I have been a Spider-Man fan since birth, all owed to my dad and uncle who were the family comic book nerds and collectors long before I came around. I grew up on the adventures of Peter Parker and, when I was old enough to buy my own comics, I was obsessed with following more members of the spider-family from Mayday Parker to Anya Corazon. But in the last decade or so, my interest in really writing or drawing for the Spiders was put on the backburner.

Into the Spider-Verse reignited my love, though, and it's become one of my favorite movies as well as responsible for making me a full Spider-fan again. I knew I wanted to pay tribute to that and just what a fantastic job the movie did, but I wasn't sure what story I wanted to tell until recently.

So I hope this is an enjoyable ride for you guys, I've been having a blast writing it. It's going to be a long one! Let's hope I can keep to a Friday Updates schedule~

Disclaimer: Spider-Man and associated characters are the creative property of Marvel Comics. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and associated characters are the creative property of Sony Pictures.

Resonance
Chapter One: The Real Deal

Every morning for the last month had started the same.

His alarm sounded, he groaned in rhythm to its blaring, turned over, fumbled with his phone, and turned it off. Then, just before he could gently float back into sleep, the alarm in the bunk beneath him would sound off and a hand would slap the baseboard to encourage him to get a move on.

Miles appreciated, but also hated, that his roommate had taken the news about him being Spider-Man so well.

"Okay," Ganke Lee said, fully awake as he slid from his mattress to his computer chair, smoothly sliding across their dorm floor toward his desk. He listed off the assignments that both of them had due for the day, things that Miles should have completed the night before. Checking them in the morning kept his grades from slipping due to his nighttime adventures. And the moment Miles good sleepily assert that they were all done, Ganke would turn on the four monitors to his desk.

The glare of the light was always enough to force Miles into dawning acceptance that Ganke wasn't letting up.

He stretched, nursed any wounds or bruises, then leap with extra-human flexibility and athleticism from the top bunk to the dressers on the other side of the room.

In the early days, Ganke would have excitedly taken it in. A month after, Ganke wasn't even looking Miles' direction.

"Okay," Ganke said again, turning in his chair to present Miles with a map for his morning run as Spider-Man. "If you do this in thirty minutes, you'll have time for a shower."

Miles murmured incoherently, slipping into the legs of his suit before he even glanced at the map. Once he did, he dropped his shoulders and threw back his head. "Man! You've gotta be kidding me! Yancy Street? I always run into something on Yancy Street. And when I run into things on Yancy Street, I won't be back in thirty minutes, are you kidding?"

"And then it'll look great that the new Spider-Man is doing good before eight in the morning on everyone's commutes," Ganke pointed out knowingly. "Not to mention, hard to find out that the new Spider-Man is a student at Brooklyn Visions Academy if he's spotted thirty minutes away before school starts."

Pulling on the rest of his suit and reaching for his mask, Miles hesitated. He looked intently at Ganke for a moment. "You know, I've been Spider-Man for over a month now," he said. "How long do you think they'll still be calling me the new Spider-Man? When do I just become the Spider-Man?"

Ganke pulled a pained expression and tilted his head. "You sure you want that? To be the Spider-Man already?"

No, Miles didn't want it. But it was a thought that was already nagging him.

Sighing, Miles looked from his mask to Ganke's mask. "Yancy Street and back? You're killing me with these morning workouts, man."

With his mask pulled on, Miles ran for the window that Ganke eagerly sprung open.

"Wouldn't be a workout if it wasn't hard!" Ganke encouraged him all the way out of the building.

The moment the wind rushed against his face, the haze of sleep and morning dreariness left Miles' body. Every muscle, every bone was in motion, flying into the air. He breathed in Brooklyn and then, with his web-shooters at the ready, shot toward the nearest building with confidence.

After a month, the motion Peter — but not that Peter — taught him was already second nature.

