#flowerbite

“Whoa,” the girl says, blinking. “Cool watch. What brand is that?”

“Uh—!” Miles claps a hand over the screen, which doesn’t stop the orange light from spilling through his fingers. “It’s, like, some foreign brand, you probably don’t know it.”

“You hit your steps goal or something?” she jokes as the watch continues to buzz.

Miles laughs weakly. “Yeah, something like that.”

Cupping his hand over the screen, he takes a glance to see what the alert is.

ANOMALY DETECTED. LOCATION: EARTH-1610. INCOMING ASSISTANCE: MIGUEL O’HARA.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Miles says.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Miles tugs his jacket sleeve over the watch. The girl looks at him with a hint of concern, head tilted, earrings shining from the lights strung up all around the backyard. She’s really pretty. “Nothing’s wrong, I just, uh…” He sighs, drags a hand over his face. “I… have to go. I’m really sorry—it’s, like, an emergency, and I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t really important.”

“It’s okay. I get it.” She looks a little disappointed.

“No, I mean it,” Miles says. Mentally, he’s screaming at himself to rein it in because it’s not that serious, but he just hates the idea of her thinking he’s running away because she’s somehow less than. “You’re like, really cool and I like talking to you and if you’re still around when I’m done and want to hang out, I’d be down for that, but if you’re not around or just don’t want to, that’s cool too—”

A pair of lips press against his cheek.

Miles shuts his mouth.

He can feel the waxiness of lipstick imprinting on his skin, and hears the gentle smack when the lips pull away.

“I’d like that,” the girl says, grinning now. “But right now, relax and go deal with your emergency.”

The earth is spinning. Miles can’t tell up from down.

“Okay,” he says dumbly, fingers touching his cheek. “Cool.”

“Cool.” She gives him a little wave.

Miles stumbles on his shoes on the way out, waving back at her like an idiot.

He’s so high on cloud nine that he nearly forgot what the emergency was in the first place.

“Miguel,” he says, tapping on the watch. “I’m here, where you at?”

“Oh so now Spider-Man is open for business?” Miguel grouches, voice tinny over the speakers. His projection flares up from the watch. His mask is on, the red outline of his eyes bunched up in annoyance.

“Not my fault I have a life here!”

Miguel shakes his head. “I’m in Queens. Sending coordinates. Apúrate.”

The call ends.

“Nice to see you too,” Miles mutters and pulls his mask over his face.

He and Miguel have worked together on a handful of occasions, with Miguel sounding greatly put upon each time. It’s not really fair—Miles likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at this Spider-Man stuff by now—but from what he’s heard through the gossip at HQ, Miguel is just kind of like that with everyone. Blunt. Snappish. Open in his preference for working alone.

If Miles had any say in it, he’d leave Miguel well alone. But their paths keep crossing somehow, and truth be told, there are far worse partners to have in a fight than the ninja vampire Miguel O’Hara.

“About time you showed up!” Miguel says when Miles finally makes it to the coordinates he sent.

Miles is about to respond when a blast of electricity snaps through the air, and Miguel leaps out of the way, catching the next building with his clawed hands. Miles swings after him.

“You know New York is big, right?” Miles says, following Miguel as he bounds over walls and rooftops. “And that we don’t have the same technology as, oh I don’t know, Nueva York eight decades in the future.”

“Yeah, well, while you were taking your sweet time, this guy’s been blasting through the neighborhood.”

Said guy possesses the power of electricity, it looks like. Kind of cool, Miles has to admit, until he throws an arc of lightning Miles’s way and Miles has to yelp and duck.

“Okay, I can see why you needed me,” Miles admits.

Miguel scoffs. “Right. Follow my lead, then do your thing.”

His thing. As if Miles hadn’t used it in the not-so-distant past to leech the very suit Miguel is wearing.

“You’re the boss,” Miles sighs.

Miguel doesn’t respond, just heads towards today’s villain with a powerful leap and a blur of red webs.

