#manageable chunks

[thrivetrend]

Strategies for Getting Things Done

Procrastination is a widespread challenge leading to stress and reduced productivity. Overcoming it involves identifying root causes, setting clear goals, developing a structured routine, and using time management techniques. Combatting perfectionism and

Introduction Procrastination is a common challenge that many people face in their personal and professional lives. It refers to the act of delaying or postponing tasks, often leading to increased stress, decreased productivity, and missed opportunities. However, overcoming procrastination is possible with the right strategies and mindset. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various…

[rocketbirdie]

deranged picnic

[benevolenterrancy]

If you're taking prompts: He Xuan (reluctantly) trying to soothe a sad (drunk) Hua Cheng?

next time He Xuan will be checking exactly how potent the divine wine Shi Qingxuan gifts him is before offering to share

[konaiiro]

2025 first quarter art wrap-up. Past 12 weeks has mostly been comics, lineart style experiments and reluctantly painting, over such a range of interests 🙆 😵‍💫

[kelocitta]

I wanted to ask, I might have missed it, but how is the new Scav chieftain as a character? With her having to take over after her daughter’s passing, and the needed cleaning up after Artificers mess in this AU? It’s really interesting that shes now suffering a loss of a child, acting as a parallel to Artificer also.

Bolt of Silver (Although name has certainly changed) was an accomplished pirate* sharpshooter. Her particular skillset was in the execution of caravan/patrol captains from exceptional distances in order to induce panic for a followup assault. Her past is largely unknown, and as such she is not someone who would have ever been considered for the position of Chieftain had there not be a considerable amount of panic. She took the position because she, as an elder, is generally given respect of wisdom and also she herself showed quiet a bit of initiative and leadership during the panic that curried some favor- although she is notably more of a substitute than a properly recognized Chieftain, and will eventually step down once a replacement is formally put forth. Her daughter, in contrast, did not share her criminal history and was a rather accomplished explorer, archivist, and generally an upstanding Scavenger. The fact she acquired the position was a testament to her own skills, independent of her mother, who retired and integrated back into the larger community as a general assistant and expectant grandmother. *Pirate in the context of Scavengers does not refer to boat users, but rather caravans or groups of united thief or criminal rogue wandering groups. 'Unaffiliated' Scavenger groups are common, but many of them are merely small families, independents, or even particularly traveled traders and thus welcomed into the larger community even if they do not directly consider themselves a part of it. Pirate groups are distinct in that their activity is almost entirely criminal in nature, often violent, and ideally removed or pushed to the furthest fringes of territories.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Smell Check [Easy: Failure]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 1 (part 2 - part 3)

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

Hi I really like this blog and since you're also a European you might actually have an answer

What's your favourite Citroën? I'm really partial to the 2010 era Picassos mainly because it was my first car.

INTRO - Citroën Makes a(nother) Cubist MPV

I'm also quite familiar with the C4 Picasso, as I've mentioned before, and its predecessor the Xsara Picasso, as I've also mentioned - the latter actually being the first car I was there for the purchase of! I remember it rather fondly, but looking back at it it was a rather cheap vehicle, with levers that snapped off, rear trays that popped out, and the overall feeling of being inside an electric toothbrush upon exceeding highway speed limits. And of course, the repeated engine failures that pushed us to update.

The C4 Picasso had its flimsy and questionable bits as well, but much less so - though, unlike its progenitor, it did once leave us stranded, the clutch living up to the C4 name. But hey, it was one time. And it had some cool features, even beyond the piéce de resistance brought up in that post. The little side pods containing the climate controls...

...the integrated perfume offered by a little capsule we definitely bothered to get refills for, as perfectly illustrated by this lovely YouTube thumbnail...

...a trunk light that detached to become a flashlight, a handbrake I once again dare readers to spot, gloveboxes atop the dashboard, and yet more still... including, perhaps most importantly, a windshield so humongous that it required a two-stage sun visor.

I am a big believer in the power of glass when it comes to improving a car's experience (see how hard I raved about a sunroof) and this really did do much more than give the car alopecia.

But it could only bring so much excitement to a cheap, anemic MPV in the famed grey I've gone over my distaste for and an interior color best described as "dirty interior".

The design of the C3 Picasso, which I seem to be completely alone in appreciating...

...was apparently inspired, along with Smeg fridges, by iPods (and judging by these pictures, the car's size seems to be somewhere between the two).

And, well, my hazy recollection of our C4 has it feeling a bit closer to an iPod bootleg - a funky, ambitious design writing a check that its build quality couldn't quite cash.

And indeed, that chapter ended when we weren't willing to fork over for the nth repair. But since the dealership offered us such a pittance to trade it in, family friends were able and willing to muster a better offer and so it lives on under their ownership. I'm happy about that - and, since we let it go before I began driving, I would be curious to give it a try. But it's no love of mine.