Aim with the hips, look where you want it to hit, double-tap to release, thwip it out again, swing, release, thwip—

He could have swung through the entire city, but he had grown warier of the overuse of his web-shooters after a few weekends of just that attitude. There was nothing more aggravating than being low on the web fluid than being low on it when he needed them. And Ganke was still experimenting with the formula they obtained, insisting his batches were still too unreliable compared to what Miles could pick up at the Parker household.

And, somewhat cowardly, Miles had gone out of his way to avoid being in the Parker household more than absolutely necessary in his month as Spider-Man.

Miles utilized his newly enhanced athleticism to land at the top of a building and hit the ground running. His feet carried him quicker than they ever have in his life before, and he hadn't even broken out in sweat yet.

Whenever he did grow his backbone again and heads to Ms. Parker's house, he was going to thank her for the extremely breathable fabric she has made his suit from. Then again, that might broach the topic of how she didn't build the suit for him. She built it for the original Spider-Man.

Her nephew. The Spider-Man who died a hero before Miles had even an inkling of his own potential.

When the next building over was too tall for Miles to simply leap to its roof, Miles exercised his wall-crawling.

His fingers and toes locked adhesively to the surfaces of the buildings and he shimmied across.

Strangely enough, the crawling had been the most bizarre bodily sensation for Miles as he continued stretching his spider-legs, so to speak. Swinging and leaping were challenges that had grown into thrills. But crawling had made his body contort and move repeatedly in a way that felt so unfamiliar to jumping or walking.

Ganke has suggested he watch videos of real spiders crawling, but that sounded too weird even for Miles.

He wondered if any of the other Spider-People had felt this way about crawling. It was a question that would be worth asking if he ever got the chance.

More than anything else, though, wall-crawling ate more into his morning run's allotted time than running or swinging did. As a result, it was the thing that needed his practice the most and happened to get it the least on most mornings.

The moment Miles was out of his comfort zone, out of the Brooklyn limits, he changed tactics and shifts to swinging again.

He was under half of his time and has already reached Yancy Street. If he had any luck, he could have turned around then and there, called the morning successful, and headed back to Brooklyn Visions Academy without anyone the wiser.

Spider luck true to form, there was a disturbance on Yancy Street. A hold up in a deli, but Miles was quick to take care of it.

Rather, the new Spider-Man is quick to take care of it.

He even figured, since he had wall crawled a good amount of his travel, he could spare the extra web fluid on thwips for each of the gunmen's mouths. Just to avoid the general annoyance factor.

And while Miles would go to his grave confidently declaring that the best delis in the city were found in Brooklyn, he traitorously accepted the Yancy Street deli owner's offer of a breakfast burrito to go.

Its aluminum foil shined at him with the early morning sunlight as Miles got back onto his rooftop trail and beckoned him to slow down, take a break, and breathe in the sweet aromas.

He was working out so much as Spider-Man, he had to have doubled his calories over the month, so the breakfast burrito wasn't going to set him back so far as meals were concerned.

After a few savory moments with the burrito, his wristwatch went off, forcing Miles to realize that he was off his time and there was almost no way he was going to have time for a shower when he got back.

"Aw, man," he groaned, gripping to his burrito in one hand while lining up with his next building. Aim with the hips.

To further show off just how much he had mastered the art of swinging, Miles made it the rest of the way to the academy one-handed, finishing each bite of his burrito along the way.

He also made it a point to land on the recycling bend and toss the foil, pose with a kid from Brooklyn Middle for a selfie, and backflip over traffic before swinging the rest of his way to school.

Miles scaled the walls, found the custodial closet window Ganke had strategically unlocked for him and dressed for his day in less than thirty seconds.

He smelled like sweat and breakfast burritos by the time he emerged into the hallway and raced toward his first class of the day. But Miles also figured that there were few first-year boys who didn't have similar smells to them anyway.

Deep down, at least, he knew he had the excuse of being the new Spider-Man.

And that was nearly enough satisfaction on its own to let him pass through the day.

Ganke's schedule was an A-block compared to Miles' own B-block, with their only real intersecting class throughout the week being chemistry. It made their rendezvous much tighter two out of the five days, kept mostly to the hallways and cafeteria.

