Chapter Text
Miguel knew something was wrong the moment he stepped out of the portal.
Even if he didn’t have Spider-Sense, as it had so eloquently been dubbed, like the others did, he did know that Miles Morales would end up in the worst possible situation at any given moment.
It wasn’t uncommon for Miles to avoid HQ for days or even weeks on end, and Miguel couldn’t exactly blame him, but he hadn’t been seen in his own universe for days, going dark right after a fairly routine fight with an anomaly, and even Gwen and Hobie hadn’t been able to get in touch.
He’d been missing almost three days now. Lyla had managed to link his disappearance to a portal malfunction, one that she still didn’t have an explanation for. Gwen, Hobie, and Pavitr were frantic, scouring the multiverse themselves. They’d stormed Miguel’s office after the first day, demanding search parties be sent out with an unwavering determination like they thought Miguel might have refused. Like he hadn’t already been putting one together, hours before they’d come to him.
Apparently, everyone else thought the same of him. Miguel forced himself to ignore the surprised looks around him when he gave the orders, Spider Society clearly caught off guard by how quickly he put together a rescue.
He didn’t care. They could all think what they wanted about him, he had too much on his plate to bother with his reputation anymore.
It was the second time he’d scoured the multiverse looking for Miles, only a handful of months later. He didn’t want to think about that either.
HQ had become a sort of uneasy coexistence, slowly easing back into something familiar as time went on, and Miles carefully found his place amongst his peers, his canon event prevented, the multiverse shaky and delicate, but still intact.
Miles still spent the majority of his time in his own dimension, with his own family and his own city. When he was in Miguel’s universe, Peter kept him busy and out of the way, which meant he could easily avoid any lingering feelings of unwanted guilt when he saw the kid smiling after a successful mission, praised and congratulated by the people around him, the Spiders he felt safe with.
Miguel had gotten used to ignoring it, locking himself in his office and only speaking to Miles when absolutely necessary. They’d never see eye to eye about what had happened.
It had worked out, and it no longer mattered. Miguel hadn’t been wrong and he didn’t feel guilty.
He’d gotten better at lying to himself, too.
Miles’ missing signal had come in late tonight, a small blip on his screen that Lyla had magnified and pinpointed. The signal was weak, barely enough to lock onto, but it was there.
“Earth 1314,” Lyla supplied, popping up over his shoulder. “That’s the dimension that’s been-”
“I know,” Miguel said. “Thank you.”
They’d been getting alerts of anomalies from that dimension for weeks now, popping up out of nowhere with no discernible pattern, and gone before they even had time to pinpoint a location. Miguel had sent a team in last week, but they’d come back empty handed. He’d almost been tempted to chalk it up to a malfunction, even with Lyla and Spider-Byte’s insistence that it wasn’t.
It was hard to ignore the possibility of a coincidence now.
It took a few minutes, but Miguel managed to lock onto Spiderman and open a portal before his signal disappeared again. There wasn’t time to put together a proper rescue team- and with any luck he’d be able to grab the kid, get out, and handle the rest when they were both back at HQ.
With any luck Miles wasn’t hurt.
Miguel stepped out of the portal, landing silently on a barren rooftop, the city around him gray and cold, the sky heavy with smog and sirens ringing shrill and distant in the night air. It sounded frantic, even for New York.
“I don't think there’s a Spiderman here, Miguel,” Lyla piped up, smirking when he tensed, just barely keeping himself from jumping. “Crime rates are through the roof, and we don’t have anyone over here.”
“What do we know?”
“Not a lot,” she said. “Give me a second to run some scans.”
“Focus on finding Miles first,” Miguel said, surveying the alleyways below before stepping off the roof’s ledge and dropping silently to the street below. “Before he draws any unwanted attention.”
“He’s got a knack for that,” Lyla agreed. “There’s an empty office building on the corner of West Street, that seems to be where his signal’s coming from. I’ll tell you if I find anything else.”
As he followed the directions his AI provided, sticking to New York’s shadows as he swung over empty alleyways, Miguel realized he probably should have sent someone else. Peter would have been the best option, as the kid’s old mentor, or even Gwen or Hobie if either of them had been quick enough to respond.
If Miles was hurt, Miguel would be the last person he’d want to see. Even if he wasn’t hurt, Miguel wouldn’t exactly be a welcome presence.
