Silken Webs & Pirouettes - Miguel O’Hara x Reader
Summary: Miguel comes up with a plan to make your time together much more tolerable. Ballerina!Reader & CEO!Miguel. Alternate Universe with most of the characters included as seen in "Across the Spiderverse." Many cameos ahead. Miguel is a successful business owner but personality is canon. This is a steamy reader insert, Miguel x You! Enjoy and pls leave me lots of love and comments as it keeps me motivated <333
notes: tysm for reading and i’m so srry for the delay but i hope this steamy chapter makes the wait worth it <33
chapter 10
Gold. Suffocating and blinding as it cascades upon the pale mounds and curves of your vessel. Your eyes a hue of darkness behind the shielding lids, your temples a pounding rhythm parallel to the beats you once waltzed amongst.
Your lips part, slumber’s dance with you slowly cascading into nothingness as luminous rays return to greet you. To tug your soft palms back into your reality.
Your lashes, fanned against your flushed skin now fan apart as your gaze is greeted with unavoidable radiance. The morning.
A breath leaves you, trembling as it greets the cool air. You force yourself upright and it is then that blood rushes from where it once lay dormant and pooled to spread itself evenly throughout you— enticing pins and needles from the tips of your fingers and toes.
You feel like a creature undead, following the actions as you would normally but in an imposter’s stance. Your feet drag you to the dimmer kitchen, and your temples are grateful to be secluded from the sun and its warmth.
A yawn overtakes your exhausted features as you open the russet metal of your refrigerator door. You must be dreaming still. It’s stocked with fresh fruits and produce bagged in tan wrappings. Your eyes wander over each welcoming color in the once vacant and lonesome, cold and gray space.
It’s lively now.
A burst of red peeking through behind awful greens piques your interest, and you bury your hands in the tufts of healthy emerald to pull the sweet basket filled to brim with blossomed strawberries. They are fresh and plentiful.
You truly are dreaming.
No longer do you notice the ache pounding at you. You only see red in the purest of ways. You shut the door with your foot and examine the seeded berry with hungry eyes before encasing your teeth round the plumpness of it.
It isn’t long before you part the ripe treat with pearly teeth, and you moan gratefully when you do. Juice drops from each corner of your mouth, down your chin as your lips suckle the nectar and swallow it in quick motion.
It’s the best one you’ve ever had.
Another bite, then another berry and another. You can only hear the soft chews of fresh fruit and sharp seed alongside the blood pumping in your ears.
You don’t hear the scorching water cascading to drain halt, and you don’t hear the rest until your eyes can register what your ears cannot.
As you munch upon the berries, you blink when a phantom creature turns the knob of your dilapidated washroom door and creaks the shield open. Steam rolls out into your living space like the waves of Poseidon’s great seas— but the only god to greet you beyond the mist is not one of oceans and pretty things.
It’s the evil one.
Hades.
Miguel.
A soft gasp leaves you as you swallow in the sight with dazed eyes, tufts of chocolate locks are coiled and dripping water all over your wooden floors. His suit pants are there as always, but his jacket is not present. No, not now. Only a white undershirt, tight to the body and tucked away into where a belt constricts is all he wears.
You gulp down the remainder of fruit you forgot to swallow and allow the severed berry to drop into its basket.
The man sighs, scrunching at his hair with the towel before tossing it on your couch. That would annoy you if you weren’t so baffled right here.
His eyes search the couch for you, and when he finds you vacant from your waltz with slumber— he scans the room quickly before settling on your frozen stance in the kitchen.
He locks eyes with you.
“Good morning.”
He says it with amusement, you’re certain. Laced behind his throat.
It is eerie, it is polar opposite.
He looks— calm.
Your mouth is ajar, you remind yourself to close it.
“I- what?”
He pays your confusion no mind as he approaches, weaving through your pathetic and unimportant home like he’s become comfortable with it— like he’s learned it.
He towers over all your trinkets and furniture, and the singular stool is bound to collapse under his weight. He eyes the broken thing then decides to lean forward against the counter instead.
