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haxpaxmisc · 2 years ago

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Tangled in a web of thread and code

Sneak peak (+ full first chapter) of the Miguel O'hara/OC fanfic I am currently writing. Feel free to drop a visit on AO3, if it's more comfy to you. I don't think I will upload the whole text on here, though.

The low hum of a certain anomaly echoes across universes. Spider man 2099 undertakes an intricate quest of seek-and-capture to maintain the order he has so carefully kept through the years. Only one thing seems to truly stand between him and this shrouded mystery: vibrations on the spiderweb, echoes of things past.

He would not believe his eyes when he found out which universe, which alternate version of the Earth, might harbor this anomaly. Earth-1312; a pit ogf crime and despair, once inhabited by Spider Moon –highly useful ally in the past, whose passing brought upon as much chaos to her universe as one would imagine. A remnant of her prevails, though: the ABC, the name of both a complex machinery of hacking, and the only person capable of accessing it. There is much path yet to tread on in the walk of acceptance. Is life, truly, just a losing game? Perhaps two heads really are better than one, and adding up their answers to that question might turn the path the less rocky. You know, if they can actually put their differences behind themselves.

Chapter 1. Dynasties & Dystopia

It had been days since Miguel had endured such a headache. New kid had just joined them- Gwen was her name. He tried to remain adamant about not letting her in the team, but Jessica always had a way to somehow be right. The way her eyes had pierced his when asking –no, demanding him that they took that child in… it would have scarred him if he had said no. The kid had been good at adapting, too. Maybe it came with the mask. It was one of the things that brought them all together, made them who they were.

But Hobie had taken it to himself to teach her everything she needed to know. It should have been fine, even useful, to remove the burden from someone else, from Miguel himself… but as of now, they had kept talking, and talking, and TALKING non-stop for a whole five hours. He was starting to consider whether he should have prevented these headaches by letting Jessica obliterate him with her stupid determination. His eye twitched.

“… wait until you see the cat”, Hobie was saying to a very impressed Gwen. “You have a CAT in here?!” “Uh… we don’t have him, he’s one of us.” “How’s that wavelength report coming, Margo?”. Miguel tried to leave their voices behind as he paced about the gigantic room that Margo often projected her image in. She was half here, half there (as usual), shifting around her place and somehow able to check several screens at once. Sometimes, Miguel wondered if she was doing several things at the same time, things that wouldn’t come as handy… maybe she played videogames, or checked her socials. But she was as efficient as can be, anyway.

“It’s coming out fine, ‘boss’. Don’t worry”. She adjusted her glasses, Miguel sighing at her little remark. His head was starting to weigh way more than he could handle.

“What do you MEAN you are a drummer?!”, Hobie yelled in the background, pecking at any little peace of mind he could have left. “Get out of it!”

“Yeah, like… I mean, I was in a band until very recently, but… seeing as things have come about, maybe I’m not a drummer anymore.”

“Shut uuuup”, he waved his hand dismissively before putting it over her shoulder. “You are a drummer, and maybe you can have a band. See, I…”

“What’s going on?”. Drew’s voice felt like a well of fresh water to him. Maybe they would listen to her, maybe she could bring some order in along with herself.

“Boss asked me to deliver a wavelength report he’s been fussy about over the weekend, or else I shall be fired”, Margo answered before Miguel took the air necessary to respond. Instead, he sighed all of it out once again. Why did they always have to be so quippy?

“It’s about this anomaly, see” he finally got to answer.

“Potential anomaly.”

“Yes, sure. Potential. It is not quite there, yet. But still, we need to trace it back as precisely as possible.”

“I see”. Jessica seemed to ponder as she stared at one of the screens Margo had turned over for them to see. “It is quite small. What do you think it is?”

“We don’t know for sure. Could be a little trinket that got teleported out of its own dimension, could be a critter…”. He traced off, lost in thought.

“Doesn’t seem like something scary, yet”. Their conversation had somehow attracted Hobie and Gwen in, and he was looking at the screen, too, his hands in his spiked vest’s pockets.

“Exactly”, Miguel murmured back. “Yet.”

“Ka-ching! Lyla has found its source!”

Miguel furrowed his brow. “Lyla was helping you?”

“I mean, duh. How else do you expect me to do this so quick, without a NASA computer? She’s not your friend only.”

“Sorry, Miguel” Lyla barged in with the tone and face of someone who is definitely not sorry. “Had to help out”.

“But you’ve got to see this. Look where it’s coming from… or, more exactly, where it ends up when it starts to fade away.”

They all looked expectantly, Miguel resting his hands on the desk to come closer. The multi-dimensional screen that displayed a somewhat simplified layout of all the multiverses connecting together pointed at a particular universe he didn’t expect to ever hear of again. The yellow-orange dot blinked incessantly, and he could not help compare it with a ticking bomb.