Yet, even with those constraints, Ganke's presence had become instrumental to Miles' day functioning.

"There's a pop quiz in Schaffer's pre-calc," Ganke informed him, taking a look at the leftover web shooter fluid.

"What, really?" Miles asked in disbelief, he looked down at his books. He hadn't even grabbed his pre-calc. "I'm doing fine in there. Shaky on the sine and cosine stuff, but you'll never get me off my tangents."

For a moment, it seemed like Ganke hadn't heard him, forcing Miles to laugh at his own joke. Then Ganke looked up over his glasses with one brow raised. "Seriously?"

"I'm seriously good with pre-calc," Miles assured him. "Though you sure you're not going to get locked up in nerd prison for letting lowly ol' me know about a pop quiz?"

"Why? Everyone whispers warnings about quizzes around here, have since the first day," Ganke shrugged.

"Oh," Miles expressed, glancing off. It was still difficult to be confronted with the fact that he had not made friends at the school despite his mother's encouragement and his mild lies to his father about doing just that. He swallowed dryly. "Well, thanks for breaking the nerd code for me."

"You're going to have to replace these probably by tomorrow," Ganke warned him.

"We've got chem lab tomorrow, we could make some together while Doc Kuranja isn't looking," Miles offered. "You said you had some ideas."

"Are you kidding? We still don't know if my use of the regular formula is stable or not yet!" Ganke squeaked back. "I don't want them to blow on you or harden on you or—"

Miles pulled a face, noticing that Ganke's word choice and hyperventilating was drawing some unwarranted attention. He held up his hands and motioned for Ganke to lower. "Dude, chill! It was just a suggestion. I've still got, y'know, my contact. My person."

Finally, Ganke breathed easier. "Sorry. I just don't want to kill Spider-Man."

Flinching slightly, Miles glanced off. "Yeah, I get that."

"Here," Ganke said, handing back the web-shooters. "For your, uh, web person."

"Right," Miles said, quickly storing the shooters away in the backpack he had put on over his chest. He shuffled them toward the back of the mess he had shoved in, crunching and scraping other unknowns within the bag's depths.

"I'll catch you at lunch, good luck on your pre-calculus not-so-pop quiz," Ganke said after an intense scan of his watch. He didn't wave, didn't wait for Miles' reply. He just took off in the direction of the language arts wing and left Miles slightly off balance.

"Yeah, sure, man," Miles called after him, though it appeared to be on deaf ears.

He waited a moment before walking toward the math wing himself, thinking over his recent lessons. Each angle, each parabola, though, always came back to web-swinging across the city, to his gravity and momentum. It was the only thing he could think about.

Lucky for him, unlike in English, it translated fairly well to the material.

When he finished up pre-calculus and headed for lunch, Miles actually felt very good about everything that had gone on in his day, missing a morning shower notwithstanding.

And, strangely, lunch was more pleasurable and something to look forward to when he knew for a fact that he would have someone else sitting with him.

What he was less prepared for, however, was the ever-present call of his other responsibilities.

The moment it was three-fifteen and the final bells for the day rang, Miles could feel the vibrations of his phone in his pocket.

While other students walked to the commons, out to the plaza, or just to their dorms to get started on another night full of work, Miles stood and answered his phone.

"Mami?" he answered the call, same as every other school day, and proceeded to start a thirty-minute conversation.

The only times they were shorter were when his mom was on call at work and had to be pulled away. If she were at home, like she was that day, she was willing to stretch the call for an hour. It was easier for her to do that by, every ten minutes or so, pawning the phone off to Miles' dad who rattled on about work and the weather and occasionally a semi-positive story about the new Spider-Man.

It was more than a little tiresome.

Miles still had things to check off on his list of a regular day — schoolwork and artwork and some new training plan Ganke had tried to sell him the night before. It felt like every moment of phone time was cutting into that.

But the urgency of getting off the phone grew more immediate when he passed through the main corridor and saw the crowds of other students gathered, staring up at the big monitor screen.