They didn’t talk outside brief mission debriefs and curt orders, and Miguel was fine with that, but it didn’t exactly make him a candidate for someone Miles would feel safe with. They had a terse, unspoken agreement of mutual avoidance. No communication meant no inevitable blowup, which meant neither of them were forced to confront their feelings about the first time they’d met and the weeks that had followed.
Everyone was waiting with bated breath, watching carefully, and Miguel was well aware they were all waiting for him to snap again. But he didn’t need the Spiders at HQ to enjoy his presence. He knew what they all saw when they looked at him.
He didn’t need to be liked. He just needed them to listen, and he needed them to stay alive.
Miguel followed Lyla’s directions to an old abandoned office building, just like she had promised. It had clearly been left alone for years, left to rot with the rest of the forgotten parts of the city, the walls crumbling, windows either broken or boarded up, shrouded in shadows and fading graffiti.
There was no Spiderman protecting this universe. He wondered if the rest of the city was in a similar state.
It was desolate and silent, and Miguel wondered if Miles was even here at all. There was no fight, no commotion, no light or noise to put him on high alert as he landed soundlessly on the sidewalk in front of the boarded up front door, the wood twisted and rotted.
There was no sign of Miles anywhere in sight, the world around him eerily still for the moment, the silence almost deafening. Miles was never followed by silence.
“Lyla,” he called, hesitant, talons hovering over his watch. Something wasn’t right. This didn’t feel right. “Are you sure he-?”
“Miguel?”
Miguel nearly missed the blur of black and red that barrelled through one of the shattered windows until it landed on the sidewalk beside him, Spiderman stumbling slightly when he landed, unsteady on usually graceful feet.
The suit was familiar, even tattered and damaged, and his eyes went wide when he focused on Miguel, like Miles wasn’t quite sure he was really there.
Like he was shocked Miguel had come after him at all.
“Miles,” he called, breathing in the crisp night air as he lowered his mask. “What’s going on? Report-”
“We need to go!” Miles barrelled over him, frantic, practically tripping over his own feet to make it to Miguel’s side. He noticed, after the initial scan for injuries, that his watch was missing, replaced by the day-pass wristband. Miguel wasn’t even sure where Miles had gotten one of those. “C’mon, open a portal and get us out of here!”
“Hey- hey.” He yanked his arm away when Miles reached for his watch, turning to scan the alleyway for whatever threat had Miles so spooked. The street stayed empty, silent and unmoving. “Tell me what’s going on first. Where’s your watch?”
“We can come back for it, let’s just go!”
“Miles-”
“I had to stash it,” Miles said, still breathless, still pacing the sidewalk like he’d seen a ghost. “I wasn’t gonna let him- just open the portal!”
“We can’t just leave your- why would you take it off?”
“You’re not listening to me!” Miles said. “Why don’t you ever- I’ll explain it when we’re home, just open the portal!”
“Alright.”
Miles took a step back, eyes wide as he kept scanning the streets, every corner and every shadow, searching for a threat Miguel couldn’t see, shoulders hunched like he was waiting for the world to come back to life and drag him back to the shadows.
He should have brought someone else with him to bring Miles home. He didn’t know how to calm the kid down, what to say, how to do anything but set his own feelings aside and get them both somewhere safe before returning with a team to recon and retrieve the missing watch.
“Lyla,” he called, watching Miles pace. “Open a portal and alert Jessica that-”
“Miguel!”
Miguel didn't have Spider-Sense like everyone else. Sometimes, he really wished he did.
He barely registered Miles’s scream, everything drowned out by the sudden burning weight on his back, sending him crashing face first into the concrete, arms buckling beneath him and inevitably losing their fight to keep him upright.
He tried to raise his head, blinking past the stars spurring to life in his vision after being greeted with a face full of cement, heart dropping when his view of the city was obscured by metal rings, digging into his skin as he scrambled to try and reactivate his mask.
Miguel thrashed, snarling as the weight kept him pinned, fumbling to find an opening for his webs. He managed to turn on his side, searching for Miles, frantically trying to get a grasp of his surroundings.
There was a metal net on top of him, his legs already tangled in the heavy mesh, the contraption big enough to cover him entirely- and heavy enough to combat even his enhanced strength.
Where the hell had it come from?
