shrugged again.

“You are an evil genius, Ganke Lee,” Miles grinned, bending over to begin picking the books up.

“If I were, you chose a poorly in who to reveal your identity to, gotta say,” Ganke answered, rotating his wrist as he walked on to finish up his morning. “Please don’t ruin my scarf. My mom got it for me.”

“Scarf?” Miles repeated before snapping his fingers. “Oh, right! Good call!”

He grabbed his books from the floor and Ganke’s scarf from the sink counter before finishing up his morning.

From his morning onward, Miles’ school day was a practice in anxiety. More than once, he felt the eyes of his peers falling onto his scarf and looking perplexed or snide over it. It was enough to make the hairs on Miles’ skin stand on edge. He’d whirl around in the halls to see the faces of the people staring at him.

Each time he turned, however, he never found any eyes lingering on his wardrobe. At least not for long enough to equate to the rush of anxiety deep in Miles’ person.

In hindsight, it made sense.

Miles didn’t have many friends at school still, and few would notice a change to his wardrobe which still fell into the dress code.

In fact, Miles saw several scarves and scrunchies worn by students which were out of academy colors and arguably could have been called out but weren’t.

After lunch, Miles’ tension had left his body and he was instead looking more toward the anxiety of his chemistry lab with Ganke. Despite Ganke’s pleas, Miles was determined to talk his roommate into making some web fluid for him. He argued, mostly to himself, that it only made sense to become self-sufficient. To not bother May Parker all of the time.

He was so consumed with thinking through his debate with Ganke, that by English lit class, Miles had forgotten himself and began feeling very stuffy and hot.

Pulling on his scarf, Miles sighed and leaned back against the metal desk chair.

A jolt of pain radiated out from Miles’ back and he leaped to his feet with a yowl. His arms stretched back, reaching for the source of pain before Miles head began to throb with sharpened anxiety.

Looking around, Miles realized the entire classroom plus his teacher were staring at him. The looks ranged from surprise to giggling.

“Oh,” Miles muttered before offering a sheepish smile. “Sorry, sorry about that.” He lowered his hands and began to sink back into his seat only for the teacher’s throat to clear.

“Mister Morales,” he fussed, eyes beady behind thick wireframe glasses. “Is there something you would like to share about Wuthering Heights? Or do you have a spider crawling down your back?”

The students giggled in response, many shifting to glance toward their friends.

“Uh, probably the last one,” Miles said, sinking toward his seat again.

“Probably?” the teacher asked. “As in you aren’t sure if there’s a spider crawling down your back?”

Shiftily moving his eyes around the room, Miles grimaced. “I mean, I’m not a fan of, uh, spiders, so hopefully not? We could just, uh, keep talking about the old British people.”

That earned a few other giggles from the students, but they didn’t work to relax Miles exactly. Especially not when he realized the teacher was still staring intently at him.

“Mister Morales, is that some sort of rash on your neck?” he asked.

“What?” Miles asked before reaching up to his jawline and realizing there was no longer a scarf covering him. “Oh, uh,” he stuttered before his mind clicked with an idea. “Oh, shoot, I think maybe it was a spider after all. I should, like, go to the nurse!” He glanced toward the teacher, watching as the man straightened his glasses. “Please?”

The moment his teacher nodded in affirmation, Miles gathered up his belongings and booked it out into the hallway. As soon as the door closed behind him, Miles leaned against the nearest wall and let out a long, heralding breath.

He was not going to the nurse, but he suddenly lacked his appetite for class and for debating Ganke to make his new web shooter fluid.

Rubbing a hand down his face, Miles sighed. “Aw, man,” he moaned to himself and shook his head.

While he had only had the opportunity to be with his mentor for the better part of a day, and the other Spider-People even less, Miles had learned quite a few things from them. Things that had carried into daily life ever since.

Some he wished he had paid more attention to from the start, like with using the bus whenever possible.

Perhaps if he had, it would have saved him some web fluid over the month.

Miles took the advice more that day, though, because he had no web shooter fluid and even with spider-heightened endurance, Forest Hills was a fairly long walk from Brooklyn.

While Miles had made a point of not visiting the Parker house, he had the memory of the location burned into his memory. The neighborhood played out easily in his nightmares.

Walking from the closest bus stop, Miles couldn’t stop himself from pausing at a gated off alley, his eyes falling on broken pavement and tattered brick.

It made his chest tight and his body heavy to look down on the alley. It was barren save for the trash bin. But, for Miles, it was as haunted as any place in the city could be.

Mouth dry, Miles glanced over to the wall where he threw up the memorial to his uncle a month ago. It was already faded some, the sun must have hit the alley more than Miles estimated. He should have risked putting a finish on it, but then his father would have eventually noticed it and had questions about how Miles knew where Uncle Aaron had died.

It took a painstaking moment for Miles to finally rip himself away from the alley and continue the less than a block from the bus stop to the two-story home of May Parker.

In the last month, Uncle Aaron’s onsite memorial had faded obscurely in the background for most people, but the stacks in memoriam to Peter Parker seemed to be ever-growing, ever-changing. Wooden stars of David lined with bows and web decorated masks, candies and stuffed animals, pictures, melted candles, paper floats, weighted down balloons. It was impressive and daunting. And, a month later, more than a little messy.

Just from his small contact with May Parker, Miles had to imagine that she was not a fan of her yard becoming a cheap reminder of her son every day. The pain of it — similar to that pain for Uncle Aaron which had kept Miles away from Forest Hills — had to be unbearable.