Hesitating, Miles walked back and missed whatever story his mother was in the middle of telling as he watched the breaking news alert.

Massive robbery taking place in Brooklyn, costumed robber shooting electricity everywhere and cackling maniacally, there was a need for the new Spider-Man.

At the same time he could hear his father shuffling around and shouting something on the other end of the phone, Miles began racing out of the commons area. "Mami! Sorry, something just came up, I've gotta go! Playing, uh, chess after school! ¡Te amo! ¡Hasta luego!"

"Miles—" his mother began to argue but Miles hung up on her, fully knowing he would get an earful from it later.

The moment he was out of the school and ducking into an alley, Miles was shuffling through his mess of a backpack. Toward the bottom, barely hidden beneath assignments and art books, was Miles' already sweaty suit and his web-shooters.

"Man, I have got to get organized," he noted to himself.

Once he had his suit, changing was a quick matter. He even had his mask on before his phone went off again, that time with the default setting picture of a dinosaur signaling Ganke. Miles was quick to answer.

"Dude," Ganke's voice came through clearly.

"I saw! I'm on the way!" Miles informed him, stuffing his uniform sloppily into his backpack and slinging it over his shoulders.

"Do you know who that is?" Ganke asked.

"Know who who is?" Miles asked, already using his free hand and his feet to climb up the side of the school for greater height.

"The bank robber, it's the old Spider-Man's villain," Ganke explained hurriedly. "But I think it's different? Electro."

"Electro for electricity, clever," Miles said, reaching the top of the building and rotating so that his back was to the wall. He looked forward, aimed with his hips, set his eyes on the target.

"Yeah, but it's different," Ganke insisted. "It might be a different person."

"Ganke, call me back after and we'll talk about it, I promise! Right now I've gotta get going so I need both hands," Miles informed him.

"No you don't, you had a burrito on your way back this morning," Ganke argued. "This is important, Spider-Man."

"It might be a different dude in the mask, that puts Electricity-o and me on the same foot. I've got this, Ganke, I'm not as big of a dummy as you thought I was when we got roomed together, remember?" Miles groaned. He shot the web shooter and kicked off from the school. "Catch me on the news!"

He swung through the city, mindlessly putting his phone back into his backpack midair, then used both arms to swing.

Beneath him, Miles could hear the awes and supportive shouts of the citizens below.

There was still mourning, still We Love You P.P. signs throughout the city, but in the past month, there was more hope, more relief as Miles swung through the streets. Because New York needed Spider-Man again.

And Miles felt rewarded and assured to be that guy. The guy.

It fueled him to go faster, to prove himself and all the faith the other Spider-People had shown in him the last month.

Because the specifics of the bank and Electro weren't part of the routine, but the new Spider-Man was — Miles being there for his city was as routine and in his bones by that point as the suit itself.

He was so full of confidence as he came across the bank, he barely flinched when the front wall's brick and glass were blown out by an explosive flash. Miles steadied himself, resting against the walls as he waited for a clear view of Electro to come out.

And Electro did, bright greens and yellows of the suit visible from streets away.

What Miles wasn't expecting was for the rest of her figure. "Okay," he said, tilting his head, "maybe Ganke did have more to let me know before I hung up. Because I never remember Electro looking like that on the news."

Police cars filed in, sirens blaring, and immediately jumped out of their cars, guns at the ready.

With a smirk, Electro slung a duffle bag over her shoulder with one hand then slung the freehand outward toward all of the vehicles.

Electricity poured from her fingertips and sent most of the vehicles flying back.

"I've got this!" Miles rallied himself as he leaped from his perch.

With the push of his legs, Miles sent his body flying at an incline toward the police officers. Toward the arc of his descent, he used his web-shooters to rapid-fire aim at the chest of each of the officers in trouble. The moment he had made web contact with their chests, he aimed his left web shooter for the top of the bank building and grabbed onto both sets of lines.