“We got a big one,” a voice rang from somewhere above him, barely audible over his struggling, eerily familiar but not enough for Miguel to grasp onto. “Easy… easy, that’s it. Hey- grab the kid!”
That was all Miguel needed to hear, adrenaline kicking into overdrive as he doubled his efforts to free himself, talons scraping against metal, scrambling for the edge of the net, for any little opening. He needed to get to Miles, needed to open a portal and call-
Miguel saw the flash of blue light before he felt the pain, screaming when the net pulsed with electricity, sending a shock rocketing through his body, strong enough to stop his fight completely. His suit flickered, pulsing with energy, but remained intact.
It left him stunned when it finally died down, Miguel fighting to catch his breath. His eyes locked onto his trapped wrist, still in a daze, forcing his mouth to move around the lingering pain.
“Lyla!” he called, pride thrown right out the window. “Call for backup now!” There was no response, no familiar taunts, no glow of a portal to bring them home. “Lyla? Lyla, answer me!”
“No backup for you.” Miguel squinted through the net, baring his teeth at the figure looming above him. It was nearly impossible to make out much of anything- just a black mask with white eyes and a dim flash of purple. “Horse tranquilizer should work on you, yeah?”
“You’d be surprised,” Miguel snarled. “Don’t touch me-”
“That’s cute.” There was a glint of something metal, Miguel just barely given time to register the weapon in the figure’s hand before there was a burst of pain in his neck, something sharp finding purchase in the tiny patch of exposed skin just above his suit, expertly finding its mark through one of the net’s tiny openings. “Easy now, there you go. Time to settle down, big guy.”
Miguel tried to reach for his neck, his arms hopelessly tangled and his vision already tunneling. His efforts proved futile anyway when another shock was sent through the net, the flash of electricity blinding.
It lasted longer this time, Miguel clenching his teeth through the pain, forehead dropping against the freezing concrete, swallowing back the scream caught in the back of his throat.
Miles… he needed to find… he-
“Drag the kid home, I’ll handle this one.” The man above him said, calling to someone Miguel couldn’t see. He fought to keep his eyes open, to keep his head clear, heart hammering in his chest as his struggles started to die against his will. Whatever they’d given him wasn’t enough to knock him out, not as quickly as they probably assumed at least, but it was definitely enough to start slowing him down.
Miguel craned his neck, blood rushing in his ears as the world swam around him, the city lights too bright, the noise around him an overwhelming rush of air.
It was blurry, but he could make out something black and red on the ground, another figure standing over it, metal glinting in their hand.
“Miles.” He didn’t know if it came out as anything more than a strained whisper. He kicked out again against the net, ignoring the ache in his bones, clinging onto the last of his strength, flailing and clawing against the confines of the net. “Miles-”
“Christ, alright.” It was clearly more strength than his assailant had expected him to still possess, because there were two more shots followed by two more sharp pricks in his neck. “There we go. Just relax, now. Just relax."
Miguel couldn’t answer, his head swimming, the city spinning in circles around him. The net was too heavy, too suffocating, refusing to budge no matter how hard he tried to dislodge the metal from his damaged suit.
There was a weight against his head, pressing hard into his temple, and Miguel bared his fangs again when he registered the heavy boot pushing him into the ground, keeping him still, a last desperate defense as he felt the sedative draining the rest of his strength.
“I’ll kill you,” he growled, but his vision was darkening around the edges. “I’ll- I’ll kill you, I- Miles-?”
“Easy, now. You just go ahead and close your eyes.”
There was tugging at the net, a relief as the weight was eased off his back, the boot holding firm against his temple, heel digging into his hair. Miguel couldn’t grasp at the opportunity, couldn’t try to twist away. His body didn’t feel like his own, the pain and panic fading to a background hum.
“What a neat monster,” the figure above him said, voice laced with sick amusement, like a game had been played, and Miguel had lost. “You and I are gonna have some fun tomorrow.”
It was the last thing Miguel heard before the alleyway around him faded away, spiraling downward as the world went dark, and Spiderman gave up the fight.
-----
When Miguel tried to peel his eyes open, it was to a sharp pain behind his eyes and a dull, throbbing ache in his skull.
Light had always been an issue for him- even before the accident. The overhead light in his apartment was strictly off limits, the smaller lights kept dimmed by Lyla on the rare occasion he was home long enough to bother turning them on in the first place.
