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milimeters-morales · 2 months

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chapter 8 of my transfem miles fic <3

Chap 1 / Chap 2 / Chap 3 / Chap 4 / Chap 5 / Chap 6 / Chap 7 / Chap 9

Wordcount: 4k+

Warnings: Nothing graphic, but some bones get broken

“I’m trying to say that even if you say it’s fine, and that you did it on your own, you shouldn’t have had to.”

Okay, he gets that.

“And that simply doing something doesn’t get rid of your fear. Which, is a reasonable one! I don’t want you to think I think it’s crazy or something.”

Miles starts to fiddle with his earrings as he listens.

“I’m just saying sorry for not trying to figure it out… further. Like, more detailed and planned out, before you came out to your brother and Peter again.”

“Ganke, it’s—“

“Don’t tell me it’s okay, please,” Ganke sighs, twirling his pen, “I’m fine with you thinking that, but really think about what I’m saying, too.”

Miles lays back on his bed with his arms folded under his head. Staring at the ceiling really hard while he thinks certainly doesn’t help in the thought process, but it does feel like it.

So Ganke is… upset isn’t the word. He’s a bit guilty, maybe, that Miles came out on his own, despite everything being fine.

…He wishes Uncle Aaron were here. He’d know exactly what to say to make Ganke feel better.

But Uncle Aaron isn’t here, so he’s going to have to man up and figure this out on his own.

And it should be easy, he become Ganke’s best friend before becoming his boyfriend! But it still feels like he’s missing something.

The bed dips, and Ganke rests his head on Miles’s chest, slightly curling into him. His body is warm, and Miles hooks their ankles together. A sense of calm washes over him as he focuses on the other boy’s heartbeat, and he starts breathing in sync.

He can’t fall asleep. But man, he wants to soooo bad right now.

Maybe this entire situation is easy to understand, and Miles is the one just not getting it, like how he is with some unspoken rules in the world. Or maybe, it’s a “journey, not destination” type of thing he isn’t seeing. Sure, it would’ve been really nice if Ganke was there, but Miles isn’t sure that would’ve helped that much. He’d have to be extra careful jumping dimensions with a normal human with him, not to mention if the coming out went super bad.

If Ganke got hurt in any type of way on his watch, he’d never be able to forgive himself. Ganke would never trust him again, and they’d drift apart…

Ugh. Stop thinking about that. It turned out fine, Morales.

Maybe it isn’t about guilt. Maybe it’s like… how he can lift gigantic things by himself, but it is appreciated and a bit easier when other spider-people help out. They don’t need to, but that didn’t matter to them.

He wasn’t ready to come out. He still doesn’t feel ready to tell anyone else. Managing to actually do it, much less to three people (four if you count Peter’s friend, which for Miles’s sanity, he does not), was only because Ganke was getting fed up, and Miles promised to come out to one of those people anyway.

It was a bit more bearable coming out to Hobie, but was that because Ganke was there, or because Hobie was Hobie?

Removing a hand from under his head, he places it on top of Ganke’s.

Maybe he should just ask Hobie. They could ask him, together, even.

“Ganke, hey. Are you asleep?”

A light snore answers him.

Okay, maybe they can ask him later.

____

Having super-senses is as much a blessing as it is one of the worst curses in the world.

The lady thanks him profusely, patting his shoulders as he lets her down from his hold.

Her perfume is overwhelming. It wasn’t a bad smell, but man, did she have to spray so much this morning?

“A good man, a good man,” she mutters afterwards, the shock still in her system.

“Here ma’am, there’s a few ambulances over there, they’ll take great care of you,” he gently tells her, “I have to go.”

“Yes you do, you’ve got to fight, good man… good man…”

Anyway, he’s here, fighting some dude with too much strength and not enough brains to realize he was also hurting himself in the process. He was yelling something about being followed, but it’s by nothing that Miles sees, so maybe it’s another invisible enemy just biding its time or something. Or the guy’s lost it.

