spider-man of tomorrow

///

“Tacky’s cheap. Bourgeois is more expensive than tasteful. Look it up in the rich people dictionary, kid. You have so much to learn.” After all, they didn’t exactly come from a line of people who treated wealth as something to be humble about. Howard had exotic animals on every well-treated lawn of every foreign mansion he bought, his mom thrived only when she was shocking people with her fashion choices, and Tony … well, he flew around in a gold and red metal suit saving the world from imminent doom. “I’m pretty sure baby showers are meant to be calm and relaxing and, you know, lame,” Tony said, “but you’re getting me there. You want the job, you’ve got it. Miguel O’Hara, event planner for the stars. Just don’t piss Zee off too much with the cannons, if you get some.” A pretty subtle hint to have cannons and fireworks, in Tony’s humble opinion. “Not bull,” Tony replied, tapping the side of his nose. “I have an elite brain. I remember everything. The things I know would terrify and amaze you. To say I’m wrong is like spitting in the face of God. You’ve been warned.”

Tony raised an eyebrow, as if to ask only a couple? but the thought of cultists in the future was something even he didn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole (at least not this early in the morning, and definitely not when pumpkins were talking to him). Cultists were weird enough in this century. “Not necessarily,” he said. “You could put my name on it. I could hire you like a franchisee, you know? We could have different brands, but you all choose your management style. You’re giving up your right to some very lucrative movie deals, you know.” As far as Tony was aware, there was no one trying to dissect him, but … “I wouldn’t put it past Hydra,” he said with a shrug. “They probably dug up Dad and have him floating in a tank somewhere. FRIDAY? Remind me to scan Dad’s grave.” FRIDAY didn’t reply, so Tony was left to assume she totally agreed with the plan. “Then pick the least bad, I don’t know,” Tony said, giving one pumpkin a neat kick away from his feet. “I’m not a life coach. Just come up with a plan, Spider-Man. See that? It rhymes!”

/

“Pass,” Miguel snorted, rolling his eyes. “That dictionary’ll be defunct by the time I’m born, anyway, you know.” It was strange, the fact that he knew now that he technically came from money. Stranger still to know that his grandparents on both sides had been well off while he’d grown up in a relatively humble middle-class home. Alchemax had paid George well enough, but nowhere near as much as the Stones or the Starks had in their accounts. “I’ve never thrown a lame party. I’ll have Lyla help me out.” She’d throw in some fireworks of the holographic variety. Noise-free, because Miguel figured plenty of the people Tony and Zee hung out with might get squirrely around the sounds that came with explosives. Hell, he’d be surprised if Tony didn’t get squirrely around explosions, given his history. PTSD wasn’t a diagnosis freely given in 2099 --- most psychological diagnoses weren’t, unless you wanted to end up in an institution --- but Lyla had told Miguel enough about it in diagnosing him that he could recognize it well enough in someone else. “Pretty sure the things you know are mostly what I’d call... outdated.” He was baiting Tony now, poking at him just to give himself something to do. He’d always been bad about that... but at least these days, he knew where he got it. Tony gave as good as he got.

Tony didn’t ask about the Thorites, and Miguel figured that was for the best. There were some things about the future that Tony was better off not knowing. The fact that half his friends wound up deities among certain parts of the population --- or the fact that Miguel’s mother, Tony’s daughter was a member of that part of the population? Probably fell into that category. “Yeah, you know, if I ever make it back to 2099, having the Stark name on a Spider-Man trademark would probably get me into even more trouble than I’m usually in.” Not that he would ever make it back. He knew that now, thanks to Lyla’s obituary. “You’d be boring to dissect. Hydra sounds boring. You’re not gonna dig up your old man’s grave, are you? Because I want no part of that. I’m telling Zee you decided it on your own.” Miguel groaned, rearing back and kicking a pumpkin a little too hard. His foot broke through the surface, leaving the thing stuck on his shoe. “This is disgusting. If it’s pumpkin corpses or ugly Target décor, I guess we’ll go to Target. You think these things would be affected by venom?” Maybe he ought to start taking bites out of the bastards.

[ text ]: I think our neighbour may have gone rabid.

@twentyninetynines

(✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): your neighbor (✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): don't start using "our" (✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): you're gonna give me hives. this shit isn't long term (✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): and yeah he probably is rabid (✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): i think he ate some bad sushi (✉️ ➡️ identity theft ): or he ate the poison, hard to tell

(✉️ ➡️ borked the timestream ): okay maybe not (✉️ ➡️ borked the timestream ): but shut up and stop calling me out? (✉️ ➡️ borked the timestream ): this is your guide to friendship: don’t be that guy.

[…] (✉️ ➡️ borked the timestream ): any respectable adult, actually

(✉️ ➡️ NOT from the future): didn’t think so (✉️ ➡️ NOT from the future): nope. sorry. that’s how we do friendship in 2099. (✉️ ➡️ NOT from the future): you’ll thank me in the long run.

