Note: Honestly, not a ton to say in terms of preamble, except to respond to a review: 7hanatos; yes, he DOESN'T just forgive them and that's half of why I let what was supposed to be a paragraph-or-two summary of a big fight and Identity Reveal turn into two whole chapters and several thousand words. So I could SHOW THAT moment, that Talk, in its entirety. SO MANY FICS out there, Miles is barely even angry, or forgives the whole crew after a single, not-even-that-difficult conversation. It's all settled before they even leave Earth-42.
In others, I don't want to say Miles gets too angry, but rather that the anger is expressed in ways that seem too out-of-character for him. Too cruel or narratively-aware in a way that doesn't seem like Miles.
Here, the crew backs him up in multiple ways, even after he's initially told them not to because he's still so ANGRY with them; Gwen with a very meaningful kiss and holding off Miguel, Peni saving him and other people, and Peter B. being the one to break the Canon Event and save Jefferson himself, literally handing Miles his baby daughter in case he fails. It was chance to lay the groundwork, for why Miles WOULD want to forgive them right away, but still knows he can't, still knows he needs TIME to figure out how he feels about/after EVERYTHING these people have done to and for him and why.
Of course, Spider-Drama has a way of distracting you from important things…
As to Ironchef13, we'll see. Chapters 1 and 2 are already surefire signs that this story is FAR more than I planned it to be, but I DEFINITELY didn't plan more than 1 big Talk for Retrograde as a whole, and Miles has already given it to close out Chapter 2. I DO know roughly how it all went down for Peni, and if I can make it to the next big Spiderverse project I've got in mind, BOY, will her very likely trauma regarding symbiotes be important! But I'll say no more; I've spoiled enough already.
As always, I do not own Spider-Man nor any affiliated properties. Please, review, comment, or criticize (you all give me strength and fuel!). Most of all, enjoy!
Retrograde
Chapter 3
It had been a strange, hectic, but nonetheless wonderful two weeks after the rest of the Band went back to their respective home universes. Realities, whatever.
To be sure, there WAS intense fallout. Miles' identity had been completely blown between The Spot and Miguel O'Hara screaming both his names all over town for much of the battle, and him finishing it with less than 1 quarter of his mask still on his face from all the hits he took certainly didn't help in keeping his identity secret. The sheer volume of incessant reporters outside his hospital room had left his mother screaming at them, demanding they just let her boy rest, and Miles shuddered when he recalled what she threatened to do if they didn't.
The press had dogged them back to their apartment in Brooklyn too, though, and not just because it turned out to be the neighborhood of the new Spider-Man. Jefferson Morales was now under investigation by PDNY Internal Affairs, trying to see if he'd ALWAYS known his son was a super-powered vigilante, and whether he'd concealed that fact. True, the Spider-Men of 1610 had always managed to hold an at least live-and-let-live situation with the PDNY, but as a matter of sheer civic policy, the questions had to be asked, and action could become necessary based on Jefferson's answers.
Somehow, though, none of it mattered much to the day-to-day. Because Jefferson would brag to fellow officers on a scene that,
"HAH! THAT'S MY BOY!" Whenever Miles landed a good hit on a supervillain or managed a particularly daring rescue of a civilian, and always saw him off from crime scenes with a warm, loving hug that all the other cops pointedly refused to see, but couldn't help but smile about. Likewise, Rio was there on some nights after particularly rough days of his, her own first-aid kit ready. And for as much as Miles and Ganke had learned about patching him up, Rio Morales did a far better job. Miles hadn't realized the full gulf of difference actual professional care would make for him until he stopped almost popping stitches back open every other class, because those stitches were in properly in the first place.
And as much as the both of them worried for his safety, the FIRST point he'd made in the Big Talk About Spider-Man was that he had a responsibility to help people with the powers he'd been given, and he wasn't going to stop. They both looked so sad it had to be him, but so proud that he thought of it the way he did. Miles had never imagined his parents knowing would have gone so… wonderfully.
School was… ok, school was honestly a little suffocating, everyone always asked everything about every little thing that had ever happened to him as Spider-Man in the last year and four months, and the constant demands of updates as new and old crimes and bad guys were stopped had gotten grating real fast.
And, OF COURSE, Spider-People just had to add a layer of weirdness to it all. Hobie had almost literally exploded into the Morales' living room the week prior, as he brushed rubble dust and glass off his shoulders and hastily crammed what looked like a lit Molotov cocktail into his vest pocket, somehow, much to Rio and Jefferson's horror. All before he threw Miles a very cobbled-together, punked out bootleg dimensional watch.
"How else you gonna let 'em know what you picked on when you pick it, eh my guy?" Hobie had clapped a hand HARD against his shoulder at that. He then reached and slid out a small antenna from the side. "This should also let you contact the Spider-Pigs. If you, for some reason, gotta. Though word around is they're starting to break down inna light of turning out to be a cropa idiot cosmic-destiny fascists. Good word, you ask me." Both he and Miles then at least had the decency to look slightly awkwardly, and Miles also apologetically, towards Jefferson before they continued.