Leaving the house meant sunglasses, painkillers, and a migraine no matter what he did to prevent it. It was easier to exist in the suit, his vision altered to fit his preferences perfectly, night vision making it blessedly easy to move through the shadows.
He always kept his office dark, ensuring he could work in peace without his mask on, ignoring the snide, teasing remarks from Peter and Jessica calling it a cave or an evil lair. Lyla egged them on, but she knew better than to turn up the brightness when they asked her to.
They could all think what they wanted about him, locked up in the dark, as long as he was able to get his work done.
Right now, he’d take his overhead kitchen light in a heartbeat.
It felt like someone was digging hot coals into his eyelids, Miguel wincing back with a hiss the second he found the strength to open his eyes all the way. He tried to yank an arm over his eyes to shield himself from the assault of the room’s light- only to find them secured tightly behind his back, restraints refusing to budge no matter how hard he pulled.
He didn’t recognize the prickling sensation in his hands at first, dismissing it as poor circulation from the chains on his wrists, until the pins and needles became unbearable, spreading across his entire body in one sudden, breathtaking wave of agonizing nausea, static blaring in his ears and clouding his vision.
It only lasted a few seconds, leaving Miguel gasping against the floor, shuddering as he fought to get ahold of himself.
He was glitching. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with that, his watch always secure around his wrist, keeping him safe and grounded in any dimension he wanted.
But his watch was broken- he didn’t even need to look to know that, no doubt short circuited by the electric shocks from the net. His watch was useless, which meant he couldn’t get ahold of Lyla, or HQ, or even send a distress signal. All he could do was wait, and hope she’d gotten a message to someone before their connection was cut off.
Great.
He opened his eyes again, slowly this time, gritting his teeth and waiting for the blinding pain to pass, for his eyes to slowly adjust to the harsh lighting. His headache didn’t go away, heart hammering in his ears, the pain in his temples growing worse with each passing beat. He forced himself to stay grounded, breathing carefully, trying to take in his new surroundings as his eyes stopped watering.
There was a heavy chain around his neck and wrists, bolted into the wall behind him, shoulders tugged back at an awkward angle. The room seemed to be some kind of unfinished basement, spacious and nearly, like it had been abandoned long ago. The walls were blank and peeling, the floor cold and colorless, cracked and stained. There was a shelf on the far wall, and a desk across from the corner he’d been dumped in, but the rest of the area was lifeless. Despite the persistent migraine, Miguel could tell half of the overhead lights weren't even working- the few that were dull and flickering, threatening to die out completely at a moment’s notice.
He’d been drugged with something heavy, he could still feel it in his sluggish movements and slow thinking, and with any luck whatever remained should be out of his system in a few moments, and his head would clear enough for him to formulate a proper escape plan.
He craned his neck, wincing at the ache under the skin, straining to get a better look at his restraints. He tugged, throwing his weight forward, only to be met with a sharp pain twisting in his arms, the chain yanking him back to the wall.
It should have ripped out of the wall as easily as slicing butter. Either the restraints were enhanced, or the sedative he’d been given was stronger than he’d thought.
It took him another moment to register the last of the restraints, filtering in slowly after everything else had settled.
There was a weight over his face, sitting tight above his ears, something wrapped around his cheekbones and tied around the back of his head, tugging at his hair. He could just barely see metal sticking out in front of his face, sitting over his nose and mouth and wrapping around-
Oh.
No.
Miguel couldn’t breathe, his chest too cold, too tight, breath catching in his throat, the room spinning around him, melting away into something old and familiar, something colder. They’d put him in a muzzle, they’d put him in a muzzle again and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t-
“Good morning.” Miguel ignored the wave of dizziness that washed over him when he moved, scrambling unsteadily to his feet as soon as he heard the voice. “You get some sleep?”
The muzzle sat heavy, tight and confining, but he forced himself to ignore it- tried desperately to ignore it. He kept his breathing slow, narrowing his eyes at the figure approaching in front of him, pushing the panic and the memories to the back of his mind.
He needed to stay calm, find a way out, grab Miles and leave. Simple as that.
Except now, as his vision cleared and his captor came closer, it might not be so simple. Not when Miguel recognized the costume- empty, glowing white eyes against a void of black, and deadly purple gauntlets. The tips were sharpened with deadly claws, sharp as a knife under the light.