All the advice that Rachel had passed out like candy over the last few months about facing what you’ve done and apologizing for it to open that dialogue — Rachel had been a coward when it came to Miguel. He had told her to never show her face again, and she had taken those words right to the heart. So much so that she ducked out of Danny’s wedding because she didn’t want to cause a scene with him. (And she didn’t know if she would have shown up at all if she had known he would be in attendance.)

“For all that I’ve done, yes. And for everything else that was done to you.” Because while she wasn’t the only hand that had been involved in his harm, she knew enough about the rest of it to pity him. Which was almost funny considering how much she hated it when people looked at her like she was a wounded animal. But she was also much quicker to stop limping than he was.

“Then don’t accept it,” she said flatly. “Don’t forgive me. Don’t listen. I listened to you. You got to say your piece, and you got to tell me to shove myself in a hole and stay away and—” Rachel paused, shaking her head before steadying her voice. “Of all the pain I caused, the worst I did was to myself by listening to other people. By allowing others to control me when I fully had my mind.” People like him. Not that she said it out loud. “Why are you the only one allowed to heal? Why do you get to make the rules?”

/

Miguel had never wanted anyone’s pity. He’d made it clear to Tyler when he’d offered it in the form of a bruising hand on his shoulder and a blue vial of Rapture tucked into Miguel’s shirt pocket, said as much to Dana when she’d placed her hands on his cheeks and tilted his head to the side to look into his eyes and see the telltale signs of the drug there, even snapped it towards Zee a time or two close to the beginning. He didn’t want it from her, either. Especially not from her. 

His jaw clenched as she spoke, nostrils flaring in the way Lyla said they did when he was angry. “You’re sorry,” he repeated flatly. “Everybody’s sorry. It doesn’t mean anything.” In 2099, sorry was what you said to clean the slate before repeating the same actions over and over again. Alchemax was sorry that they’d destroyed most of the marine life with their latest oil spill. Stark-Fujikawa was sorry that their prototype missile blew up a school instead of a military base. Synthia was sorry they’d accidentally killed a couple dozen innocent bystanders instead of the single fugitive they’d been aiming for. And the next day, they were all sorry when they did the same shit again. Miguel knew how sorry worked.

“And what?” He snapped at her, and he knew he was being unfair. He knew she wasn’t Alchemax or Stark-Fujikawa or Synthia or even the Hound. All she was was what he could have been, had Alchemax succeeded in dragging him back to their labs --- a tool to be used. And it was stupid to hate a tool. Miguel knew that. But there was no one else here to hate, and he was too angry to hate no one. “And now I owe you something because you gave me a few months to get over you trying to kill me after swearing you wouldn’t? You said you weren’t going to attack me, and I trusted you on that. Then, next thing I know, I’m up against the wall of an elevator and you’re talking about selling me to the highest bidder. So I’m sorry if me being pissed off about that hurts your shocking feelings, but I can’t stop being mad.”

i learned early there’s no point trying to stop you drinking. || @twentyninetynines

Things were going better than they ever had. He had a great girl, his company was doing better than ever, he was trampling Viastone into the mud. Tony Stark’s name was synonymous with superhero, the Avengers hadn’t dealt with a planetary threat in at least five years, and there was a baby on the way who might have his eyes and his penchant for engines and his insufferable sense of humour. There was so much to look forward to, so much worth working for, and yet–

He still couldn’t sleep.

At least this time was better than the last. He wasn’t rattling around an empty compound or Tower. He had company, at least, to be awake and pathetic at three o’clock. Unfortunately, company also came with opinions. Tony paused, his glass halfway to his mouth, and then set it down on the island counter. “Zatanna commented on it too,” he said, in place of the defence that he could already find building. “She’s never mentioned it before, you know, as something she was concerned about, never acted like …” He cleared his throat, looking at how the dim lighting reflected through the liquid. “Why can’t I have this?” he asked, looking up at Miguel. “It’s not affecting me. It’s not stopping me. I’m functioning, I’m excelling. And I know we have our problems–” Tony, Miguel, but Howard too. His legacy hung between them, always, “–but mine … it’s not the same. It’s never been the same.”

/

Xina told him once, in the midst of one of the worst fights they ever had, that he’d ruin any good thing he ever got his hands on. Miguel remembered scoffing at her, remembered rolling his eyes and slamming the door shut on his way out, remembered thinking that she was wrong, remembered going to a bar. He didn’t remember much after that. Not until the next morning, when he’d awoken hungover on Gabri’s house with the realization that, in all fairness, Xina had a damn good point. He had a habit of poking holes in anything solid, of stabbing his own lifeboat just to watch it fill up with water.

Maybe that was what he was doing now. 