And not because it's too everyday a vehicle to be that - I don't need a supercar to get excited.

But, as we'll see tomorrow, it does help.

[herefortheships]

"The Body" is truly the one Buffy episode I cannot rewatch. I'm currently rewatching the whole series and I got to that episode yesterday, and I was debating whether to skip it or not. I tried watching tonight, and nope. I was sobbing and I wasn't even half-way through the episode. I just cannot. No other TV show episode ever has made me feel this way. Truly gut-wrenching. Fucking devastating. And the acting is just something else. It just feels so real... The realest depiction of grief I've seen on TV.

[psi-hate]

rate my work setup 😤

[darcydarlingdabbles]

Hotel Field Trip Drabble

Thoughts based on this post [Link] about Charlie and Alastor taking a field trip to a human hotel for "business experience" lol

// Adorable. I just wanted to write some scene ideas. And it went Charlastor shippy immediately...though I didn't add pets. Human Alastor based on this post [Link] //

Charlie looks almost like herself with slightly less pale like death vibe, but she looks like herself.

No one is prepared for how Alastor looks as a human. Like, stunned silence silence in the hotel lobby when he joins Charlie. He is a gorgeous biracial man with oval glasses, perfectly swooshed dark hair, and a smile that is charming when it doesn't stretch demonically across his face. Tall and lean and impeccably dressed.

Alastor is not prepared for how people see him as a human.

He was a half-creole man in the Jim Crow era south. The same people who loved his radio show were probably vile to him in person. (h/c that this is why he hates being photographed and says this face is made for radio) But a hundred years later culture has shifted and he's suddenly not only acceptable but desirable.

When they get to the human hotel in New Orleans--guess what, there's only one bed. (Surprised Pikachu)

There's a roaring 20s convention in town, maybe also some true crime TikTokers too. Ultimate Alastor chagrin. People parading around like they're from his day--but the dresses, the fashion, everything is just all wrong. Don't get him started on Jazz covers of pop songs.

He asks Charlie to kill him again because he'd rather be in hell.

Guess what, only room they have is the honeymoon suite.

Elevator is so crowded Alastor does the wall lean over Charlie to keep them both from being crushed. No, sir, you cannot murder a whole elevator for being in your personal space but you can be in hers.

Debating if there's a "ghost tour" where some of Alastor's victims are said to be haunting the place. Ends with him destroying a tiktoker's phone.

Yes serial killer Alastor had his own "moral code" but he makes it emphatically clear to Charlie that he was still a monster that enjoyed killing. And hell is the perfect place for him, because everyone there failed to be moral—other than the hellborn, like Charlie.

One night Alastor tries avoiding Charlie by going to the bar, maybe while she's enjoying dancing nearby. He's had a few drinks when an older woman starts aggressively hitting on him.

literally cannot compute. Cannot shake her because he's a mamma's boy with manners and the lady won't take no for an answer. Charlie said not to kill anyone.

Alastor using Charlie as a human shield—against flirtations.

Alastor and Charlie getting to dance to music from his time. He has a moment to think...Charlie is exactly the girl his mother would have liked him to bring home. And the girl he would never deserve.

Annnnd some how I turn that angst into a happy ending because

I write romances not tragedies, dammit!!

Update: I started the fic!! link

[evansbby]

The Captain’s Reward 2 is now 15,000 words long and it is almost done. I’m so happy because I wrote so much of it today. I’m gonna be posting it very soon. Maybe next weekend or the weekend after 🥺

[starkittdraws]

Colored pencil and graphite on 15x22 watercolor paper

[Apr 2025]

“Botanicals”

[telepath-kisser]

hi guys how is everyone’s day

[evidently-endless]

thinking about her (the absolute seething rage and frustration and boredom that’s been just below the surface of shauna sadecki, housewife™️, all these years)

[sometimesanequine]

today i got my knitting needles in the mail so i got to cast on socks! 2mm needles and dk cotton yarn yippee! i hope everyone is having a splendid day

[clowningaroundmars]

previously:

Here, the Doctor leaps over to the side, narrowly avoiding a fist to the jaw and swinging 42’s still unconscious body into the air… letting him tumble over the ledge.

"Catch!" He announces brazenly.

42 falls down, down, down.

Gwen watches in horror.

here we are you guys!!! the final chapter! are you guys ready? :)

don't worry, i won't play with your guys' hearts for too long! well. i mean

oh yeah, and remember that death tw on chapter 1? well yeah. no gory details ofc but just mind the warning

anyways, enjoy! :D it's the final stretch

<< part 4 of 4

Doc Ock cackles gleefully as he watches 42’s body tumble into the air and down onto the concrete parking lot several stories below.

With one last burst of rage-filled strength, Gwen football-tackles him over the ledge while his guard is down, sending all three of them sailing through the cool night air.