Miguel stood as straight as the chain would allow. “Prowler.”
“So you do know me,” the Prowler said, his muffled, almost robotic voice bordering on amused. “I’ve never seen you around before.”
“I’m not from here,” Miguel said. “What do you want?”
“Well, I’d like for you to introduce yourself,” Prowler said. “You know me, you know Miles, I oughta know your name.”
He knew Miles was Spiderman. That wasn’t a good sign. “That’s classified.”
“Classified, huh?” Miguel could hear the grin behind the mask. “Well, then. I guess we’ll have to try a different approach.”
Miguel watched the Prowler move, carefully logging every movement, bracing himself for whatever was coming next. He crossed the room, paying Miguel no mind as he stopped in front of the desk, opening the top drawer and rifling around, white eyes narrowing.
Miguel’s chest squeezed when the Prowler produced a syringe, fiddling with the tube like he’d handled it countless times before. He turned back around as the tip of the needle oozed with something clear, dripping down the sides and dropping onto the purple glow of the suit.
“If you’re planning on drugging me,” Miguel said, keeping his voice steady. “It’ll take a higher dosage than you think. They don’t do much to me.”
“Oh, I noticed,” Prowler said. “Took three shots of horse tranq just to get you down for a few hours. That’s impressive.”
“So you know you’re wasting your time.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Prowler said, tracing a claw along the tip of the needle, metal scraping against metal. “We’ve been experimenting.”
“Experimenting,” Miguel echoed. He’d done his research- Aaron Davis was a thief, a hitman, an assassin, and a dangerous man, but he’d never heard of the Prowler falling into anything like this. Smuggling drugs, selling drugs, all for the benefit of whoever was paying him, but never creating his own. He’d never branched out like that, as far as Miguel’s research had shown. Not in Miles’s universe at least, and not in Earth 42. “Right.”
“If it’s enough for Spiderman, it’ll be more than enough for you,” the Prowler said, and Miguel’s blood ran cold. “So here’s how we’re gonna do things. You answer my questions, and I don’t give you an unhealthy dosage. Sound fair?”
Miguel breathed around the muzzle, curling his lip. “I’m not telling you anything.”
“So you’re gonna stay still while I stick this in your neck?”
“Don’t,” Miguel snarled, hating the way his back hit the wall, chains rattling around him. “I’ll-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Prowler mocked, watching Miguel like a caged experiment, a strange animal backed into a corner. “You’ll kill me, I gotcha.”
“I mean it,” Miguel said. “Don’t touch me.”
“Hey, how about we make this more interesting?” Prowler tapped a claw against his mask, holding his finger to his temple, keeping empty eye contact with his prisoner as he spoke into the comm. “Aaron? Bring down my little lab assistant, will you?”
There was a chill settling into his bones, like the temperature had dropped with Prowler’s words, tilting dangerously as everything slid out of place. He wondered if this was how spider sense felt, a sickening sense of wrong in their gut, an alarm blaring in their skulls telling them to run.
“Aaron?” Miguel said carefully, when the Prowler lowered his hand. “You’re not… Aaron Davis isn’t the Prowler?”
It was cold, lifeless, but Miguel heard the villain laugh, short and curt. “Aaron? Now, why would you think that?”
He didn’t have enough information about this dimension to stay a step ahead, not anymore, and Lyla had stayed stubbornly silent, his watch a useless weight against his wrist. He had no way to contact her. He had no way of sending a signal to anyone.
Everything was spiraling out of his carefully crafted control by the second, shattering in his hands.
Miguel couldn’t catch his breath this time. “Who are you?”
For a moment, the Prowler didn’t say a word, silent and unmoving, staring straight ahead like he was feeding off Miguel’s poorly concealed desperation, latching onto the rising uneasiness, watching him struggle for control like it was sick entertainment, a new toy chained to the wall.
The mask was removed slowly, metal melting away, the cold white glow flickering out to make room for human skin and dangerous, watchful dark eyes.
And Miguel recognized him in an instant. He’d watched him die countless times, over and over, a canon event Miles had fought tooth and nail against, risking everything to avoid, a father he wouldn’t let die.
“I told you,” Jefferson Morales said, smiling in the face of Miguel’s silence. “I’ve got some questions about my son.”