He liked to think he commented on Tony’s drinking with the intention of helping him, liked to think he was trying the same tough love routine that Dana and Gabri had both tried on him even if it hadn’t worked, but he wasn’t sure how true that was. He wasn’t sure how much of this was him trying to help and how much of it was stabbing at a rubber raft like it wasn’t the only thing sitting between him and the ocean. “You got a kid on the way,” he commented, as if Tony weren’t well aware of that, as if there were any world in which he may have forgotten. “Growing up with that... You know what it’s like.” So did Miguel. They’d both grown up with drunk, angry men in their kitchens, even if Tony still defended his sometimes. Even if Miguel’s wouldn’t be born for another decade or two. 

Crossing the distance over to the island, Miguel paused and picked up the bottle Tony had been pouring from, sloshing the liquid inside of it for a moment, listening to the empty spaces. “You know, Stone used to tell me I did my best work when I was high?” He passed the bottle between his hands for a moment, as if juggling it. The weight was more familiar in his hands than he’d like it to be. “Said I’d be better off if I never came down. The drugs never stopped me. The way he told it, they made me better.” He smiled, wry and bitter. “Father of the year, am I right? Liked his kid better all strung out. I guess I was functioning, too.”

Miguel being fucking shocking tired in Ultimate Spider-Man

Bonus feat @thewebhcad​ :

Miguel liked to think he was good under pressure. He kind of had to be, to keep Tyler Stone from figuring out the masked vigilante he had the Public Eye pursuing throughout the city was the same guy who rolled into work a half hour late with a chip on his shoulder. He liked to think he was the kind of guy who could handle most things life threw at him.

But the Hound always threw him for a loop.

The last time he’d trusted that she’d changed for the better, he wound up locked in an elevator with her, threats hanging heavy over his head. And maybe it wasn’t fair to judge her for that, considering the state of things at the time, but... Well. If there was one thing Miguel O’Hara was good at, it was nursing a damn grudge. That was why he froze up at the sight of her. It wasn’t fear. It couldn’t be that. It was just... pettiness. That was all. 

“You mean what you put me through,” he asked sharply, “or something else? Because I gotta say, I’m not really interested in apologies from you.”

“Okay,” Zatanna said, pretending to consider his request. “But remember, if I turn into a nun, then the flickering increases, doesn’t it?” She touched her chin, tapping the center a few times before smirking at him. “I mean, you can’t exist if I’m not promiscuous.” There was a glitter of humor in her eyes as she watched him, knowing that the more she said, the more uncomfortable and frustrated he’d become. Their friendship had been rooted in that, and maybe, one day, that would change. Maybe she’d open her eyes and realize that she should pull back on all these things that she shared with him because there was a line of allowing herself to be known by her grandson - and allowing him to see every shadow in her life at the same time.

Like the things she was supposed to protect him from. Like the family he had gotten, that didn’t include her or Tony in the future. And again, she knew they must have been dead long before he was born if they hadn’t been there for him. It was the only way that could have happened - but what use was it, torturing herself over a future that had taken hold of him? Zatanna swallowed those feelings, focusing on the time she had with him now. It was easy this way to pretend that they could change the future without ruining him in the process. Pretend like this was normal. “I’ll get you a cane for your birthday then, old man.”

Zatanna rolled her eyes at his question, deciding the answer was painfully obvious (just as painful as that whine in his tone just now). “You were born. So, you know, welcome to the family and all that. Comes with some exclusive zapping, a roll of the dice on magical potential, scientific genius that borders on insanity… I could go on.” Her nose wrinkled at the thought, irritated not at the suggestion, but at the accuracy. “Yeah,” she grumbled, scoffing at him as she turned away. “Illyana has already done that a few times. I’ll probably end up gray before Tony.” Though he was already wearing a salt and pepper look, Zatanna, if she allowed it, would join him quickly. “Not a challenge, by the way,” she warned, glaring in his direction. “You quicken up this process and I’ll up the voltage.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Miguel replied dryly, and he knew Zee knew it was a damn lie. She’d seen just how desperate he was to avoid the flickering wherever he could, seen how much he wanted to stay solid. He figured no one could blame him for that --- blinking in and out of existence was hardly anyone’s idea of a good time, or certainly wouldn’t be if they knew what it felt like. “You don’t have to be promiscuous to ensure my existence. Artificial insemination is a thing by this decade, isn’t it? I think that’s a great option for you.”

This wasn’t natural, and he knew it. He wasn’t supposed to be joking with his grandmother about the circumstances of his existence, wasn’t meant to be doing anything he was doing. So much of his life had been out of his control, so many choices taken from him. In truth, Miguel didn’t know if he would have chosen this for himself had the option been presented to him. He didn’t know if he would have gone back in time willingly had Tyler not forced his hand, didn’t know if he would have stayed had the time machine not been destroyed on the other side. There were things he might have changed given half the chance, but... that didn’t mean they were bad. That didn’t mean he didn’t cherish the friendship he had with Zee. “Great. I’ll use it to kick your ass.”