The bulging muscles look grotesque, reminding Miles of zits that would pop from the slightest pressure. Eugh, gross. The guy, who he’s taken to calling Brick because come on, is barely protecting his modesty.

Oh he sounds old when he says that.

The guy’s barely covering himself with some torn black briefs and black wrestling mask.

“Hey man! I don’t know what your deal is, but—“

He launches himself closer (which he really didn’t want to do, he doesn’t want to get close to this man at all), but Brick grabs a nearby truck and launches it at him.

Without enough time to dodge, and the perfume smell lingering and making it hard to focus, Miles shouts in pain as the truck hits him full force, the crack of ribs and something on his face made him panic for a second, the pain not hitting him yet (hopefully it won’t be too bad). He quickly rights himself midair, webbing the truck to the ground as he continues to go flying into a wall.

“Shit,” he wheezes out as he smacks into the hard brick and falls down to his knees.

His parents are gonna kill him if he makes any of this worse.

Quickly standing up, he swings back over to Brick, landing on his back as the man bends over to lift up part of the sidewalk.

“Hey man, that hurt! Talk to me! What’s going on?” He snaps his fingers near the man’s ear, swiftly webbing his arms and legs to the ground.

Not like it’s gonna do much , he thinks.

He feels something warm spreading all over his face as he stands up, and wonders if he should just avoid going home for a few extra hours. Give everything some extra time to heal before he freaks his mom and dad out…

“They’re after me!” Brick yells, ripping his arms free from the webbing and trying to swat Miles away with a large hand.

He simply scuttles to a different part of Brick’s back-- why hasn’t that perfume faded yet?!

“Who?!” Miles shouts back.

“Them!”

Thanks, man.

Miles huffs and webs the man again, not sure if he should paralyze him with his venom. Brick already looks really… unhealthy, his heart is for sure working overtime, and though Miles can (usually) control the amount of venom he uses, it seemed too risky.

Maybe he should just play along? He thinks he’s read that somewhere.

“Okay man, I’ll help you!” Miles pats Brick’s back, feeling for a heartbeat. Yeah, way too fast to be healthy.

Did this guy take something that mutated him this badly? Like, super-steroids? Steroids on steroids?

“You can’t!” Brick shouts, ripping free again with a strange sob-yell, and starting to run towards another truck.

“Oh no you don’t,” Miles mutters, hopping off and grabbing Brick’s wrists before sticking his feet to the ground. “I can help! I’m super good at this!”

“Let me go!” Brick shrieks, trying his best to free himself from Miles’s grip. For a second, Miles is worried Brick will start ripping skin, but he tries to kick Miles square in the chest.

“Hey, that’s not nice!” Miles shouts, adding a bit of whininess to his voice, releasing Brick and jumping on top of the man’s foot to flip back onto his back. “Why don’t you tell me what their plan is?”

“They know I stole from them! Look at me!”

Okay, so Brick definitely took something. Miles feels pretty bad for calling him dumb earlier… how’s he supposed to proceed? The perfume still lingering makes it hard to focus, but he knows three basic things that might help. One: make sure Brick is as safe as possible. Two: get him water. Three: make sure he gets medical attention.

“I see you man, you’re huge,” Miles tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “how’d this even happen?”

Brick growls and goes to swat Miles again, but he dodges-- a bit too slow, because the mighty hand clips him on the shoulder, jostling him almost off of Brick’s back.

“I gotta know what happened, man! Do you have a name?” Miles asks, righting himself on the man’s back.

Brick starts to run down the street again, away from approaching police sirens.

Great , Miles thinks sarcastically, shoulders drooping.

“Are the cops the ones after you?” He asks Brick, trying to hold on with his wavering vision and strength. “I can get them to leave you alone for a bit,” he says, not fully knowing if he actually can. He’ll try though.

