₊ ⊹ the price of the name.
synopsis: reader has had a hard life, and now she’s an orphan. but someone just as lonely comes into her life to take her under his wing.
warnings: violence in this chapter (capture of an anomaly, star girl gets injured), mentions of getting stitches without anesthetic. The Fight ™. Miguel loses himself in anger twice (tread lightly). lots of cursing. use of spanish.
so…it does get worse after this chapter. hobie is a g (yes he’s here). as always, this is a platonic!miguel x reader fic, not a romantic one.
part i | part ii
word count: 2.7k
part iii: i’m not her
. ˚ * ✦ . . ✦ ˚
“let’s go over the process one more time.” miguel was saying as you both exited the trans-universe portal.
“no, please god, no.” you groaned, pressing your hand to the mask of you spider suit. “we must have gone over this a million times, miguel. this isn’t my first anomaly.”
the eye patterns of his suit narrowed. you had gotten to know his facial expressions well over the past nine months, even when he was wearing his mask.
“yes, but this one’s big. you’ve never tackled a big one before.” he claimed, and you rolled your eyes.
“telling me about it isn’t going to be the same as me actually experiencing it. just let me do my thing.” you responded, shooting a web to a nearby building and jumping up to swing.
miguel’s tight grip on the back of your suit held you still like a puppy, and you wriggled for a moment before giving in and letting him set you on the ground.
“we’re waiting for the other spider, remember? slow down.” miguel said firmly, hand resting at the base of your neck for a moment in a ‘stay’ gesture. you shrugged his hand off.
“who is it?” you asked. you had yet to work with someone other than miguel on missions. he preferred to work with you hands on, using the anomalies as a lesson.
yet another thing that was unusual: miguel didn’t do ‘partners’. jess was the closest to that before you.
miguel’s posture stiffened, and your spidey-senses tingled as you put the pieces together.
“don’t tell me.” you said in a giddy voice to him, and miguel pressed his fingers to his temples as if trying to relieve a headache.
before you could press him more, the sound of an all-too familiar guitar riff burst across the roof top you both stood on.
“hey, star girl.” came the sound of a familiar voice, slurred with a cockney accent.
you turned and ran straight to hobie, pounding your fist with his as you pulled you close by his arm around your shoulders.
“you two…know each other?” came miguel’s stern voice, glaring at you and hobie.
“yeah, we’ve met a few times around the base.” you explained as hobie shoved your shoulder playfully.
“y/n’s pretty hard to miss, boss. kinda surprised you assumed we hadn’t.” hobie said, and you didn’t miss the mocking tone in his voice as he looked at miguel.
you poked him in the ribs, willing him to behave.
he pinched your side in response, causing you to squeal and pull away from the spider punk beside you.
“enough play, let’s secure this anomaly.” miguel said, murmuring a curse in spanish as he turned from you and slung a web.
hobie looked down at you. “does he get jealous this of’en?” he asked, shooting a web of his own as he shifted his guitar up his shoulder.
you shrugged. “he’s not jealous, hobie. you just piss each other off.” you both jumped from the building, quickly locating the thing you were to capture.
“sure, i piss him off. but that was different. he’s got a soft spot, y/n”
you shrugged again as you pulled yourself up into a flip, locating the anomalies weak points.
it took a moment for you to realize just why miguel was so concerned.
the anomaly was a green goblin, and a quick one at that.
nine months ago you would have been useless in this fight. but now? miguel’s training has honed your skills, and you moved through the motions with the ease of a dancer in a well-rehearsed routine.
that was, until the goblin threw one of his smoke bombs right into your face.
the momentary blindness caused you to miss your webbing. you slammed through a window of a skyscraper into an office building, rolling across the floor and into a desk.
“fuck.” you murmured as you tried to stand, only for your legs to buckle. your ears rang from the bomb, and your eyes watered.
you removed your mask, taking a breath of fresh air as you tried to get your barings. you looked down at your body in an attempt to take stock of your injuries.
there was a laceration across your calf from the glass, and your shoulder throbbed. it took a second for you to realize that it was dislocated.
you took a few moments to rest your head back, fighting the urge to just sit and rest. you were needed. you had to get back.
you shifted up against the desk, manouveing your arm so that it sat in place before you shoved your body to the side.
you let out a strangled cry when your arm popped back into place, the pain bright but brief. your hearing was coming back, and you could hear the distant cackles of the green goblin as you stood.
you stepped to the broken window, taking a breath before you jumped back into the fight.
