Hello everyone, we are here with another Spiderverse fic! This one is kind of inspired by those posts about Peter (dead) and Aaron mentoring Miles, and it spiralled from there. I hope you all enjoy, read on!

Into the Spiderverse is the property of Marvel and Sony

X

Miles has always been able to see them. They hover in corners of the room, besides the tv, on the park bench. There's something about them that isn't quite solid like you could blow air towards them and they would float off, they're also dull, almost monochrome (and sometimes they're very not monochrome) and maybe slightly transparent. Miles doesn't realise what he is seeing for a long time, he thinks he's always seen them, but he doesn't understand for a long time.

One night he's lying in bed, his mom is sitting beside him smoothing her fingers through his hair humming something soft and old, it makes Miles want to dance, and it makes him want to cry. In the corner of the room is a man, he is old and wears a suit, he looks cold. The ghost notices Miles' gaze and smiles, it transforms the man, it is warm the kind that screams home and brings with it that kind of contentment after a long day.

His mom stares at the corner and her brow rises, she is silent for a long moment, her hand drifts to cover her mouth and her gaze flickers towards the door, towards his dad sitting at the table pouring over a report.

"You see them to huh baby?"

She says, and the words are sad and kind and bundled all together in the rhythm of her hand carding through his hair. Miles nods and she sighs, it a motion that curls through her whole body, she seems to slump into herself.

That night Miles listens to a story about a man who took care of the dead, he was given a curse or a blessing. His mom looks into his eyes, places her hands on his jaw and in the warmth of the apartment, everything is heavy. She says, "You make the best you can out of this Miles. These spirits, ghosts, some choose to stay behind, some can't move on. But they still care for the living, don't ignore them even if it hurts."

After she tucks him into bed, turns out the light, Miles wonders how his mom uses this gift. Does she speak to the recently deceased to find out how they died? Miles can't even imagine how many ghosts must float around a hospital (later his dad will be confused why Miles refuses to enter the building, his mom will only smile in understanding).

He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, but Miles thinks if he can help people, that wouldn't be so bad.

X

Miles misses the neighbourhood where all the kids knew him, sure he was the 'weird' kid, but they respected him. He was the one who told Sam that his grandmother was proud of him, or Lola that her uncle was sorry. At his old school, people believed him when he says there's an accident, they don't question how he knows, they accept it.

But Visions Academy (or whatever) is apathetic, it's lonely. He struggles to go from class to class in a world where no one will talk to him but the dead and the teachers stare at him with an expectation he can feel, like a physical weight pulling him down, down towards the ground.

Then there are the ghosts. At his old school, there is a little girl who waves to him every morning, she's innocent, doesn't even realise what's happened. At Visions there's a kid who committed suicide in his room, he stares at Miles with understanding, and it hurts how much the ghost understands. His roommate doesn't even notice the one-sided conversations he has with the spirit.

It all shovels it's way through Miles' brain, the test marked a hundred when it should be zero, the essay, the weight of his dad's expectations. Part of Miles wants to go home, to his mom, listen to her talk about their family, about the ghosts and how they've saved people. But he can't.

Miles goes to his uncle's.

On the subway, a spirit disentangles itself from a faded red seat, she's wearing a dress, all faded red, she's pretty and Miles wonders how she died. The spirit stares at him for a long moment as they stop at a station and then continue.

Eventually, she holds a hand out, there is a piece of paper with an address scrawled on it, there's a crude drawing of what Miles thinks is flowers. He nods, catches her eye and nods. The location probably has something she forgot, that or her dead body (that had been one time too many). She smiles, a pretty expression and her mouth opens and shapes the words, "Thank you, be careful tonight."

Most of the spirits don't speak aloud, it requires a lot of energy. But that's okay Miles had gotten good at reading lips. The warning sends a shiver down his spine, curls goose bumps on his skin in the climate-controlled air of the subway. He nods that's all Miles can do and the spirit drifts away, the train moves but she remains still, staring at him with sad eyes. Usually, they aren't so cryptic, it doesn't bode well.

The frisson of unease melts away in the warmth of his uncle, the feel of his apartment that always uncurls something from Miles' chest, lets it all loose. Aaron knows he sees stuff, but he's never really pried, they joke about it. His mumbo jumbo or whatever. Miles doesn't mention the girl on the subway, instead, he feels the anxiety over his essay flare up.

He should return to school. The offer is tantalizing, weighty with something Miles can't define but can certainly feel. They head into the underground and Miles eyes the wispy shrouds of ghosts who can't form coherent shapes as they enter the tunnel.

The space is glorious, a wall stretched out before him untouched and Miles' heart leaps out of his chest, taking with it all the worry and fear of the past week. He loses himself in the motion, in the art, the hiss of the spray can and the chemical smell that fills the air.