“No! The-- Those scientists, they’re after me!” Brick stumbles over a pothole, sending Miles tumbling over onto the pavement. Ugh. There’s two of everything now. Is he losing too much blood? No, right? Nosebleeds don’t bleed that much for someone like him, he’s almost 100% sure of that.

Brick quickly grabs his arm, hand dwarfing the limb, and puts him back on his back as he runs down the street. The sudden movement makes Miles groan, but he pushes on. Brick’s about to go into spaces filled with people, and that perfume smell is starting to drive Miles mad.

“I have a scientist after me too, she hates me. Well, hated. I defeated her, but she might come back,” Miles tells him. “I might be able to help you get rid of those scientists, too!” He says, making his eyes wide and pointing in the air..

“Really?” Brick asks him, slowing down. Good.

“I promise to try! But we have to get somewhere away from all these people, and get you back to normal,” Miles says, taking a deep, shaky breath. His shoulder twitches as he waits for Brick to come to a complete stop.

Oh, thank god.

Brick immediately jumps over twenty stories into the air, landing on the roof of a building.

Miles feels ready to pass out. He thinks he did, for a few seconds.

“Okay… okay okay okay…” Miles repeats to himself a few times, slipping off of Brick’s back and onto the roof. “Alright, so just tell me exactly what happened.”

There’s definitely police gathering at the bottom of whatever building this is, so he has to be quick without freaking this guy out, and without messing up from being too disorientated. Fucking perfume.

“You won’t get me captured?” Brick asks, distrust lacing his tone.

Miles takes a moment before responding. Captured… he probably means by the cops and the scientists. He won’t get Brick arrested, no, and he’ll try his best to make sure the man gets medical attention and adequate care, but he can’t prevent the cops from arresting him. He can delay it, but they could find Brick again, and arrest him for things that people have no doubt already recorded.

The scientists, if they’re real, however…

The man’s skin is severely flushed, his eyes are red, his muscles are unhealthily huge, and he’s convinced (reasonably so) that there are scientists after him because he stole from them.

Miles feels so lost.

Brick starts to look uncomfortable, and Miles wonders if he’s finally going to explode, but then the man starts glitching.

Miles gasps and backs up, mind racing.

Brick shouldn’t be glitching. Nothing should be glitching! Rifts that swallow people up shouldn’t even be happening anymore!

Quickly calling Peter-- no, Hobie, quickly calling Hobie, Miles frantically explains the situation with Brick currently screaming in pain as his body is contorted beyond belief in a matter of seconds before returning to normal like nothing happened, leaving him to collapse into unconsciousness.

“-Miles, Miles! Stop talking, I’m on my way with a stabilizer, stay with ‘im.”

A portal opens, a guitar riff momentarily playing over the wailing of police sirens, and Hobie lands next to Miles, carrying a clunky looking multi-colored bead bracelet. It kind of looked straight out of a kids toy section, but gave off a faint hum. Hobie quickly unclasps the bracelet somehow, and wraps it around Brick’s wrist, reconnecting it together with an almost inaudible click.

“Okay, what happened?” Hobie asks, gesturing to the unconscious man on the ground as he turns to Miles.

“I don’t know! He was freaking out, throwing stuff and hurting himself in the street, and I tried to calm him down so he jumped up here with me, but then he just started glitching! That’s not supposed to happen! We fixed-- that’s the entire-- it’s done--”

Hobie holds his hands up, slowly getting closer and finally placing them on Miles’s shoulders. “Hey, slow down. Take some deep breaths for me, yeah?”

Yeah, okay, he can do that. He can totally do that. If only it didn’t start sending sharp spikes of pain through his chest with each inhale. The adrenaline must be wearing off…

“I’m-- I think some of my ribs are messed up,” he admits, fighting the urge to cough. Something warm runs down the back of his throat, and he wants to thrash his head around at the feeling.

“Mm,” Hobie’s hands are gone in an instant, “we’ll get you home. I’ll call Gwen, she can handle this fella, no sweat.”