Doc Ock clearly doesn’t expect this, if his screaming was anything to go by.

But Gwen wasn’t concerned at all with his idiotic cries, she was a woman on a mission and by god if she wasn’t going to complete it!

If she failed two of her friends and directly lead to both of their demises, then what the hell was she wearing the mask for?

No, this ends now.

She quickly grabs Doc Ock by the back of his neck and grips onto another one of his tentacles as they fall through the air, ripping it straight out of the node on his spinal cord with all of her might.

“N-no-- don’t!! AAAAAAAAAUGHH!!”

The Doctor’s soul-wrenching yowl of pain might’ve made Gwen feel a little bad… under normal circumstances. But at the moment, her every bit of focus was pointed towards Miles-42 like a compass pointing True North, and she wasn’t letting him out of her sight now.

Making split-second calculations, she kicked the Doctor’s body off of her and used the tentacle’s technological properties as a last-ditch effort to hook herself onto a nearby streetlamp, swinging her entire body’s weight with a loud grunt of effort.

She intercepted Miles’ flailing body in mid-air and succeeded in grabbing a hold of him, swinging down onto the ground safely and falling onto the concrete. She crashed onto her knees and rolled over a few times, clutching 42's head protectively all the way down.

The Doctor… didn’t make it.

With a sickening crunch and splatter, he was a disgusting mess of red, wet garbage on the concrete. His tentacles weren't long enough to reach back up to ledge of the building and his slower reflexes caused him to miss the streetlamp entirely.

His remaining tentacles laid next to him just as limp and as dead as he was.

Well, shit. That was gonna be a nasty surprise for the paramedics to find later on, huh.

Gwen sighed with relief as she laid her head back down and took a minute to catch her breath.

What a day. She wanted this to be completely over now, but… she knew that despite this small moment of relief, she wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. Literally.

But also…

“Miles,” she grunts with effort, every muscle in her body crying out as she pushes herself off of her elbows to sit up.

Miles-42 is laid across her lap now and showing zero signs of waking up anytime soon. Gwen’s heart started kicking into overdrive again, and she held him in her hands…

Just like you held Peter… after killing him, an evil little voice sneered at her from the back of her mind.

“Peter? Peter, oh god. What did you do?!” Gwen sobbed, excavating her beloved friend from the rubble of her school’s gymnasium.

He wasn’t gonna make it… oh god, he really wasn’t going to make it. The poor boy could barely open his eyes, and his bloody, beaten face was something that was going to haunt her in her nightmares forever.

It was etched into the back of her mind, the back of her damn eyelids, especially when to her delight-- or horror, it was hard to tell in the moment-- he managed to crack open his swollen eyes and look directly into hers.

“Gw-- Gwen…” he coughed, weakly.

Gwen continued to cry. “No no no no no, no, no! What did you do!? Why?!” She pleaded, wanting any answer, anything to hold onto.

“I… I wanted to be special. Like you,” he managed, even weaker than before.

Gwen knew it. She could feel the thready pulse of his heartbeat growing weaker and weaker with every passing second, and time was running out.

But she still held on.

“… Peter?” She sucked in a breath.

“Peter?”

“Peter?!”

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“Miles?!”

Gwen sobbed once more, clutching yet another beloved friend in her arms, in a position eerily similar to that fateful night. “Miles!”

All of the feelings she felt the night that her best friend had died came crashing back down and flooding into her chest like a tsunami.

She sniffled angrily, ripping her mask off of her face and working to pry Miles’ mask off of his own face, too.

... Damn it! What the hell was this stupid thing made out of?!

She didn’t want to break his tech, as complicated and extremely well-made as it was. She knew it was valuable and expensive to make, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She needed to see if he was still possibly alive, if he could give her a sign or something, and she wasn’t going to be able to do it with this stupid mask in the way!

She didn’t trust her shaking hands to be able to read his pulse in this state… she needed to see his face.

After a couple of minutes of careful jabbing and prying, Gwen was finally frustrated enough to just slide Miles right off of her lap and pry the whole thing off of his face with one firm pull.

She managed to do so without injuring him even more, and immediately got to checking the color of his lips in the low lighting of the near-empty parking lot. She fussed over him, sniffling and wiping her tears all the while.

It seemed like his bleeding stopped for now at least, but that was without even knowing how much he had lost in the first place.

“Miles… Miles?! Please,” she begged as she held him in her arms once more. “Answer me, please! Let me know you’re still alive, anything! Wiggle your eyebrows or…” she sniffled, “I… I don’t know but god, please, anything!”

What the hell did Doc Ock even do to this kid anyways?

She examined his face once more through the tears in her eyes and noticed a new injury that looked relatively fresh, still bleeding somewhere from his temple.

Maybe he knocked Miles out for a longer time in his mad dash to the roof… and if that was true… he really, really could be dead.