It's when Miles stands back that he notices the spirits. They're misshapen, chests caved in and strangely flat heads, they press close to the walls and watch him, watch him with eyes that are yearning emptiness, like a black hole.

Then the spider bites him. It hurts, a stinging sort of pain that is brief as Miles flicks the spider away. The spirits around his morph, they grow and shake and grow till theyère filling the room staring at him and casting judgement. Miles turns and runs when his uncle calls his name.

X

Miles is a mess of confusion and anxiety, his hands are shaking, his thoughts are too loud (scratch that everything is too loud), his heart has abandoned his chest, and there's a shrill screaming going on at the back of his mind. The room is a flashing heap of light and sound, it feels like too much and Miles is glued to the unstable scaffold as Spiderman(!) swings through the air with casual ease, a grace and fluidity that is somewhat reassuring.

Then it all goes wrong. Miles coughs away the dust, he tries to push away everything that's crowding him and scampers towards Spiderman. There're holes in the guy's mask and Peter can see one tired blue eye, his breathing is heavy the kind that indicates broken ribs (why does he have to know what that sounds like). Around Spiderman grey wisps taunt the air and Miles panics and internally screams because only those who are literally hanging out on Death's door (or porch step or whatever) have that kind of aura.

The words wash over him like he's drowning, and he takes the goober and looks into those tired (so very exhausted) eyes, they both already know. Miles runs and hides in the rubble like the coward he is, and he's frozen struck with a fear so overwhelming he can't breathe as this monster of a man walks out of the darkness. Miles can feel the man's presence like a viscous liquid full of malice and desperation, it stinks.

It happens so quickly, and Miles has to muffle his own scream into his palm, it lodges in his throat and his tears are brimming and he needs to get out of there, and he isn't safe, and oh god he should have listened to that warning. Something clatters and Miles bolts, he runs like always does, and Spiderman his chest caving in, the way the grey covered his body like a shroud, the sound, oh god the sound. It echoes in his mind.

There's something behind him and Miles feels like the literal embodiment of anxiety as he runs through the subway, he sticks to things at inopportune moments and can't unstick himself. It blurs and swells like a tide and Miles only really breathes again when he is home and in his mom's arms. He can't help the shuddering, the cold that won't go away like that time he stood in a spirit for a few minutes, and he's sobbing and a mess.

His mom runs a gentle hand through his hair hums that song that's quiet and loud and full of contradictions. Slowly, ever so slowly Miles' chest stops heaving (His chest stops heaving) and he feels a mixture of nauseous and dizzy all at once. His dad carries him to bed, like when he was a small child, tucks him against his chest and whispers comfort as Miles feels as if he's falling out of his own mind terrified that King Pin will find him, that whatever was following him (The Prowler?) will climb through his window and kill him.

Wouldn't it be funny if he haunted his mom like a ghost? No. But everything's so desperate and twisted that Miles falls into the black pit of slumber between one frantic thought and the next regardless.

X

The wind whips around Miles this high, it feels like it could push him off the building, could pull his feelings out of his head and carry them far, far away. This building is shorter than the one next to it, but height, any height is disconcerting. But he needs to do this. Miles needs to learn how to control his powers, needs to save Brooklyn (and the rest of the world), needs to use the USB (Goober?) to shut down the thing.

He's scared, he's so, so very scared. Miles doesn't know how to do anything, and as the world around him mourns Peter Parker he is saddled with the responsibility of stopping this. He can't turn away, can't back out, he's the only one who can do this. But he's so scared.

"Well, this is new."

A voice, a familiar voice, states behind Miles and he turns, one hesitant slow motion because if he sees it then it will be real. Spiderman stands in the afternoon light, he is see-through almost completely transparent, and his suit is red, pale red and blue. He looks up at Miles and he raises a brow and Miles can't help the way his breath hitches and the tremble building itself up through his body piece by piece.

Spiderman freezes for a moment but then he's in front of Miles and he's reassuring him a litany of words that do little to alleviate the panic attack and the feel of cold fingers on his shoulder. He gets his breath back eventually, with shaky tears and sobbing laughs that build and break like a damn, Spiderman stares at him with sad and stricken eyes.

In the sunlight, Miles gives Spiderman (call me Peter) his name and Peter comes to terms with the fact that he's dead (I'm going to haunt you kid, that okay with you?). It's a lot and Miles is tempted to climb down the stairs, to go home and bury himself. He can't, he needs to try.

Peter appears hesitant for a moment but then those cold (so cold) fingers settle on his shoulder and in the sunlight he's like an angel. He says, "The comics like to show me succeeding on the first try. But I didn't Miles, I fell like four times, and let's not forget the time I tried to deliver pizza. It's okay to not be successful on the first try okay? You just got these powers, no one's perfect that quickly, not even me. So, try, alright but then get back up. Because that's what makes us Spiderman."