“hey star girl! you still with us?” shouted hobie from a distance, and you gave him a thumbs up.
he couldn’t afford the time to ask you more, simply nodding as he slammed his guitar against the goblin’s glider, causing the anomaly to fall.
orange silk stuck to the goblin’s chest, tugging him forward before a blue figure slammed into his chest, causing the two to fly into another building, disappearing from view.
you took a moment to just hang, catching your breath as you waited for miguel to give you and hobie the go ahead.
when nothing came, you scowled, swinging through the opening.
the sight that greeted you made your blood run cold.
you knew miguel could get mad. you had heard the whispers, heard the stories, listened to the tales of blood and broken bones that followed in his wake.
but nothing could compare to actually seeing his brutality.
miguel laid into the goblin, his fist colliding with his jaw over and over again, each impact sounding wetter than the last.
the anomaly’s mask was long sense shattered, and you could see the eyes of norman osborn just barely clinging to life.
“miguel stop.” you said, voice barely above a whisper as you fought down the bile rising in your throat.
but miguel didn’t hear you, slamming his fist against the goblin’s face again.
you should have known not to get too close. you were trained to stay away from close fist fights. but in that moment, nothing mattered.
you took a step closer and placed your hand against miguel’s back, trying to calm him. “mig, you need to st-“
his elbow collided with you nose with a sickening crunch. blood burst from it like a supernova, and your vision swam as you stumbled back a few steps.
hobie caught you under the armpits, hauling you back so you could both lean against a desk for support.
“miguel, what the fuck.” he was saying, voice low and angry as he pressed a ripped off part of his shirt to your nose. you winced in pain, and hobie’s eyes hardened even more.
when you finally got the courage to look up at your mentor, your mouth went dry.
because he was already looking at you, with the same mixture of guilt and regret that he had when he first took you as an apprentice.
he was on you in a second, hovering over you and cupping your face with clawed hands. looking wild while beating a man was one thing, but the devastated look he gave you now as he held you was much much worse.
hobie was still pissed, watching miguel from behind you, making sure that he was gentle.
miguel brushed the blood from your nose with a claw, looking tortured. all the while he was murmuring soft sentences in spanish, things that you didn’t quite have the mental capacity to translate, what with the broken nose and bleeding leg.
“lo siento, pequeña. no quise hacerlo, va a estar bien. mierda chica, lo siento mucho.”
you watched as hobie tapped at his watch in your peripheral, and an orange portal opened to your left. it seemed to snap miguel out of whatever trance he had fallen into, and he straightened.
he nodded to hobie, and the punk picked you up easily as miguel did the same for the now-unconscious green goblin.
“ready?” asked the spider holding you, though you knew him enough by now to understand that the question was mostly rhetorical.
you nodded as you pressed the back of your hand to your nose, preparing for the lecture that surely awaited you.
the four of you jumped into the portal, back to base.
₊ ⊹
the worst possible thing miguel can do is be quiet.
he did it often. once you had called him a ‘stewer’, because he would wait until whatever speech he was preparing was the perfect amount of cruel.
you sat in your designated chair with one leg up as the spider-doctor of the base bandaged it. it had needed stitches, and you had forced yourself to go through it without any kind of anesthesia. you had stitched up worse on your own before.
“two weeks rest, and then you’re able to go back in the field. just take it easy for now.” the doctor was saying, and you nodded. you were only truly half listening. the other half of your attention was placed upon miguel, who stood with his back turned to you not twenty feet away.
the doctor dismissed themselves, and you pulled your leg up to sit criss-cross in the chair.
it was a design by miguel himself, added when you needed a place to sit on days where your mentor was busy in his office.
you could still vaguely hear the echos of him explaining complex microbiology and gene-splicing as you did your research papers beside him.
miguel was silent for a few more beats, and you continued watching him, knowing that he felt you staring.
you had been his apprentice for nine months. you knew each others mannerisms well by now.
he let out the characteristic “you’re about to get an earful” sigh that typically haunted your nightmares.
“you almost died.”
oh.
you expected something a bit more barbed, but you could work with this.
“yes. i almost did. but i’m here, and i’m ok.”
“it doesn’t matter.” he said as he finally turned to you, with a solemn resignation in his eyes that made your heart stop.
“you. almost. died. y/n. and i can’t allow that while i’m your mentor. you’re benched.”
your confusion sharpened to irritation.
“you can’t bench me, miguel. i’m not a child.” you responded, rising from your seat. when you put weight against your freshly stitched leg you tripped slightly. miguel gave you a hard look as if it justified his decision.