“No”, he simply said. “Oh, yes”, Hobie seemed amused –and Gwen too, by extension, even if not in the know. “We coming back.”

“No! You don’t even know if the anomaly is set anywhere nearby her.” “I think it is…”, Margo corrected him. “See? It could be anyplace in a 15 kilometer radius, but it’s still a pretty narrowed down window from a whole planet.”

It would have been impossible to deny it. The second map they saw, set in two dimensions from an aerial point of view, enclosed a huge chunk of a New York City he knew too much of. Any data they had access to could not truly encompass what one felt there: his memories of visiting were of dark, neon lit images that went past too fast. Individuals looking lost at any given time in any given place. A city on the verge of collapse, nearly in shambles, its concrete and metal skeleton refusing to fully fall off.

“There is no way you guys are going there again”. Miguel got back up and extended both his arms in desperation. “Last time was a HUGE mess.” “But we did fine. Stopped the bad guy, helped them out”. Hobie’s brow lowered in defiance. “Who are we talking about?” Gwen wanted to know. “Oh”, Drew breathed in deeply, as if she didn’t know where to start. “There’s this asset-“ “She is not an asset”, Miguel remarked, trying not to lose his temper. Despite the blood pumping upward through the sides of his forehead, he was still trying to be reasonable. “Last time… maybe we did fine, and helped her out, but she is not that trustworthy.”

“Wow”, Jess crossed her arms and nodded slightly. “Low blow.” “You know I do not mean it like that”. His gaze pierced hers this time. “You know what I mean. She’s too erratic; the choices she makes and the paths she goes down to get her way… it is too unpredictable.” Everyone else seemed thrilled to see where this was going. Margo had kept surprisingly quiet ever since she showed them the map, Hobie maintained his colder façade, and Gwen was visibly trying to connect the dots right there and then. “All right”, Jessica answered, her chin still held up high. “Still, this potential anomaly of yours may be a ticking bomb, waiting to blow up at the worst time”. Was she capable of thought reading? “It’s unlike you to risk it this much over a petty argument.”

Miguel held her gaze for a few seconds before turning back, running his hand through his hair to get it away from his face. Always. She had a way.

“Fine”, he gave in after what felt like a whole minute. “We can contact her. BUT” he added quickly to curb Hobie’s enthusiasm, “I will be the one to make contact.”

Hobie’s mouth tensed for a moment. “Bloke’s got the bottle, doesn’t he”, he just said, one of his cockney idioms only he could understand there, but his expression was returning back to normal. “Can’t have us having fun”. His voice was more akin to his usual chill-and-witty attitude, already. The bomb had been defused, and Miguel had been the one to manage it all in order to keep his most trouble-seeking teammates at bay… as he often was. Only thing was, he was now supposed to go there and make contact. The thought irked him: he could already feel the headache coming back strong as soon as he got there and spoke to her. Earth-1312’s ABC. She had been unbearable once. All of the others (save for himself and Margo) walked out slowly, as if they had just fought an exhausting battle, no one knowing whether they had won or lost. Gwen raised her head slightly.

“Hey, Hobie. By ‘he’s one of us’… do you mean some of that ‘you can’t own animals’, thing? Or, like, that he’s a Spider person… animal… cat?” Hobie seemed to consider for a second. “Last one. But also, like, both.”

The lights in the Neo Owl seemed brighter than ever that night. Pink, blue, green, the occasional flash of red… then pink again. The music boomed inside her head, the growl of the bass felt like a much needed kickstart to her heart. This was her place. This was where she belonged. She hadn’t even needed to do Rush. Her body was still standing, still bouncing, and the night wasn’t even as young anymore. A familiar voice would have approached her, her arrival as unnervingly hard to pick up as always, and would have muttered to her ear “y’know, I’m proud of you.” And Ada would have frowned, unable to stop herself from smiling back “yeah, well, I might start doing something worse tomorrow. Never grew too fond of my septum, anyway. I even payed someone to stab it, see”. But no one was talking to her, and ghosts were as real as the economy. As one of the songs faded into the next one, and feeling close to sobering out of her euphoria, she walked up to the bar to try and get another drink. Being a lone drinker was as lousy as could get, but she would manage. Tiny drops of sweat were gathering on her forehead, and she could tell that her mascara was starting to wear off. Not too bad for her age, ey. The sweetest bartender ever served her another caipirinha (she was feeling fancy that night), his collar too perfectly placed, his shirt too closed for her taste. What? One could dream. Still, she gave him a polite smile, paid for her drink and tipped more than enough. “Must’ve been a cool tattoo”, he suddenly told her. “What?”. She hoped she may have misheard him, but he unmistakingly pointed his chin towards her right hand. “The square thing on your palm”, he explained. Sharp sight. “Oh, it’s just… it’s something I regretted. Lasered it out.” “Yeah, I thought so”. He laughed softly, as if suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bother.”