Miles-42 wasn’t a superpowered being like the rest of the Spider Band, he was a regular kid with cool gadgets and intense at-home training, but a regular kid nonetheless. Gwen could recover from a hard head injury herself just fine, all she would have to do is just sleep the pain off.

But Miles…

Miserably, Gwen sunk down even lower to the ground and sobbed her eyes out, tears wetting her face and staining the spray-painted Prowler logo on Miles’ shirt.

She stays like this, clutching onto the limp body of someone she would’ve been happy to call her friend-- especially after all they’ve been through today-- and now he won’t even live to see the fruits of his labor.

Fuck.

Gwen’s wandering thoughts takes her over to his uncle Aaron’s face, how he was going to react to the news of his nephew’s untimely and unfortunate death.

Gwen thought about Rio and… well, she cried even harder.

But she didn’t get to finish because… Miles then stirred a bit, his breathing speeding up a bit before he laid his head back and sighed softly.

Gwen stopped crying. She was shocked, staring back into his blank face with wide, teary eyes.

… Was it her imagination, then? Did she want Miles to be alive so badly that she convinced herself that he moved a bit while she wept?

No. No, she’s got to suck it up, stop letting her emotions get the best of her and give it a real try this time.

Steadying her breathing and wiping the snot from her nose, she brushes her hair back from her face and turns Miles’ face towards a nearby streetlamp that casts down a cold, white light onto the scene.

With gentle fingers, she lifts up one of his eyelids, then his other eyelid, and then finally bends down to listen to his chest as closely as she can.

She hears a heartbeat, though not so loudly underneath all of the gear he wears, but a heartbeat nonetheless.

Miles really stirs this time, groaning and sucking in a breath as he slowly comes back online.

Gwen laughs wetly, wiping more of her tears and boogers and sadness away, only tears of joy left brimming in her eyes.

“Miles! Oh my god, you’re alive… you’re alive! You made it!” She announces gleefully, giving him a happy little squeeze.

“Ow,” Miles answers hoarsely, squinting in the harsh, cold light of the streetlamp overhead and coughing a bit.

“S-sorry, sorry. I’m just. Well, y’know pretty excited that you’re alive. I thought that you were actually dead for a minute there, bud! You really gave me a scare!” She laughs and sniffles.

Miles finally cracks an eye open long enough to exhale a bit and lay his head back down.

“Uhhh… who are you again?” He mumbles, and Gwen’s heart sinks.

Oh no.

“What? Uh, i-it’s me, Gwen! Y’know, the girl who you’ve been fighting to escape this horrible building with this whole night? Oh no… is your head injury that bad?” She frets.

Miles then cracks a smile, not quite being able to laugh but getting pretty damn close to doing so.

“Gwendy, relax. I know who you are. Joke,” he explained, and it earned him another head bump from being promptly dropped right back onto the hard ground.

“Ow,” he complained.

“You are a dick,” Gwen replied, folding her arms over her chest. She didn’t stop smiling through her tears, though.

“Were you crying over me? Oh my god, you were totally crying,” Miles says with a smile, not making any movements to get up at all.

Gwen unfolds her aching legs from underneath her and stands up on her knees. “Shut up. Stop talking. You’ve sustained a critical brain injury and you need to not make stupid decisions before we get you out of here, alright?”

Miles chuckles quietly. “Mmnyeah, true. Lemme keep my mouth shut.”

He wasn’t slurring his speech or confusing her for another person, so that was a good sign.

He wasn’t moving any of his limbs, though. So… that was possibly a bad sign.

“Can you, uh,” Gwen starts, glancing all around her as she fully stands up, “can you walk? Or sit up? I can carry you, but I need to know that you’re not paralyzed from the neck down first. I don’t wanna risk any more injuries, y’know?”

Miles wiggles his feet and flexes his hands inside of his gauntlets for a bit before laying back down and sighing again.

“Yeah, I can move my limbs. I don’t think anything’s broken… except for this massive fuckin’ migraine I got goin�� on right now. Just, uhm. Just gimme a minute.”

Gwen continues looking over her shoulder. The blades of a chopper are vibrating through the air several miles away but it’s gaining speed quickly, and steadily getting closer.

“Okay, you might wanna hurry up on that, because we’ve got company coming and we still need to get the hell out of here,”

Miles blinks on the ground for a few more seconds, gears very obviously turning in his head as he does.

After a few seconds, he says, “okay. Help me up, then. Slowly,”

It takes them several more minutes of pained grunting and a slow ascent up to get Miles standing again, but once they’re both steady on their feet, they get a move on.

Gwen has one of his arms over her shoulder, steadying him and carrying some of his weight.

“Wait,” Miles says suddenly, just as they’re rounding a corner of the building where several guards and scientists are still milling around. There are a few big white buses parked close by, most likely hired to transport the personnel away from the facility. Some are already sat inside.