“i’m your superior. if i say you’re done, you’re done. understood?” he said, with a note of finality that meant he didn’t want a response other than confirmation.
you shook your head, unwilling to back down. “no, i don’t understand.” you replied, squaring your shoulders in an attempt to look bigger next to his tall form.
“i don’t understand why you give me special treatment over others. i don’t understand why you feel the need to be so fucking protective over me. miguel, i don’t…” you sighed, gathering your words as he watched you with a carefully controlled expression.
“i know you feel a certain…responsibility over me because i’m your apprentice. and i understand your concern. but i’m also a person. i’m eighteen, soon to be nineteen. i can handle scrapes and bruises. it’s what we do-“
“y/n, it wasn’t just scrapes and bruises this time. you flew through a fucking window. jesus christ, kid, i thought you were dead.” his tone leaned to desperation, and it made any words you had prepared die in your throat.
sweet clarity.
miguel laying into the green goblin like it was personal, like it was vengeance. how the moments that you took to rest were probably actually minutes, making it look like you went AWOL. how when miguel accidentally elbowed your nose, he probably expected to find you bleeding amongst glass rather than clutching your face.
but the sympathy that normally accompanied your conversations with miguel was gone. instead, words sharpened like blades on your tongue.
“this isn’t fucking fair, miguel. i didn’t ask for this.” you said lowly.
his eyes narrowed at you. “and what exactly is this.”
the words on the tip of your tongue, ready to fire like bullets at the weakest part of miguel. the must vulnerable.
there was always an unspoken fifth rule of your partnership.
never, under any circumstances, talk about his daughter.
“being treated like i’m gabriella. like i’m some second chance for you to make things right. as if i’m just another option to make your life happier-“
you didn’t get to finish.
miguel’s hands clenched the collar of your suit, lifting you so that your toes barely brushed the ground. it wasn’t strangling, but the way he glared down at you promised violence.
your breath caught in your throat as he looked at you, rage palpable as his claws created puncture holes in your suit.
but you trudged on. you had repressed these thoughts for too long.
“miguel, you can’t lock me in a tower and call it love.”
all at once, the rage faded, and the grip on your collar ceased.
you dropped to the floor, wheezing. but a web hit your chest, easing you down. you followed its trail back to the owner.
hobie brown stood in the entrance way to miguel’s office, looking livid. but he said nothing.
that was always the wonderful thing about hobie. he knew when to wait for your signal.
“listen to me very carefully, kid. you will go home, now. you will get the fuck out of this demension as soon as this conversation is over, and you will stay out of it until further notice.” miguel growled, looking down at you.
“you will not be called on any missions, and you will not respond to any invitations to help.” he looked pointedly at hobie. “if you do, i will take your watch and drag you back to your dimension myself. am i understood?”
you looked at him from the ground, frustrated tears in your eyes. there was no way out.
“yes sir.”
you got up and walked out of the office.
₊ ⊹
hobie followed you, keeping pace with your limping step.
“are you really gonna listen to that prick?” he asked, glaring at some nosy spiders that stared. “he’s a fucking idiot if he thinks your gonna stop-“
“i am going to, hobie. i’m going home.” you told him, and the spider-punk paused.
“you saw how he looked at me. do you think he’s going to be kind when he finds me swinging with you or pav with anomalies? you think he won’t drag me back?” you knew miguel well. and you knew his resolve.
he wouldn’t hesitate to take your watch. he wouldn’t hesitate to confine you to your own reality, never to see him or your friends again.
all for the sake of protecting you.
‘you could have died.’
“you said your parents are gone, right?” hobie asked, and you stopped walking at the audacity of that question. when you turned to him, he raised his hands up to show you he meant no harm.
“i just don’t think you should be alone right now. come crash in my flat. we’ll find something to do other than wallow in our own misery, ay?”
you deflated, wanting nothing more than to sink into hobie’s embrace. and you did, allowing him to pull you close as the tears you were holding back finally escaped your eyes, leaking onto hobie’s blue shirt, mixing with the blood that stained it from your nose.
he tapped his watch to open another portal, and you spared one last glance towards the direction of miguel’s office before you stepped through it.
masterlists | part iv
so…like i said…it does get worse in the next chapter. i hope that you all liked this one ♡. stay tuned…
“lo siento, pequeña. no quise hacerlo, va a estar bien. mierda chica, lo siento mucho. - i’m sorry, little one. i didn’t mean to do it, it’s going to be ok. shit kid, i’m so sorry.
taglist:
@pearlssdiary @zeyzeys-stuff @alexisabirdie @ifuckyourmom @hagdgishbr @migueloharaslxt @ladynecromancer @ladyfairenvale
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