You gulp, remnants of strawberry juice staining the newfound dryness in your throat. And the enigma of a man, he just studies you for a moment before turning over his palm. Waiting.
You gaze at it in confusion, wondering if he’s pointing out something upon you that you can’t see. Yet his eyes are on the basket.
Oh.
You pluck one from its leafy stem and shakily place it upon his calloused palm. His eyes lock back upon yours and he clears the tart berry in one bite— licking the juice from his lips with an eager tongue.
You squirm— knowing not what to do other than just slide over the basket. The silence is suffocating, reminding you of only two weeks prior when you practically begged the man before you for a place of employment alongside er— below him.
“I didn’t buy these!” You blurt out. Because you don’t know what else to say to break the quiet and because the thought only now crossed your mind. You know now. No appearance with him is any possibility of a dream.
The smell of palo santo is muted now. He smells of your floral soaps.
He indulges in another.
“I know. I did. Your fridge was pathetic.”
Oh.
Your eyes fall to the countertop, unwilling to meet his own. It’s far too tense, and far too confusing. You’re far too dazed.
“Why are you-?”
He interrupts you as if he had been expecting the question, “You were acting drunk, and stupid. I brought you home.”
You’d scowl at his description of you if you weren’t still coming to, searching the chilled air for answers you’d rather not be forced to ask of him. You knew well that you’d have to— he wouldn’t offer them any other way.
He must enjoy the torture. Inflicting it.
You narrow your eyes and the expression may seem devoid to most— but something tells you there’s more within it.
Fine, then.
Christ.
You shake your head, hearing him chew upon another berry as you greet your newly stocked fridge and steal a water from its stomach. Your back is to him as you swallow down heavy sips. You sigh after, and when the coolness has shocked you awake enough and you are satisfied- you turn.
A cool breath of air kisses your breast as result of the motion, and your eyes widen, shooting down to find a silken robe of powder pink all but you have clad on alongside your panties. It’s slipping.
Your eyes dart up to find him staring intensely at the spot where it does slip, and you twirl back away to harshly tug at it and fix it.
Your breasts are bare— your dress is gone.
Your jaw ticks and you turn again— taking quick strides toward the counter where he resides on the opposite side of.
“Did you fuck me?”
He is silent, eyes glazed over as if he’s lost in thoughts you cannot see or be apart of. He takes a moment to absorb your words, fingers twitching against the berry they clasp before he blinks and his dark orbs lock against your again.
They send an inferno against your flushed cheeks.
He hums.
You don’t know what at, but you have a strong feeling it’s at the thought.
You know, the thought of fucking you.
He stares on at you as he takes a bite of the berry, and slowly shakes his head back and forth.
It’s a no.
You sigh, but you’re not relieved.
You’re silent again, shakily taking a seat upon your creaky stool across from him. You fear if you stand for any longer under the brunt of his gaze, you’ll faint.
You bury your face in your hands, and you feel his eyes against your golden locks. The place where he stares, your scalp prickles.
Wood slides against chipped countertop.
“Eat these. You haven’t eaten.”
He seems to know a lot, right now. It makes you anxious.
And yet?
He tells you not a word of it.
It infuriates you.
This morning is odd enough, so you won’t stand for secrets. You force your head up and you’re unsurprised to find his gaze already locked upon your own.
“What happened?”
Your voice is firm, it sounds like more of a command than question and you’re certain he notes it. He studies you for a moment, and you don’t know why; but his eyes fan over your upturned lashes and the soft bridge of your nose. Down to your lips then back up to your eyes, again.
He takes his sweet, frustrating time to think his answer through. Just maybe though, your night was as rough as your morning has greeted you. Because he takes pity on you— he answers.
“You went out dancing. Made a big show at my club, drank all my good alcohol from every man willing to hand it to you, then you vanished without your things. Out my back door. Cindy came to me, and we went after you. There was a man out back. He was planning to— how did you put it? Fuck you, cariño… not me.”
You flush the color of persephone’s sweetest pomegranates— eyes wide as the images flash like some mortifying movie in your mind.
Oh my god.