Gwen ducks back around the corner and takes a peek at the scene before turning her attention back to her friend.

“Shit, you’re right. There’s a lot of people out there, most likely waiting for Octavius or something. We’ve gotta find a way too book it out of here undetected, though…”

“Mh, yep,” Miles grunts, sucking in air through his teeth for a second. “Ow, sorry. My head’s killin’ me… which kinda sucks, ‘cause my escape plan was to just hot-wire a car and hightail it outta here.”

Gwen laughed incredulously. “Oh my god. That was your grand escape plan this whole time?” She shakes her head. “In every single universe… Miles Morales is the exact same dork I always hate to love,”

“Psshhyeah right, hate to love. You’re not foolin’ me,” Miles smirks at her exasperated expression.

Gwen rolls her eyes and instructs Miles to lean against the wall and stay put while she goes to search for a viable vehicle they could steal.

“Cool. Good luck. I definitely won’t die,” Miles informs her, which just makes her roll her eyes again before bounding away.

Time for some espionage, Gwen thinks to herself as she skirts the outer edges of the parking lot and tries to avoid being seen by the several other armed personnel still waiting around to receive confirmation that they can now depart.

After a little bit, a few ambulance trucks pull up with flashing red lights and the paramedics jump out, which actually gives her some relief. The professionals were on the job now, everything was taken care of; they also served as a perfect distraction from what she was doing…

Which was looping around the entire building’s perimeter and seeing which car was left unattended and unlocked.

She really didn’t want to have to break any windows, especially because she needed to keep as quiet as possible since she still needed to go back and fetch Miles… but if all options were exhausted…

Bingo!

She eventually came across a parked Ford F-250 near a line of trees located just behind all of the ambulances and the commotion. It was unlocked (haha, sucker!) and was perfectly empty, ready for the taking.

Gwen couldn’t believe that despite failure after failure plaguing her on this day, her luck finally turned around at the last minute… what a relief!

Overhead, the chopper finally reached its destination, drowning out every sound around them with its spinning blades as it slowly lowered itself down onto the helipad located at the top of the building. Leaves were whipped violently into the air, trees swayed and shook with the force of the winds.

Gwen rejoiced again at the added distraction that would surely help with her sweet escape.

The helicopter crew wouldn't find much waiting for them up there, save for the unconscious bodies of several brutally-beaten henchmen, of course.

She fetched her friend who was now sitting with his knees tucked up under his chin against the wall, and together they limped their way back to the truck and climbed in.

Once inside, they successfully hot-wired it using Miles’ gadgets. Then Miles went to climb out of the driver’s seat.

“Uhh wait, huh. Where’re you going?” Gwen asks from the passenger seat.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You’re driving. Hop in.” Miles groans as he lowers himself from the high-as-hell cab, clutching at his side.

Gwen titters nervously. “Ohhh, no, no I’m not! I don’t even have my license yet, I can’t drive!”

Miles takes his sweet time painstakingly climbing into the back seat of the truck. He shirks his pack off, throws it onto the floor of the cab, and stretches himself out over the seats to lay down.

“Yep, I don’t have my license either, girl, you don’t see me chickening out when I’m picked to be the getaway driver!” He remarks, once comfortable.

Gwen huffs in annoyance, leaping over to the driver’s side and locking all of the doors once she makes sure they’re shut tight.

“Dude, forreal! I have no clue how to operate a truck like this! The gear shift isn’t even in the right place,” she complains.

Miles cracks one eye open. “Please tell me your dimension doesn’t have y’all driving on the left side of the road…”

Gwen huffs again. “No, I'm not British, Miles. I meant… this looks pretty high-tech for me and… what do all of these buttons even do? …Is this a touch screen?”

“Gwen, seriously, I get that this is a brand new experience for you but listen: there are like, no laws in this dimension. Literally not even kidding. Just pull up the GPS on that touch screen, punch in my address and we can get going. Left pedal’s gas, right pedal’s the brakes.”

She hesitated, but... there was no arguing with that! Who was Gwen to make decisions in a dimension she wasn’t even a part of, really? If Miles told her that his dimension ignored all traffic laws, well… then, when in Rome, right?

And besides, who else was getting them both to safety if not her? She needed to suck it up before they were noticed by any personnel sweeping the area, or before any cops showed up.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself.

“Well,” Gwen said nervously, both hands on the wheel and her eyes directly on the road in front of her, “bon voyage, then! Let’s pray I don’t get the both of us killed,”

“Vamos con dios,” Miles mumbled, an arm draped over his eyes. He quickly lost consciousness once again.

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About half an hour into their drive (which-- aside from terrible braking every now and then-- was admittedly pretty smooth, all things considered), Gwen pulls over to a greasy 24-hour fast food place that seemed to serve all of the shittiest, unhealthiest food ever invented under the sun.

She woke Miles up and asked him what his order would be, borrowed his jacket to cover up her unique costume’s design, and ducked inside.