Miguel draws the fight away from the residential buildings and into a factory yard by the waterfront, arcs of lightning following him all the while. Electro, Miles learns from a handful of villain monologues later, doesn’t go down easily, especially after siphoning energy from the nearby power lines to make himself faster and more agile. But his fatal flaw seems to be his ego—Miles latches onto him mid-rant about some company called Oscorp, and in the ensuing tussle, Miles lays his hands on Electro’s shoulders and starts to drain him.

“What are you doing?” Electro demands, watching in horror as all the energy he gathered flows out of him and into Miles.

“Sorry, man,” Miles says. “Nothing personal.”

The ensuing venom blast is the strongest Miles has ever done. It leaves a smoking crater in the ground, Electro lying unconscious in the center of it.

Miles shakes out his hands, jittery from residual static.

“Finally,” Miguel says, landing on the ground next to him. He drops his mask, and Miles can see the disgruntled look on his face. “Thought he’d never shut up.”

“You’re welcome,” Miles says.

Miguel shoots him a glance before bending down to wrap Electro in webs. “Don’t get cocky.”

“Just saying, you’re lucky he ended up in my dimension.”

Miguel rolls his eyes, but it isn’t with quite as much annoyance as Miles has seen in the past. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“You want a gold star or something?” Miguel says.

Miles shrugs. “Just a ‘thank you’ would be nice. Or even ‘good work.’” The smell of charred villain is cloying in Miles’s nose, so he tugs his mask off for some fresh air.

Miguel straightens, looking down at his watch to type in coordinates, and he says offhandedly, “Alright, alright.” He turns to Miles. “Good work—”

He stops.

Miles raises an eyebrow when a few seconds pass and Miguel doesn’t say anything. “What?”

Miguel points to his cheek. “Your mom kiss you before you left?”

“What?”

And then Miles remembers.

The lipstick.

“Oh!” he says, face turning so hot. “No, ’course not. That’s just, uh—”

—a girl he was trying to get lucky with. But there’s no way Miles is going to admit that to anyone, let alone Miguel.

“I told you I have a life, man. I do see people outside of Spider-Man stuff.” He brings a hand up to wipe the lipstick away.

A warm hand takes his chin.

Miles’s breath stops in his lungs.

He didn’t notice Miguel had gotten so close. His grip is firm, but not ungentle. He turns Miles’s head to look at him, and his face is… Miles doesn’t even know how to characterize his expression. Miguel has gone very still, his breath coming in and out of him in deep, even exhales. He’s staring fixedly at the kiss. His eyes are dark.

He rubs his thumb along Miles’s cheek in a slow, heavy drag. Wiping the kiss away. Replacing it with the burn of his own touch.

Miles’s stomach jolts, and his skin goes hot all over.

What is happening?

“M-Miguel?” he says hoarsely.

Miguel doesn’t hear him. He’s still looking at Miles’s cheek, and his lip curls slightly in disdain, enough for Miles to see the hint of a pointed canine. The grip on Miles’s chin digs in a little deeper.

“Miguel,” Miles says again, louder.

Miguel blinks. Clarity comes back to his eyes.

He drops Miles as if burned.

“Shit,” he says, stepping away. Miles’s skin feels cold without his touch. “I— Sorry.”

Miles opens his mouth to say it’s okay but the words get stuck in his throat.

“Are you okay?” Miles asks instead. His heart is hammering in his chest, hard and loud enough that surely Miguel can hear it.

“Fine,” Miguel snaps. He has one hand on his head like he’s fighting off a headache. “I just— I gotta go.”

He calls a portal. It bursts open in a familiar cacophony of orange light.

“Okay,” Miles says faintly, watching Miguel grab Electro with a handful of webs.

Miguel spares him one last look. Again, Miles can’t tell what emotion to read from his face. He’s struck by the urge to move closer, to find what Miguel keeps from him.

But then Miguel says quietly, “Good work today,” turns around, and disappears through the portal.

Miles is left alone in the cold night air, the silence heavy all around him.

He brings his fingers to his cheek, where his skin still throbs from the memory of Miguel’s touch. His stomach squirms.