“Oh my god…” you whisper in repetition of your horrified thoughts, pressing the coolness of your palms against the heat of your cheeks.
He hums again, but this time in agreement. It far from helps. You press two fingers against each temple, shaking your head as you search for suitable words.
“I don’t do this often or- at all, really. I just— I needed…”
“I know.” He cuts you off in the middle of your search for an end to your sentence, and it’s the first thing he’s done that you’re grateful for. Apart from the fridge full of food.
You remember now that you blew all your grocery money, so.
You feel ridiculous, mortified. He must think of you as some obsessed idiot who showed up at his club because you couldn’t be at his workplace.
God.
You can’t stand the thought.
Only you would chose there of all the clubs in New York.
You don’t even offer him any further explanation, you know well that it will be a mess you dig further and further. Deeper and deeper until you babble and stutter, you stay silent to avoid it.
You torture yourself in another way, reliving the night prior in quick flashes… piecing them together like a parted jigsaw. They weave in place swiftly, but there’s something missing…
You rack your brain, yet nothing comes of it in its crowded closet. You’re blank, baffled. You’re in a robe, a new robe and you’re topless underneath. Sitting across from Miguel O’Hara in your own pathetic kitchen.
Christ.
“You are a dancer.” He observes, making your head spin.
The conversation takes a left turn. Sharp, quick. Perhaps he’s not so used to seeing you this silent, perhaps he knows just the subject to get you talking again. It’s the most normal you both have ever talked, in fact.
“Was.” You correct in a shameful whisper, and you’re grateful when he doesn’t ask about it further. Your eyes drift to the framed photo he stares at behind you. It’s you, pretty as you are with one leg bent up to the heavens and the other firmly planted on tip toe into the ground. Your pale pink mesh cascaded from your hips and your golden locks were tamed into a perfected bun.
You adore that picture.
Yet as admirable as the memory is, it’s also sad. You don’t spare it another moment, your eyes fall to the surface below where it hangs. The Daily Bugle. It’s new, dewdrops of rain kissing the ink, bleeding some of it away. He must have gathered it for you.
Christ. He stayed here.
You wince at the thought, too plagued with headache to analyze his intentions— rushing forward to gather the fresh paper in your hands so you don’t have to worry about it any longer.
You’ll read the newspaper in silence or at least pretend to to avoid telling the three-headed Cerberus to leave and never return. He watches on at you, quiet and emotionless as you skim past the front page that speaks of sports nonsense. Further down, spending more time on the fashion column before reaching the golden page, the hot spot of Daily Bugle. Drama.
In all your years of consuming the horrid paper, you never leave this page unread. You feel slimey as you absorb, and yet it’s addictive. Miguel is still here, you remember. He must think even worse of you if it’s possible.
Just the girl who keeps reminding him of his dead daughter at every chance she gets. You wince, letting out a shaky breath as you smooth out the paper of the next page and finally see it.
In black and white proud, long curls cascading down a sequined number with heels higher than you’ve ever worn. Small, back flush against him. Your face is tilted to the side, captured blurred as it was in motion. Yet to you, it’s clear and recognizable. It’s a memory.
The puzzle piece, served up to you by the universe on a stupid, golden platter.
You’re on the front pages.
So is he.
You’re on the front pages, together.
CEO MIGUEL O’HARA ENJOYS A NIGHT OUT ON THE DANCE FLOOR WITH MYSTERIOUS PROCLAIMED “DANCING QUEEN”
You look— horrified, and he looks to be brushing his curled fingers against his tanned lips to stifle his amused grin. He can’t risk any other emotion than stoic, of course. Your eyes are wide as they snap up to him.
“You’re good publicity.” He offers.
His voice. It isn’t cold. It isn’t lifeless.
It’s as if something has laced itself within it. Something you don’t like.
Humor.
At the expense of you.
You’re angry. You’re confused and it makes you angry.
The puzzle is a painted picture now. The dance, the music, the heat, the grinding— god you’d just about melt if you weren’t so baffled and preoccupied right now.