It's an inspiring pep talk, as far as pep talk goes, but afterwards, Peter looks even more transparent, like the talking took the wind out of his sails and Miles feels guilty, because he should help Peter say goodbye to his family, not make him waste his breathe on a kid.

He can do this. Miles takes a running start, Peter calls out something behind him, but Miles doesn't hear it as he runs. He trips on his shoelace. The pavement beneath his spine hurts, but it's not as unbearable as the crack of the broken goober. Peter is nowhere and Miles wonders if he's abandoned him if he's ashamed by Miles' failure.

He gets back up, even if it takes a while.

X

"Now this is just depressing."

Miles glances up sharply at the words and Peter's there leaning on his own gravestone with a wry sort of look as if he can't believe the Daily Bugle published something nice. Miles opens his mouth not sure what he wants to say when someone startles him.

Everything goes downhill from there, and Miles swears he can hear Peter's laughing following him through the streets and all the way into his uncle's apartment. The whole thing is a mess and it leaves Miles cold and shaking, everything tangled up and confused, he feels alone with no one to turn to and Peter's in the room, staring at well the other Peter with a suspicious look and Miles feels like he doesn't know what his life is anymore.

They end up in the diner, Peter (dead, RIPeter? Peter he's going to call him Pete) is squished into the booth beside him staring at the alive him with varying degrees of suspicion and disgust. Miles glances away from the catastrophe happening in front of him and around the dinner, there's a spirit in the booth across the room, he is wearing a fedora and has a case in front of him. Miles wonders who he is waiting for.

Miles needs help, actual physical help, not Pete telling him to try and unstick himself. But mostly, Miles can't let Pete down and he has no idea what to do. He asks Peter B. who rambles off something about baby powder (Pete agrees with passion and a new-found respect for Peter B.) but that isn't what he means. He needs to learn how to swing, how to climb walls, and whatever is going on with the electricity thing.

They take a bus. Miles wants to die, collapse in on himself and die, there's an old lady's ghost next to him and she's talking about her cats, all fifteen of them. And Pete's also talking, telling him about some of the villains of his world in-between strange metaphors that don't make sense.

The place is full of ghosts, not the normal kind either, they're twisted in weird ways that sends shivers up and down his spine, because if they look like that in death then there was some seriously bad stuff going on. Miles attempts to wait for all of a minute before he sees King Pin exit the car.

The fear and anxiety crackle through his mind and turn his stomach upside down. He can't see another Spiderman die (and not just because the two of them combined would be terrifying). He can't watch the light fade, hear the sickening crack, and do nothing. Miles can't run away, so he runs forward.

Turning invisible is weird, it's like getting sucked through one of those water slides, the ones that turn you upside down. Everything is a strange mix of grey and oversaturated bright hues that temporarily blind Miles, it's like walking the line between life and death and the thought scares him until Peter B. taps his nose and he's forced to memorize a password that is ten digits too long (he can't even memorize ten elements on a good day).

A man in a lab coat breezes through a wall and stares at Miles for a long moment before he serenely tells him that the nice curly-haired lady? She's a supervillain. Of course, she is. The warning comes a moment too late and Miles is vaguely and utterly terrified by Doc Oc as he grabs the monitor and darts out the doorway, Pete drifts beside him and tells him to drop the monitor. Done. Now what?

When Miles finally gets the hang of webbing through the trees, it's freeing, it's exhilarating, everything falls away until he can breathe again. Pete watches with a fond smile, and amidst the trees, he seems to drift between corporal form and wherever spirits go when they're not inhabiting reality.

His spider-sense rings, but not in the blaring danger way, it's more like a familiar ringtone and Pete sucks in a harsh breath as Gwanda (it's Gwen) appears. She looks cool and calm but her eyes stare at Peter B. for one second and then don't look at him again. Miles feels like he's missing something.

The bus back into the city is better. There is no crazy old lady, but there is totally a man who is dressed like a Viking which is a bit unexpected. Speaking with Gwen is nice, it's easy, it's something Miles hadn't known he was exactly missing.

X

Both Peters pause when Aunt May opens the door, she has a kind face and hugs Peter B. with warm words. Miles glances at Pete who nods once at him and dematerialises, he can kind of understand that.

Meeting the other spider-people (?) is a strange experience that quickly becomes a bad experience. He tries to get up, tries to get them all to listen, maybe do something other than carve that anxiety deeper. Peter B. tries to stop them, and he appreciates it he really does, just as much as Pete's, "They're being harsh because that's how the world was to them."

But he can't handle it, the pressing disappointment on all sides like a wire against his throat. It's easy to turn invisible then.