His own body the fulcrum, Miles twisted into a swing and hoisted the leveraged officers up with him. It was enough force to lift all of them out of danger and to pull up with Miles' swing.

There were a number of yells, but no one was around the police cars as they crashed or exploded against the electric propulsions of Electro.

For her part, Electro seemed to have subscribed to the cool guys don't look at explosions school of thought and was beginning to walk confidently down the street before Miles interrupted her plans. She quickly turned on her heels and locked her sights on Miles.

"Well, I was wondering when I'd get a chance to swing at the new little bug on the streets," she growled.

"Wow, never been called a bug before!" Miles scoffed, landing on the other side of the street and putting down the officers with him. Most of them seemed dazed if not outright ready to vomit from the experience. "Don't worry, officers, I've got this!"

Confidently, Miles turned on his heels only to be sent flying back.

The pain was immense. Arguably the worst pain he'd felt since taking on Kingpin nearly a month ago. His every muscle and sinew jerked violently against him. Nothing was listening to his brain's directions and, worst of all, his brain felt as though it had been lit on fire.

He was on his back on the sidewalk before his lungs could expand again. They crackled at the rush of air and Miles felt as though his heart was seizing in his chest.

His fingers and toes were curled as his arms began to somewhat listen to him again. He pushed through the pain, trying to uncurl every joint and move them. Finger by finger, toe by toe. There was a smell of burning rubber that was getting harder and harder to ignore as well as a terrible pain in his back.

"Spider-Man!"

"GET UP!"

"She's coming!"

"Oh my god!"

His ears felt muffled but, somewhat obtusely, Miles could feel the warnings he was getting. None, though, was louder than the Spider-Senseblaring into every nerve, every vibration in his body. He coughed through another painful breath and beat his clenched fist on the ground.

"No matter what, always get back up!" he berated himself. "No matter how many times I get hit, I always get back up!"

Two green, insulated boots came to a stop right in front of Miles on the sidewalk just as his vision began to clear. When he visually traced them upward, he saw the slick greens and yellows of the suit and, most aggravating of all, the shiny toothed grin of Electro.

"Cute motto, bug," she joked. Slowly, she drew up one hand, the fingers ungloved as she put two together and formed a gun to point at him. "Can't get up when you're dead."

"I'll keep that in mind," Miles sassed back before holding up his right web shooter and shooting it straight onto her hand, insulating it with a massive glove of web. THWIP.

"What the—" Electro sputtered, stepping back in surprise.

She was attempting to reground herself, but Miles was on his feet and shooting another dose of web fluid onto her knees, tying her legs together. THWIP.

"Why you—" THWIP.

He shot another web over her mouth, causing her to roar, albeit muffled.

Grinning underneath his mask, Miles aimed his left web shooter for her exposed hand.

TH—

The sputtering noise caught Miles by surprise, and he looked down at his web shooter as he attempted a second time. It didn't even make a noise, just compressed air wheezing through. "Uh-oh," he muttered, looking to his right hand as it did the same.

He was out, and he had shown off with the web-shooters before covering Electro's other available hand.

As Miles looked back, he could see Electro using her free hand to rip off the web from her mouth. A dangerous look grew on her face as she took the same freehand and pointed right for Miles' chest.

"Hey, kid, ever been around a bug zapper?" she asked cockily just before lighting Miles up.

If the first blast of electricity had been painful, Miles was sent into another world by the second blast. He was thrown back, hitting into the bricks of the opposing building. His entire body seized up and sent him crumpling to the ground. He folded over his stomach and let out a pained groan.

His entire body was painful and throbbing as he lifted his head up just enough and watched Electro walking away with ease.

"Oh, well," she called in a sing-song voice, "wonder if the real Spider-Man would've given me a workout."

It took some time, and the assistance of two of the officers he had saved earlier, but Miles got back up.

As much as the shock from Electro had stung, the embarrassment and the words stung even more.

Not to mention the embarrassment of having to use his invisibility to walk back to the school without his web-shooters to rely on.

He had a bad feeling, after a month of being Spider-Man, things were not about to get easier for him.