You practically crush the paper in your hands. You look like a slutty girl taking her chance with the richest man readily available. How on earth will you ever work anywhere else again?
You’ll have to chop off your locks, you’ll have to—
He clears his throat as a weak attempt to conceal the amusement itching at his tongue.
You narrow your eyes at him.
“This is funny to you?”
This man. This mind fuck of a man has gone from towering over you with fury foaming at his mouth to forcing your hips to brush back against him to finding humor in your suffering in your own kitchen.
He narrows his eyes back,
“Very, cariño. Very funny to me.” His voice is dark, cold again.
You part your pink lips to curse him, but he interrupts the process before it even begins. He straightens his back, returning to the tower he is before rounding the counter till he’s right in front of you. You shrink again, your attitude melting as you remember the events of the week prior. His screaming, the ornament.
You shift, breath thinning as you turn your head away from him. He moves his head so his eyes may follow yours, when it doesn’t work— his jaw ticks.
“Mírame.”
You do, eyes snapping back to meet his gaze.
It’s soft, yet still commands your attention. You don’t have any other choice but to look on at him, you’ve noticed he has an odd thing for eye contact. You’d squirm, but your head is spinning.
No possibility to delay and procrastinate calling home now, it seems.
He sees your mind fogged with preoccupations, and you can’t keep like this any longer.
“What is going on, what are you doing?” You whisper, eyes darting to the paper then back to him. The question. It means far more than just now.
What is he doing?
Does he feel guilty? Is this how he’s apologizing?
You’re not sure, it’s impossible to know— to understand. Enigma doesn’t seem to be enough to describe him, nor does mystery.
He’s infuriating as he is simple, and maddening as he is tolerable. He’s back and he’s forth, up and he’s down and he’s killing you.
Why did he yell?
Why did he dance with you after it?
Why is he here now?
He sighs, his hands caging you up against the counter as he rests his palms on either side, grasping at the chipped marble and dipping his head to search for an answer.
It takes him a long moment, but when he’s satisfied? He lifts his head.
“I’m a good boss. A great one. I pay my girls generously, I would have done the same for you if you were capable of just following orders.”
You frown at that, he ignores it— continuing.
“You’re a shit employee.” He says it with conviction. As if his word is etched into stone at the birth of all life and creation. Your jaw nearly drops, but you allow tension to blossom like spring poppies within it instead.
“You’re an asshole.” You snap, gasping after the word leaves you. Your cheeks flush the color rose, and his expression remains cold and devoid as he tilts his head at you.
But his brows arch. Questioning.
You await for what seems like ages for him to respond, to snap, to scream— honestly you’re half expecting him to snatch the knife from the countertop and jab it into your gut to shut you up for good.
He does none of those things.
Warmth trails like caramel down a chasing tongue, rough and calloused palm sliding up the length of silken coverage from your knee and upward. Higher, higher. Your breath hitches in your throat, and his eyes burn furious holes into your face— your wide-eyed, pretty face.
The soft, small netting of nerves between your thighs jumps in excitement, and you’re certain your cheeks burn hotter than the sun. He reaches your hip, he halts— straightening his head. Almost unnoticed.
“I’m an asshole?”
A shiver overtakes you now, and you feel betrayal constrict you like that of a serpent as your pink nipples pucker themselves up for attention.
Don’t look, don’t look. You beg within the confines of your own mind.
The asshole…
His eyes flicker down immediately, as if he sensed your body calling to him.
It’s the first flash of emotion you’ve ever seen beyond anger. You can’t name it, you can’t understand it—you can’t even process it. You’re frozen here.
A noise, guttural— like that of a forest creature restraining itself from its natural instincts to slaughter a helpless lamb. It becomes him. From the very back of his throat.
You blink, tense, back straight and pushed firmly against the wall. His eyes find yours again and you’re certain then that you’ve bursted up in flames.
“You were saying?” He whispers, eyes wandering down. Past your puckered nipples and the bumps upon your skin. Down. Lower. To— there.
The action, it’s enough to shake you out of this trance. You push him back, he doesn’t protest the move and plays into it— you’re sure. You stumble from that suffocating wall and take a breath of air that feels awfully fresh even in your stuffy apartment.