Miles doesn't leave right away, he wants to call his parents, wants to go home and hide under the covers, eat some of his mom's cooking, anything. Instead, he enters May's kitchen, the old woman is stirring a cup of tea and there's a man behind her with a kind smile and a hearty face. She looks up and smiles at him, it softens some of the hurt.

It all blurts out suddenly, how he saw Peter die, how he can see spirits, and how he's not ready. She doesn't judge him, her eyes water and her hand stills over her mouth on a few occasions but she listens, and Miles feels so much better as if the words have sunk all the worries out from the bottom of his feet.

Miles glances to Pete and repeats everything for Aunt May because she deserves the last words of her son. He leaves afterwards, the kitchen is quiet, and Miles feels a strange mix of light and heavy as he leaves.

X

The alleyway is full of a grey miasma that clouds around his uncle and Miles can't breathe, can't see through the tears and the plastic of the lens of the Spiderman costume, there's blood on his hands as Aaron stares up at him. His words are chocked with blood and pain and Miles engraves every single word into his mind as he hovers over Aaron helpless, alone, with nothing he can do.

Then he's gone, his spirit doesn't just materialize (they usually take a while) and Miles is alone in the alleyway and it's cold, the kind that numbs everything and makes your breath rough in your chest. His father's voice strikes like a bell and a hammer relief and fear mixing like a tonic as Miles turns invisible with a pop. He runs, because that's all he can do because he can't help the others, he can't summon his powers on command.

And they know it.

It wells inside Miles as he tries and tries, and nothing happens. He's helpless, just as he was helpless to stop Pete from dying, and he's going to be helpless in stopping Peter B. from dying. Pete stares at him with sad eyes, and he must be so disappointed in Miles, who can't live up, can't save the world. They leave and he's alone, even Pete is gone, watching over them for him and its just Miles. Miles who can't control his powers, who can't save anyone.

His dad's words are like water, washing away the ice clinging to his chest, to his mind in fractured pieces. The words are everything he needs to hear and doesn't know it, and Miles doesn't feel alone. He doesn't know if he can do it, but Miles can get up, and he can run, and that's all you need to be Miles Morales and Spiderman.

X

The roof is cold beneath him as Miles pulls up his mask gasping for breath, his chest is heaving and blood is pounding through his veins, everything feels sharp, clear for the first time in a while. Miles feels alive, so very alive.

"You need to work on your stamina."

Aaron says with a huff of laughter, he crouches beside Miles on the roof and looks out at the city before them. Miles' heart does a summersault in his chest and then two cold and intangible arms wrap around Miles, but they're warm in a different way.

A hand ruffles the top of his mask and Miles knows they can talk later, maybe his uncle can try to explain everything. But right now, he's looking at him with those eyes that are all encouragement and it's all Miles needs to keep going. To keep running.

Inside, the Collider is a burst of colour and parts, Miles can see the grey everywhere, coiling around everything like static it's unsettling and so very wrong even if it's kind of beautiful. The others welcome him, they fight together, they're a team and Miles feels welcomed like he's part of something as he fights with Gwen and Peter B. it's freeing and it's exhilarating. It's right.

Then it's time for them to go home, it hurts and some part of him wants them to stay, to listen to their advice, to fight with them. But the rest of him, that part of him that listened to his mom's stories and thought he would do good with his gift, knows they need to go home. And when it's just Peter B. and Miles left, he grins at the man who helped him, who gave him a chance and that's all it takes for Peter B. to understand, to go home.

Then it's him and King Pin, Miles is terrified, but he's not going to let his world, his home collapse. Pete is in the subway car, he's silent but he's there (okay he's mostly silent he kind of narrates the battle) and Miles can do this. No matter how many times he has to get up, how far he has to run.

It hurts and everything is collapsing around him, Pete is on his left telling him he can get up and his dad (why is he here) is there in the distance and Miles gets up, his uncle's behind King Pin and he's grinning, and Miles knows what to do.

Then it's all over, Miles listens to his dad and can't stop himself, he ends the call and hugs his dad, it's embarrassing and good and everything he needs.

X

Miles stands and looks out over Brooklyn, Pete is staring at the stars musing on the probability of a villain attack on the nearby bank, his uncle's arguing with him about the fact that there's a gallery or something with rare jewels. The watch Gwen gave to him is tight on his wrist and the air's cold, but Miles knows his mom's waiting for him with hot chocolate and his dad is going to look at his sketches and smile. Miles grins and leaps of the building, he breaks into a run and keeps going. He's ready.

X

Thank you all for reading! This was super interesting to write as I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit. I have at least two more chapters planned for this fic so, hopefully, everything will turn out. Reviews/comments are always appreciated, till next time!