She was surprised to see Miles up and sitting in the truck bed when she returned with their food, legs swinging like he hadn’t just gotten injured helping her fight a menacing four-armed madman not even an hour and a half ago.

He looked the worse for wear, braids frizzed out as they hung right over his shoulders like they usually did, but he was more alert now than he had been before. He looked fine, given the circumstances.

They sat side-by-side, gazing up at what scarce stars there were out in the early morning sky, the edges of the horizon peeking a slight blush of pink through the trees.

Gwen scarfed down her triple bacon burger and inhaled her large fries, only stopping every once in a while to take a sip of her extra-large milkshake.

A mildly amused Miles enjoyed his own fries and meatball sub in companionable silence.

“Feelin’ better?” Gwen asks, still munching on the last bit of her burger, which has now thoroughly stained the lap of her costume with grease.

Miles laughs, wrapping up the second half of his sandwich for later. “Yeah, a quick nap and a good meal helps a lot,”

Gwen hums in thought. “You were out for… a while. Like, back at the parking lot. I was getting real worried there, actually,” she admits.

Miles glances at her, studying her face for a second. “… How long? I mean, you were crying, so I guess it was a while,”

Gwen rolls her eyes. “Can you stop bringing the crying back up again? I just… I got scared, okay? You didn’t tell me what your grand escape plan was before you… uh, passed out, so I mean...”

Miles is skeptical. “Uh huh, the escape plan. That’s what you were worried about that whole time, right?” He ribbed her a bit, intending for it to come off light-heartedly.

The tense silence that fell in that moment made him a bit nervous, though.

Gwen looked… upset.

He backpedaled. “Uhhh, I mean. Yeah, yeah, the escape plan! The escape plan... woulda been a real shame if I croaked back there before telling you what it was. Of course.” He clears his throat awkwardly.

Gwen offers him a small smile and starts clearing the wrappings and the trash around her folded legs.

“I… uh. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before. Well, not all of the details but. I don’t really do the whole friend thing anymore because of… I mean, I lost a friend before. And you’re Miles and-- I mean, not my Miles but the other Miles is-- was my friend, and I think we’re cool now, but when I saw you falling I just…”

Gwen sighs. “Sorry. I’m rambling. This is awkward.”

Miles leans back against the side of the truck bed, positioned in the same way that they were sitting back when they were having a bit of a heart-to-heart in the vents of Octavius’ compound. Funny how little moments like this seemed so serendipitous like that.

He studied her face again in the yellowing lights of the restaurant’s signs, thinking for a bit.

“Miles… the other Miles kind of told me some stuff. Not too many details, sure, but. Yeah,” he offered, trying to signal to her that he was down for a chat, no matter how depressing the topic got.

Not very many people in his world got to understand him on a deeper level, not even his own girlfriend. It was nice sitting next to someone who dealt with just as much trauma as him, if not more. It was... an opportunity for connection. Why not take it?

Gwen looked up at him. “Oh, you two talk about me?”

“Yeah, you’re all we talk about, your highness,” he laughs, then sobers up again. “Nah. I mean, y’know like, we talk about everybody. And he likes you, you know. So, yeah... sometimes you get brought up.”

Gwen sighs, leaning her head back against the truck bed and looking up at the stars above. “He shouldn’t, honestly. I think he can find someone from his dimension that… that’s gonna actually appreciate him, you know?” She looks back down into Miles’ eyes. “Not a self-deprecating thing, by the way. Don’t worry,”

Miles holds his hands up with an easy smile. “Not worrying,”

“Well good!” Gwen smirks. Then she shrugs. "I'm not sure it'd work out between us. That's all."

“... So about that back there… I took a look in the side mirror and uh,” he gestures to his shirt, the Prowler insignia now slightly messed up and blurred in some spots thanks to Gwen’s salty tears. "Yeah."

Gwen looks away, ashamed. “Yeah,” is all she says.

“Was your friend… a good friend?” Miles prodded a bit, trying to seem nonchalant about it.

Gwen saw right through it, even when she was purposefully avoiding looking at him. “Yeah. He was. My best friend,”

“Damn,” Miles replies. “I reminded you of him that much?”

Gwen laughs bitterly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I mean… I thought of you as my friend, which… y’know, you are, until we get to go our separate ways and forget all of this even happened. And I uh… I don’t like seeing friends get hurt. That’s all.”

Miles bobbed his head slowly, digesting this bit of information and taking a sip of his own milkshake.

"He, uhm." Gwen swallowed. "He died in my arms."

It was all she could say.

Miles winced because he understood. He really, really did.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat. “Listen. I, uh. I wouldn’t mind calling you a friend after all of this, if you don’t mind. Like, even after we go home,” He strategically avoided eye contact with her. "We been through too much tonight to call each other strangers, right?"