His hand, where it once grazed you is a memorized motion replaying like a record shattered upon your leg.
He’s toying with you.
Getting his payment for his generosity, that must be it.
Or maybe he’s not. Maybe it was the dance…
Maybe— you don’t know which it is.
Now you’re angry.
Frustrated.
He’s put you through hell in the short amount of time he’s known you. Then suddenly, he does one good deed and takes it as a free ticket to fuck you?
You’re livid.
You turn on your heel, slamming your finger into the firmness of his chest.
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
His hand, warm as fresh laundry wraps around your wrist. He tilts his head low like a charred olive branch extending, leveling with you.
“Testing my theory.”
It’s all he offers. You narrow your eyes to cold slits, electricity still buzzing between your thighs in opposition to your anger.
“What theory?” You sound exasperated, and you are.
The tick in his jaw is back. It jumps. He’s frustrated again.
How is it possible?
A man so stoic and cold, and yet so capable of flipping through emotions like an old scrapbook buried away from years past.
He breathes slowly through his nose, and when you nudge his chest again with your finger as hopes to provoke an answer? He moves. Quick.
In a flash moment, he walks you back against the countertop— caging you again.
He must like that.
Making you feel small.
He wastes no time once you are caged there, happy to be in control again.
“It seems like the only way I can stand you is when I respond with lust, and not logic… Dios mío…” he breathes the last part. It allows a chill to creep up the base of your spine, paralyzing you.
Silence blankets you both again and he bows his head once more. You breathe, shakily but nonetheless.
Lust?
For you?
Hair unruly and unkept, frizzed and wild. Too loud for your liking and too sharp of a tongue for his.
Maybe he’s truly lost it.
Maybe it’s been there all along.
Although the thought excites you, you know it’s silly. Men of his status and power— they don’t busy themselves with pretty things like you. It’s impossible. It’s a movie, a picture made for fantasy.
But here he his.
Toying with you.
You’re certain now.
It clicks then, his game with you. Revenge sweetly. Play pretend, get you to fall but not catch you when you do. It’s cruel. It’s like him.
You’ve been at the harsh hand of a man vengeful before. You won’t do it again.
Tears sting at your eyes.
“Don’t do this to me again.” You mean it to sound like a demand, yet it floats from your petal pink lips like a weak and pathetic sound. You speak to him, and you speak to the man before him. In your eyes, now, they’re the same. All your interactions before this were so inhuman and cold, and yet here you are— feeling all the colors of the damned sky before him. Interacting like humans do. Only, he’s got a motive behind his emotion. Not you. Never you.
He hears the weakness, the falter. His head snaps up again.
You avert your eyes, playing a balance game with the swelled tears threatening to parachute onto your cheeks. He straightens his back at the sight of them, he gives you space. You relax.
His eyes, they find a map upon your face and they wander amongst it. Observing, analyzing. When he’s satisfied, after you’ve swiped away at your tears, he speaks again.
“I have a job for you.”
You’re certain he’s lost it now.
Completely thrown himself off the deep end and into the insane asylum. How can he lust you and loathe you and employ you all at the same time? All within the same hour?
You need to rest, you’re exhausted.
“No.” It’s all you offer, turning your back on him. Hoping he will take it and leave you be. Silly you. A firm palm spins you back around, right back to where you were.
“Listen to me.”
It’s not a question, it’s a command; and as much as you hate him and his arrogance… you comply.
“Fuck… there’s more to you. Something that I can find behind my frustrations with you. A hunger… Last night was an annoyance, an amusing one no less. I just can’t get rid of you no matter how hard I try… but I think sometimes that this game we’re all playing is at someone’s hand. I need morale, you’ve made the front covers now. Jameson can eat shit for all I care but for the sake of my girls— I need to fix the mess I’m in…”
He muses the last part to himself, and baffled as you are at the events that have taken place in one morning alone… you straighten your back and cross your arms over your chest. Curious. Listening.