For Miles, though, the real surprise came from the bent and folded signs which underscored the same message. RIP the REAL Spider-Man. Missed NOT FORGOTTEN OR REPLACED.

The last one caught his eye as he stood at the start of the sidewalk.

Thinking back to his missed lit class, Miles pulled out one of his fat sharpies and frowned. He leaned over and scribbled a messy N onto the sign so that NOR read more correctly on the board.

Running out of distractions and delays, Miles finally walked up toward the house and reached out to knock on the door when he heard low voices from the other side of the wall. He hesitated, eyes narrowing intently on the doorknob before he leaned in.

“I should have been here more, May, I’m sorry,” he heard a faintly familiar voice say. “Truth be told, I haven’t been much of anywhere since…”

Glancing away from the door, Miles could see that the lone front window had the glow of light. He knew there was a living room on the other side and that it would be awkward to explain his presence to most company.

He should turn around and come back another time. But the voice was so familiar he just had to know where he knew it from.

Glancing around the neighborhood, Miles made certain he wasn’t going to be seen before he reached out with both hands and begun sticking to the siding of the house.

After crawling toward the window, Miles timidly stuck his head down to look upside-down through the Parker house and catch a glimpse of May sitting on the plastic-lined couch with her guest.

The flash of brilliant red hair, the designer coat — Miles knew almost immediately who he was looking at.

“Mary Jane,” he mumbled to himself.

May reached forward and took Mary Jane’s hands into her own, squeezing them affectionately. “I know,” May said affectionately. She sounded heartbroken. “The important thing now, though, is we’re in this together. And I mean that.”

That was all May needed to say before Mary Jane let out a loud sob, folding forward and only catching herself on May’s shoulder before continuing to cry.

The two women held each other for a long time.

It made Miles feel intrusive and dirty to witness the moment. He cringed as he pulled himself back and away from the window.

Whatever was going on with the two Parker women didn’t involve him, and there was no telling how long that they would be wrapped up in their emotions. As they deserved to be.

Miles knocking on the door and blurting out Hey, Ms. P, mind lending me more of your nephew’s stuff? was downright ghoulish.

Still, he came all the way out to the middle of Queens, and Miles needed to make sure he spent as much time away for the second time as possible.

Everything in Forest Hills was too raw. For him. For Aunt May. For everyone.

But Miles only had enough fare on him for a one-way trip to Forest Hills. He had nothing to get him back because he was supposed to be able to make his own way back.

“Man,” Miles whined to himself.

Sticking to the walls, Miles climbed upward, away from the window and the all-too-private moment. By the time he reached the rooftop, it was simple enough to flip onto the top and walk to the back slope of the roofing.

He glanced over the obvious patches and still present damage to the singles. For a moment, he hesitated and wondered if he should have done more to repair the damage from the large fight he brought to May’s doorstep. A pang of regret came over his system.

Pushing it down, Miles shook his head and tried to focus on the immediate needs he could address.

The moment his feet hit the grounds of the backyard, Miles could feel what he needed to do. May had told him before that she rigged the shed entrance to let him have access whenever he needed it. And Miles, while appreciative, had made a point of avoiding needing it until that moment.

The lock popped off, a faint glow of a spider emblem dazzling Miles again as he approached.

It was still amazing — that May and Peter had built so much with so little available to them. Miles knew they had connections, access, experience with science and fields that would have made Ganke’s eyes swim in confusion. But walking onto the platform and descending into the original Spider-Man’s lair still felt like a dream.

Once he began to descend, Miles noticed voices and explosive glows of alternating colors. His eyes widened as he recognized some of the lights and sounds to be of the other Spider-People’s portals — mysteriously showing up on the large computer screens below. There were also, though, images and people he had never seen before.

“That looks suspicious,” Miles said, flipping his backpack around and quickly changing while the platform still descended.

The moment his suit was in order, Miles threw his backpack over his back and crouched, eyes narrowed. His body flickered into nothingness as he easily camouflaged into the world around him.

There was nothing too out of the ordinary beyond the computer screens. He crawled in preparation of things changing, but it continued to seem ordinary.

“Maybe Ms. Parker still comes down here,” he decided out loud, circling the main areas of the lair.

He came to a stop in front of the gala of costumes where he had taken his own. He looked and, with some apprehension, saw a new suit where his had once been.

It was tattered and bloody, broken up in pieces, with the eye lens shattered out.

Miles had seen the suit before, but not on a mannequin.

Slowly, Miles dropped his camouflage and continued to stare at the suit his hero had died in. He could see himself — small and insignificant, his face barely overlapping with Peter Parker’s chest.

Slowly, Miles reached up and placed his hand on the glass, pressing against the spider of Peter’s chest, running his thumb across it. He didn’t know if it was an apology, an appreciative thanks, or if it was anything at all.

All Miles knew was that it felt like there was more than glass and a few centimeters of empty space between himself and the Spider-Man who used to be.

His senses blared, a tickling feeling down his spine and neck.

Miles pulled his hand from the glass and looked over his shoulder just as the lift began to ascend without him.

Irrationally, his first thought was ghost.

Again, screaming that time, his senses picked up and Miles dropped to the floor just before a green blur sliced through the air with enough force to bust open several of the glass display cases.

“Well, well, well,” a very familiar voice spoke in delight from behind Miles. He looked to her — seeing the familiar wild hair, eyes beady behind thick octagonal glasses, and a sharp, pointed face. “If it isn’t Peter’s little invisible friend back again.”

“Dock Ock?” Miles gasped.

#Miles Morales #Spiderman #Ganke Lee #May Parker #Mary Jane Watson #writing #spider fic #Spider: Resonance

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