Gwen smiled at him again. It was a sad smile. “Why don’t you have any friends, by the way? You seem cool. Well. When you’re not in work mode, that is.”

Miles chuckled. “Wow. Do I seem that lonely?”

Gwen shrugs. “The other Miles also tells me some things… sometimes. You just happen to come up every now and then, that’s all,” she manages as playfully as possible. She throws him a wink over her shoulder.

Miles' upper lip quirked up. “That little traitor. I’m giving him a wedgie the next time I see ‘im.”

Gwen barks out a laugh. “Good luck! He’s ten times stronger than you and he can go invisible,”

“Yep,” Miles nods to himself. “You definitely still have a crush on him.”

Gwen throws a fry at him and then they decide to finally dump their trash and continue their journey back into the city before the sun really started waking up and blinding poor Gwen, who was already learning how to drive on the fly and probably didn’t need the relentless sun rays beaming directly into her eyes while she was still at it.

They rode the rest of the way in much better spirits.

They drive past Newark, New Jersey and before Gwen knows it, they’re driving through Manhattan and reaching the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Okay okay, okay, okay okay okayokayokay,” she mutters to herself, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel and leaving slight indentations in the material. “I got this, I got this,”

Miles is now seated in the passenger seat, seatbelt firmly clicked in place. He’s leaned forward, ready to stop Gwen at any moment and pull the emergency brakes.

“Yeah, yeah, you got this, you got this! Don’t be intimidated by all the other cars around you, this ain’t our truck, remember? Everyone else is gonna be doing whatever the hell they wanna do, but don’t do anything stupid on the bridge, right? Otherwise, just keep your foot hovering over the brakes, like I told you before. Let this truck coast,”

Gwen tries her best to internalize all of his rapid-fire advice and not accidentally find herself flooring the gas by accident at the same time. She’s pretty sure her finger marks are going to be sunk into the polyurethane foam and possibly even the metal underneath forever.

She didn’t know who in the world owned this truck, but whoever he was, he was going to be real pissed off when he discovered it in the future.

Which, actually, speaking of…

“Sooo, how uh… where are we going to put this truck once we’re done with it? Should we… pull over soon, leave it in a parking lot somewhere and take the train the rest of the way?”

Miles chuckled. “Leave it? You kiddin’? This truck is basically brand new, pristine. We’re taking this straight to my uncle’s chop shop, we’re gonna take this stuff apart, sell a part here and there, keep the rest for our own gear.”

Gwen gave him a cursory glance. “Uh, your uncle has an auto shop? Huh. Dunno why that surprises me.”

“It’s not a legit business, that’s why. He only runs it as a front. We use it mostly to bring in abandoned cars, use the metals, wires and glass for our gear, other weapons we make to sell. Sometimes Aaron fixes other people’s cars and bikes for some money, though… and bribes.”

Gwen chuckles a bit. “Sounds about right. But I guess I don’t blame you guys. Gotta do what you can to… survive… right?”

She trails off as they get closer to Brooklyn's residential areas and see a rampant spike in crimes. Gwen’s Spider Sense goes off as she sees crime after crime being committed in the brand new hours of the dawn, when the sky hasn’t even finished lightening up to a nice baby blue yet.

“… I see that you guys, uhm… these New Yorkers here in this dimension are a… lively bunch, huh?” Gwen comments distractedly as she drives past someone actively committing grand theft auto.

“Yyyyep,” Miles sighs. “Home, sweet home.”

“You ever wonder what it’s like to live anywhere else in the world sometimes?”

“Only everyday. But us Morales never run from anything. So,” Miles shrugs.

Gwen gives him a fond look.

"Sure do wish I could stop some of these people, though-- wait. Is that man mugging that other guy over there?" She cranes her neck over the wheel to get a better look.

Miles grabs the wheel to keep them from veering into a line of parked cars. "How about we just keep driving, okay? Eyes on the road, girl."

Gwen laughs sheepishly. "Right! Sorry. Spiderwoman instincts."

"Yeah, trust me, I get it." Miles replies flatly. "Don't get distracted. This crime's ours to fight, not yours. Just get us home, like, alive please?"

After finally rolling up to Aaron’s garage at five in the morning, bright and early, Miles lowers himself down from the cab once again and limps over to ring the doorbell.

He presses it in a series of patterns that Gwen only vaguely recognizes before the metal garage door eventually starts rumbling open, revealing a slightly disheveled Aaron still in his PJs, but with a fly coat on as per usual, and some nice-looking Timbs. He was casually leaning against a vintage Cadillac.

He held a mug of coffee in one hand that read “WORLD’S WORST UNCLE” in bold lettering on one side.

Gwen bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“About damn time,” Aaron grumbles, scratching at his beard and pushing off of the Cadillac. “What took y’all so long?”

Miles only gives him a cursory glance before going around the front of the truck to help Gwen down from the cab and dive into the backseat to retrieve his stuff.