Miles feels the pain hitting him all at once. His nose is definitely broken, and now his shoulder hurts like hell in addition to the pain spreading from his chest to his entire torso. And that stupid perfume is still lingering to him like some skunk decided to get different and fancy. His head might explode in the next 30 seconds.

“Wait, I don’t think he should be alone,” Miles says, “he took some drug, and he said some scientists are after him-- he might be right. I mean, I don’t know what world he’s from, but maybe we should just…”

Hobie looks back at Brick, and then back at Miles, “Don’t worry, he’s gonna be in good hands. We’re getting Margo on it too, see what’s going on, get him some real help-- he’ll be right as rain before you know it.” His lenses squint happily, “you did good.”

Gwen lands gracefully on the roof from her own portal, giving Miles and Hobie an excited wave. “So, what’s wrong?”

Miles can’t speak. It hurts so much. With each second that passes, everything becomes harder to understand and do.

Hobie fortunately speaks up for him. “This guy’s from another dimension, might be being hunted for taking a drug that made ‘im like this. Got the stabilizer on ‘im, tell Margo and get to a hospital.”

Miles notices his accent is practically unnoticeable right now. Isn’t that strange?

“Huh, thought those were supposed to stop?” She asks as she gently picks up Brick. “Don’t worry Miles, it’ll be okay.” Her lenses squint happily, and then she’s gone.

His head starts to droop down, so Hobie hurries to hold it in his hand.

God, these police sirens. The perfume. The iron taste in his mouth. Even his own suit. It’s all teaming up against him. “My nose,” Miles mumbles, not wanting to move his face much. It’s not like he had the energy to, even if he did want to.

“Alright, I’ll take you home. This is gonna hurt, m’sorry.”

“M’the one, should be ‘pologzing,” Miles mumbles as Hobie tries to pick him up as gently as possible. He was right, it hurts like a bitch. That’s all he really has the energy to describe it as.

“No, don’t say that,” Hobie tells him, swinging off. There’s the vague sound of gasps from below, but Hobie continues as if nothing else in the world really deserves his attention. “You did the best you could. Anyone could see that.”

“‘Cept Miguel,” Miles mumbles bitterly.

“We don’t have to think about that tosser,” Hobie responds, “society’s done with, remember?”

Miles nods slowly. He doesn’t like to think about the society at all. But sometimes the bitterness and lingering anger just seeps out.

“Do you think you can turn invisible? Just for a minute,” Hobie hesitantly asks.

Hissing through his teeth, Miles makes himself disappear.

“Great, you’re doing great, bruv. Just hold on for me?”

Miles nods again, letting his eyes close.

Some minutes later, he feels Hobie land and hears a door opening. It creaks loudly, and Hobie curses quietly.

Opening his eyes, he notices the familiar walls, and almost startles right out of the other boy’s arms when it hits him that he’s being taken home.

“Hobie, my parents are gonna lose it,” he gasps, “let’s just go back to yours--”

“Can’t mate. If your ma and pa try it, I’ll get us right out to Pav’s,” Hobie promises as they head down the flights of stairs and to his door. He knocks harshly with his boot, and Miles swears his heart freezes when his mom opens the door.

“Shoot,” he mumbles.

____

His mom is talking to him, and there’s a press of lips to his forehead, then silence. He doesn’t want to open his eyes.

“I’ll be fine… in a bit,” he breathes out. Honestly, he’s been Spider-Man for nearly two years now, he thought he would be way more used to the pain and able to push through it.

“Papá, you did push through,” his mom’s voice is close to his ear, and he feels a gentle pressure on his arm.

Yeah, but only because he didn’t feel the pain. When the pain hit, he was like a baby.

“You’re always gonna be my baby. No matter what you do.” Her voice is directly above him now, and there’s a dip in the bed by his head. He feels his mask being carefully pulled off, slightly grimacing at the cool air on the blood caked on his face. “No matter what,” she repeats.