It’s OK, she thought to herself. He was just trying to strike up conversation. Everyone else seemed too faded to talk to, and it must have been lonely, to serve drinks in a place where everyone goes to get shitfaced enough to black out. Or maybe it was just part of his job, to be nice. But… could he have seen it, really? In detail? She downed the glass in one go, an icy coldness threatening to freeze her brain, but she ignored the sharp pain and knocked twice on the sticky wooden bar before leaving. Would have been a pity, to let such a drink be poured down a sinkhole. Maybe she was just imagining things. It hadn’t been so long that Moon had left for good, and she had gotten used to having her by her side, her special senses warning them both off danger. But regular old Ada had no such privilege. She covered her drinks with her own hand, carrying them around. She looked back every half minute when walking home alone. Sometimes, she even gazed up the buildings around her… Maybe if she looked up hard enough, if she kept a close eye and stayed fully aware every waking minute, she would have been there once again, looking down at her. But no one ever saw Moon coming, if she didn’t want them to. And Ada wished she hadn’t seen her go.

#fanfic #across the spiderverse #spider man: across the spider verse #miguel o'hara #spiderman 2099 #miguel spiderverse #miguel spiderman

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haxpaxmisc · 2 years ago

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I made another mistake.

It feels unlike the ones past, but there are similarities. I remember the hours we spent, that farrier apprentice and I, in the warm baths of Sjivgrod –how time seemed to stop by and witness our daring. Neither he or I had a clear idea what we were doing, but we pretended to know. We thought ourselves smarter than history, and I believe we were, because we did any and all we desired.

It has been different, with the weaver. She came to me at night after visiting a relative of hers, her eyes wilder, as if they had seen something her body did not know of yet. I could not (nor did I want to) resist it, why would I? I had seen her lay less experienced eyes on me, not when dancing, but when mine were set on someone else. I know she watched when my hand grazed on the legs of that voluptuous, wealthier woman who wanted to play younger, pretending to be new in town; I know how the vapours in the smoking houses can make you see things in a new light. And then, when the weaver came to me, her hair bushier (I ignore how it came to be that way then), her breathing deeper and determined, I did not stop myself from turning its pace faster.

With us, time did not stop to look. It seemed to stretch itself to gift us a couple of minutes more each hour –a few moments more to breathe, taste, melt into each other.

And, as much as I am one for blasphemy, I will not say I wasn't left speechless that night, for that would be a lie. People do not always dance after my rhythm.

How stupid I have been. How ignorant! Always trapped in purposefully forgetting the ways the world is built around us, all because I never liked its shape. I thought I could always live it comfortably content, feeling the beat of the music. But in my exercise for oblivion, I also left behind the ways these walls leave others outside.

I hate to think about it.

I just want to think of the weaver's mushy earth scent, her tastes acid and sweet, accomplices of the dance I performed for her only. I never thought I would find shame in yearning to trace someone whole to taste them anew.

But how could I not see the shame in it? She made me realise where I stand, she thought she had me in a way no one could ever boast about. I do never belong. Laughing, I told her I was hers, even if for a little while. And she found no amusement in it, and I thought that meant she saw how I never belong. I was sure there would be no problems between us.

Now I understand the problem. That world which surrounds me passively, which seems to adapt itself to my stomping and my franctic katska steps, has told her she must belong to me.

I cannot give her this. No one will receive my name, no one shall be mine in such a way. I can laugh it out all I want to, offer my body to the altars of pleasure and madness, seize the offerings I receive back. But that possession begins and ends in that bed, in the warm baths of Sjivgrod, amongst the vapours floating in smoking houses. It is but a fantasy. Or a risky kind of daydreaming.

I know not what is to happen between us, I was never one to think ahead. The only thing I know for certain is that I am regretful and, at the same time, that it is impossible to regret the warmth beneath the old clothes I lended her. It is impossible to regret knowing how her eyes turn absent and her lips open ever-so-slightly in forbidden sighs.

Impossible not to want to hear the fire in her voice when she says "don't you dare be gentle. It doesn't suit you". I cannot regret the bite marks she imprinted on my skin because, even if gone after a few days, I can still feel them boiling in their persistence not to remain shooting stars. At this point, I believe them to be a secret constellation to accompany me to my grave.

Dyiko's thoughts on the events of my novel

#dyiko #writing #idk what else to tag #i just like to ramble about a lot #sometimes i have to convince myself that this is art too #like art has been a way for weirdos to be weird for MILLENNIA #so u being a lil weird is also a way of creating #smut #nsfw #not explicit but kinda #romance

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