Aaron raises an eyebrow at her.

“Uh, hello… sir. I’m Gwen!” She responds, mostly to dispel the awkwardness that hung in the air.

Aaron eyes the truck as he paces casually towards the two teens, gaze occasionally flicking down to the purple jacket that Gwen still sported... that very clearly belonged to his nephew.

"What, uh," Aaron starts, "what... happened to you two?"

"Ah, you know. High risk life-threatening mission, the usual!" Gwen quips on auto-pilot. Her mouth moves faster than her brain does sometimes.

Miles followed Aaron’s gaze and quickly stepped in front of her, holding his pack out for him to take.

“I got it,” he informed Aaron. “All of it.”

Aaron made a noise of approval, taking the pack and examining it.

It still had a few cobwebs dangling off of it. He hummed in thought, eyeing his nephew once more.

“Sooo, we’re gonna go upstairs now, cool? I gotta clean this super awful and deep wound I got from… uh, saving Gwen here. Yeah, she was gonna be sushi if I didn’t jump in front of her. It was Doc Ock, by the way,” Miles continued, as they both made their way into the garage and towards the door in the back. “Doc Ock, that we killed, too. By the way. Mostly me, of course. But, y’know. No need to thank me or anything!”

Aaron laughs and shakes his head. "I'm tellin' Rio, kid. I am! I'm snitchin', I don't care."

"What!" Miles exclaims indignantly. "About what?!"

Aaron's shoulders are shaking. "I'm tellin' her you got another girl around now,"

Gwen laughed loudly, grabbing Miles by the back of his shirt and yanking him towards the back exit door.

“I do not! Do not call her! Bye!” Miles called out before stumbling into the landing that lead up to the elevator of his uncle’s building.

Miles apologized about his uncle in the elevator ride up, and when he opened the door to Aaron's spacious apartment, he kicked his shoes off and sighed with relief.

“Make yourself at home, by the way… mi casa es su casa, and all that,” he says nonchalantly as he peels his shirt off of his body, shedding gear on the floor all the way to the couch.

Gwen only stands by the door, jacket in hand, fiddling nervously with the material.

“I should… I should go.” She finally says after a moment of hesitation. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. “I shouldn’t stick around if I really don’t need to--”

“Why, ‘cause of Spider Society rules?” Miles scoffs, pulling a first aid kit from under the couch and inspecting his wound. “Am I still bleeding on the side of my face, by the way?”

Gwen sighs. “No. And, no. You’ve stopped bleeding a while ago. Look…” she dumps his jacket onto the back of a computer chair and looks down at her watch. “This little adventure was very fun and all… but you got hurt because of me, and I should--”

She stops when she sees Miles’ wound. It looked nothing like she’d ever seen before on a person... and she’s seen her fair share of wounds.

The gaping… thing that Miles was inflicted with didn’t look like any wound she’d even experienced before.

It was green, still had a slight glow to it from the weird snake-like marks winding out from the center. The dried blood scabbing over didn’t bother her at all, she knew how ugly a stab wound could look most days, but the green glow…

It looked a lot like the glowing green circuits back in that power box that she destroyed at Octavius’ compound…

She gasped.

Miles looked up from his inspection and they locked eyes.

“Uhhh,” his pupils bounce around for a bit, trying to think of something to say. “It’s… it’s not as bad as it looks?”

Gwen winces and then swiftly turns around, immediately punching in her own dimension into the watchface. “I’d love to stick around… but I gotta go. Don’t die on me, okay?” She tells him, speaking quickly.

Miles is caught by surprise, but eventually concedes. He places a hand over his wound and nods in her direction. “Uhm. Yeah, cool. Will do. You uh, you take it easy, too. Yeah?”

Gwen only offers him a sad smile in return and her own watercolor-bright portal is immediately opened. Then, she’s stepping through it like she’s being chased down.

After the portal closes, everything that was in the vicinity settles down after floating in the air a bit.

Miles is left alone blinking in the place it used to be, unsure as to why Gwen just dipped on him like that out of nowhere.

He looks back down to his wound, only maybe slightly infected, but still very sure that the poison most likely worked itself through his body by now. Especially after that meatball sub and the fries...

Maybe seeing poisoned wounds upset her or something, he figured, shrugging and going back into the open kit laid next to him.

He starts cleaning his wound with isopropyl alcohol, wincing every now and then when the chemical stung a little harder as he peeled away dried blood.

It isn’t until after he’s done that he remembers their conversation about her best friend, back in the truck at the fast food joint.

He shuts the kit closed, tucks it back underneath the couch, and picks his phone up off of the counter where he usually leaves it before heading out to dangerous missions.

He selects and copies Gwen’s number from the Spider Band groupchat that he never sends messages in, opens a new message box, and sends only one text.

Thanks, btw. For everything.