“Countdown?” Hobie’s voice almost echoes in the room. It was so weird.

Remembering Gwen’s fake countdown, Miles furrows his brows. “Jus’ do it,” he mumbles.

His mom holds his hand. He really is a baby.

The pain explodes across his face again, making his leg kick out harshly and move the entire bed a few centimeters, probably. Tears sting at his eyes, and he fights the urge to twist his head away by shaking in place.

“You’re doing great, so great,” he feels a warm and wet towel gently dab around his mouth and cheeks, “let me help.”

“His ribs,” Hobie informs, sounding like he’s messing with some sort of clothes.

“Heal on… own,”

“We know,” his mom and Hobie say at the same time.

“A few days,” he sighs, feeling scolded.

“And lots of rest,” his mom must feel something wrong with the shoulder she’s caressing, because she’s telling Hobie to “give that here” and to fetch extra ice packs instead.

Toilet paper, or he assumes that’s what it is, is used to wipe up the watery-blood left behind and the blood that keeps managing to run down the sides of his face.

Hobie comes back, placing small bags full of ice wrapped in towels on his chest, sides, shoulder, and nose.

“I’ll get the ibuprofen,” his mom says, patting his hair with a feather-light touch.

“Still pretty new for me,” Hobie tells him casually once she leaves for the bathroom.

“Wha? The… ‘profen?”

“Yeah, was made around when I was born.”

“…S’crazy.”

“And, um, sorry ‘bout your forehead,” Hobie chuckles, not sounding that sorry at all.

Miles forces his eyes open, slowly focusing on Hobie, who has a small, almost unnoticeable smile on his face. His eyelids look heavier than usual, those mismatched brown eyes scanning his face.

“…What?”

Hobie simply wipes his pinkie across his bottom lip, leaving an almost-black purple stain on his finger. He wags it, and gently wipes it off on his forehead again.

Oh, does he have lipstick on his forehead now? That’ll wash off easily, right?

“Yeah, should be gone with a good shower.”

His mom comes back in with a large bottle of ibuprofen tablets, a water bottle, a chair, and extra pillows from the couch.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you recovering in less than half the time it would usually take,” she tells Miles, opening the bottles for him.

Hobie tries to wipe the lipstick mark off with the wet towel used to clean up his blood, but it just smears the mark even more. He grimaces and shrugs.

The sound of a portal opening way above them, probably on the roof, makes Hobie glance up. “That’s Gwenny.”

Sure enough, there’s a knocking at the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Hobie says before his mom even opens her mouth, quickly making his way out of the room.

Ugh. He’s not ready for his mom and Gwen to awkwardly interact again. Even if his mom has mostly accepted that Gwen was in a bad situation, and treated her kindly… you could just tell Gwen was waiting for the other shoe to drop every second. The stilted conversations and added confusion from dimensional differences makes it almost painful to watch them interact without anyone to intervene.

But it’s all got to start somewhere. Even their… rekindling, he guesses, was more painful and awkward than that.

Gwen quietly makes her way into the room, appearing next to his mom and handing her a dark blue bottle of something, and some square that crinkled .

“It’s one of Mrs. Parker’s fudge brownies. She used to make them for m—a lot. Like, a ton,” she hurriedly explains. “Um, Margo managed to get that Spider-Doctor dude to take a look at the guy you helped, but if you don’t wanna talk right now…?”

He really doesn’t. But he needs to know if Brick is okay.

“He should rest first,” his mom explained gently.

“Is he… alright?” Miles asks, focusing his eyes again. The sunlight from his window was making him regret opening them in the first place. So bright.

And that fucking smell. That perfume clung to him like its life depended on it, and it was all he could smell. He couldn’t stand it. He needs to bathe and wash his hair immediately.

“Language, Miles,” his mom gently but sternly scolds him. “And I’ll wash your hair for you.”

He is such a baby.