“I’ve been here all morning because I have been thinking close to the source. Thinking about what it is about you that is so fucking infuriating. I didn’t find an answer. But what I did find was a solution. After— fuck… after Gabi…”
Oh…
Oh.
He’s talking about her, and not because of your snappy mouth.
Like a fresh petal, you unfurl.
“Jameson. He wants to slander me. He wants my girls to read his bullshit and believe it and as much as I hate to admit it, the cabrón could manage it. And fucking morale… it can’t function when my morale girl is only working hard at pissing me off.”
It’s an insult, but you’re far too glued on the edge of your seat to interrupt his train of thought. You scowl softly and let him continue,
“I don’t want you in my office, I don’t want you talking about things you don’t get to talk about. I don’t want you to anger me with your stupidity because I don’t want to yell at you like that again. I won’t. But I am glad your idiocy brought us here last night, because I can see how much of a shithole you’re in.”
You flush again at that, nervous eyes glancing around your dainty apartment and its rotted walls.
“I’m in one too, in a different way. The tabloid is a good thing. When you were dancing, I tolerated you. I enjoyed you, even. And your presence made for a good paper with a headline not involving my baby girl. I— need that. I need these people to stay distracted and fuck, sweetheart. Soy la respuesta...”
Cruel as he is, you find your heart constrict— just for a small moment. You can’t imagine it. Losing your life, your whole sun, moon and stars and being constantly reminded of it on every newsstand and broadcast because of some awfully obsessed vampire.
So much so that it leaks into your glass tower in the sky and makes it crack, each new story another stone thrown until it cracks under the pressure.
But you… you stopped it.
Just once, at least.
Even so….
It amazes you.
Makes you feel powerful.
He is watching you close, gauging your reactions. You challenge his eyes, imploring him to continue. He does.
“I want you to play pretend with me, just like you did last night. Dos desconocidos bailando por primera vez, like two strangers dancing on the floor. I wanna feed them the shit they want to be fed and keep their mouths shut and satisfied. Only for a few months until I find a way to buy out the Bugle and bankrupt the hijo de puta… We can help each other. You’ll live in my suite and do whatever the hell you want all day. You’ll get a monthly allowance on top of your big check. You’ll help me keep them quiet.”
He speaks slow. Calculated and measured. In a way one would immediately understand. But somehow, you don’t.
You don’t get it.
Beyond the words for what they are, you’re baffled.
He wants you to play pretend, and it all seems perfect and fine except?
“You hate me…” it’s meant for yourself, truly. Yet it parts from your lips nonetheless. Your brows are furrowed and soft as you search the space beside him for an invisible answer with your eyes.
He sighs.
“No. I don’t. I don’t like you, but I don’t hate you. How could I when you move the way you do? So pretty under my lights, I like her a lot. Maybe we have to get you drunk more often, hmm?”
He means it to lighten the tension, to slice it with silver blade and yet all it does s quiet you further. He sees this, and a warmth floating within his very fingertips meets your chin. He turns you to him again.
“Dime que sí, cariño. Tell me yes. Stop letting yourself think about it.”
You have a million loose and frayed ends that you cannot seem to knit together on your own. You’re certain he won’t offer you any assistance either.
There’s a plague in the air, a sickness. One that causes nothing short of pure insanity. Why? Well because of what you see now.
Money.
No more debt.
Food plentiful.
A door that actually locks. A heater that will keep you warm on harsh winter nights.
No going home.
Another chance… another opportunity to dance again.
Only for a little while will you have to bare him. Only for a little while and then all your troubles get tossed upon the burning pile. You could start again. You could fix what you ruined. You could be her, again.
Your eyes wander to the gold trimmed frame with a girl that seems so unrecognizable and unreachable now.
But what if he— this cruel and baffling creature with all the money, power and influence in all of New York City and maybe beyond could help you reach her.
All you have to do is play pretend..
That’s it, right?
You gulp.
And Christ…
You whisper it like it’s a gruesome sin on the tip of your tongue. Like it poisonous and repulsive. Sealing the deal with the devil himself before it is too late to think it over again…
“Yes…”
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