“I don’t know, the doctor said he seemed seconds away from heart failure, but he was able to at least find out what dimension your guy was from. He don’t wanna send him back, but he did mention going there to find what drug he took. Maybe to reverse the effects?”

“When your father gets here, he’s going to freak out way more than me,” his mom points out, conveniently ignoring the fact that they freak out equally as bad anytime he shows up with severe injuries. “Gwen, can you get another pillow from the couch? Hobie, run the bath with warm water. It should be at a good temperature by the time these painkillers kick in.”

Ugghhhh.

____

One bath and one assisted hairwash later, Miles still smells like that damn perfume. Not nearly as much, thankfully, but he can still smell it all over him. Before they left, Gwen and Hobie made faces when he got out of the bathroom, so he knows they still smell it too. His mom assures him it’s fine, it’s barely even there, just like the lipstick still smeared on his forehead.

“They’ll just think I did it,” she laughs, “I’ll get my makeup remover. Don’t move.”

He relaxes into the pillows propping him up on his bed, wishing he at least grabbed his sketchbook before he laid down. All he has is his phone, and that’s been vibrating with several text notifications from Ganke-- must’ve finally woken up-- and his dad.

Oh man, his dad. It must be a miracle that those painkillers also made him drowsy. He doesn’t want to have to have any serious conversations about Spider-Man stuff anymore.

His mom comes back and wipes the lipstick off of his forehead, having to use a bit of pressure. “Sorry,” she apologizes, “I didn’t know you and Hobie were so close.”

“I didn’t really expect it either,” he mumbles tiredly. Hobie was pretty physically affectionate with his friends, but a kiss? Last on the list of things Miles would think Hobie would do. Much less to him… he’d expect it more with Pavitr or Gwen, to be honest.

His mom hums, “You should talk to us about your friends more. They seem like they care a lot. Do they know Ganke?”

“Yeah,” he replies as he feels his eyelids get heavy again. He really shouldn’t be this tired, he’s sprung back from broken bones and concussions before, but the injuries, the overwhelming scent of perfume that must have been cursed, the bath, and the hair washing somehow did it.

He should still be out there, it’s not even three.

A yawn escapes him and makes him grimace at the faint pain in his face.

“I’ll tell your father to be quiet when he comes in,” she kisses his forehead and leaves the room, letting him slowly drift off to sleep.

_____

Thanks to the enhanced metabolism he’s been wonderfully blessed with, the medication wears off quickly. He’s still tired though, so he doesn’t make any real effort to keep himself awake, opting to just hover in between fully alert and half-dead. Maybe this is all a very real-feeling dream anyway.

“Are you awake?” he hears his dad ask softly.

“No,” he mumbles.

“Alright,” his dad responds, followed by the sound of a closing door.

This happens a few times, and each time Miles is no more awake than the last.

“Is that perfume?” his dad asks during one visit.

Miles forgets how he responds to that the second it leaves his mouth, but his dad brushes a thumb over his forehead and leaves again.

Maybe the final visit, or the final visit Miles remembers, his dad actually sits on the edge of the bed and removes the ice packs.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed one day… I don’t think I’ll ever be alright with it. This. I can’t…”

And Miles remembers moving his hand, to do something, maybe offer a comforting pat on the back because he’s absolutely awful when it comes to this, but his dad catches his hand and holds it.

“You’re killing me here,” a quiet, sad laugh comes from his dad.

Please don’t cry, Dad. He doesn’t know how to handle that.

“You’re our baby.”

Please don’t cry.

“Aw, Miles, don’t cry-- look, I’ll get new ice for these, you don’t need to cry.”

A/N: I only did a few corrections and I think I missed some things, do not point them out please 😭 i should have posted this ages ago! also, 'im and 'em are not being used interchangeably, in case anyone thought they were. apparently past me thought this chap was rushed at the end, but i don't see what he meant? if you noticed that don't point it out either though thank you so mash

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