"And hey," Hobie offered once he was satisfied Miles grasped the ins and outs of the watch. "this s'just my tuppence on the matter, but care to hear it?" Miles nodded. "They wanted to do right by you. Sure, they had the complete bloody wrong idea of hows and whys, but they weren't trying to knob you over from the start like O'Hara was. They just needed to see you prove it all wrong to know how wrong they'd been. And you ain't seen someone change sides quicker than they did once they knew…"
Another hard clap against Miles' shoulder. "I ain't saying which way you gotta decide; that's up to you. Just my tuppence, you oughta decide knowing all you can bout it, yeah? And I KNOW you'll do right by you, guv." Hobie turned away from him and cracked another portal open. "Mrs. Morales," He inclined a respectful nod and wave to Rio as he slipped his mask back on and pulled the Molotov out again. "Cap." No one could tell if the vitriol in his voice, then directed at Jefferon, was performative or legitimate, and it was probably a good thing he swiftly left through the portal. Though his portals apparently had a lot less inter-dimensional space between the entry and exit than the Society's did. They all could hear him scream,
"SOD OFF AND DIE, PEELERS!" Followed by a wet, shattering explosion as it closed.
"…I don't like him." Jefferson eventually grumbled.
"Dad, I'm sorry, but just about all the cops in his world are actual, Capital F Fascists working for authoritarian supervillains," Miles jumped to his friend's defense.
And, there was, of course, that undercurrent of thinking. Considering. With that same song as a near-constant background as he tried to parse through everything that had happened, and how he felt about it all. How he felt about them.
Peter B. Parker.
Peni Parker.
Gwen…
Day after day, he'd thrown himself down on his bed, cranked the song, and thought.
So show me why you're strong.
Ignore everybody else.
We're alone now.
We're alone now.
We're alone now.
We're alone now.
"I'm just saying, an armadillo?" Rio snorted again as she helped Miles set the table. "Why, if he can make that big battle suit, did he make and name it after an armadillo? They're so cute! Not like a… a rhino, or a scorpion. They just, ooooh, they fold up into balls when they're scared and they lick everything! Ay, que lindo!" Miles shook his head.
"Yeah, see, I'd thought that too. Then he almost broke my hand off between two of his armor plates going into ball-mode, and knocked me through a bank vault first time we fought. Got a lot less cute and laughable after that" Miles then proceeded to shrink into himself under his mother's concerned and angry gaze. "…I got Spider-healing? And, and look, I ALSO clearly have both hands, so… "
Miles was frankly saved the further awkward conversation about the dangers of his superheroics as Jefferson Morales burst through the door, several large boxes and small take-out containers stacked atop each other, a bag of 2 liters in one hand.
"PIZZA TIME!" He declared at the top of his lungs, before Rio's annoyed glare and Miles' relieved and hungry glance told him he'd interrupted something he should maybe not have. "Uh, I mean, it's pretty fresh from Lou's, we can-"
"Nah, come on, we all gotta be starving." Miles was quick to want to move on from his embarrassing first encounter with a cybernetic armadillo, and Rio just sighed and accepted it.
Since Jefferson's promotion and Miles' new ability to be open about needing to run out for Spider-Man Stuff, time together as a family had dropped further. But that just meant the Morales' tried even harder to appreciate the time they COULD make together as a family. Case in point, pizza and a movie marathon.
"So, is it just gonna… keep watching these dudes waiting for this train, or…?" Miles asked as he took another bite of pizza.
"Miles, you are witnessing the start of an absolute CLASSIC of cinema, and I can only hope you will appreciate it by the time it's over." Jefferson responded, eyes glued to the screen. Miles shifted slightly uncomfortably in his seat, his Spider-Sense on a low-level, but high-pitched-in-his-head, squeal. Maybe he was developing a gluten allergy, and his Spider-Sense was trying to warn him not to eat the pizza.
Too bad, Spidey-Sense. Pizza's worth the-
His thoughts paused as the train finally pulled in, and Rio snuggled a bit closer into Jefferson. Neither of them could see it. The laser dot that was planted squarely on the back of Jefferson's head. They COULD see the growing look of horror on their son's face, however.
"DAD! MOM!"
Miles LEAPT with all his strength, crashing against them and the other couch and sending the whole family skidding and sliding as the window opposite them exploded, and gunfire began to pepper the room as Miles flipped the couch over to try and provide his parents with a modicum of cover.
It sadly wasn't even the first time in the last two weeks something had happened to them. Jefferson being a cop and Rio being a trauma nurse meant they were always in modicums of danger, but a minor supervillain or two and a small street gang had thought that MAYBE, they could go after Spider-Man's parents on the job. He'd quickly disabused them of those notions. But THIS, the Morales' targeted in their own home?
"Enough." Miles growled to himself, and dove out form behind the couch, and sprinted for the shattered window. He kept his web shooters on as a matter-of-course around the house since the reveal; both his parents asking him to climb to or web things off high shelves or from far away. The shots were coming from across the way, one of the empty apartments in the building across from theirs. As he ran on sheer, furious instinct, Miles tore himself through the air on his webs. Bullets still whizzed past him, and occasionally back through the walls and windows of the Morales' apartment.
"ENOUGH!"
He literally hit the window across the way, venom power flowing on furious instinct, lightning blasting between the shards of glass and crumbling bits of old brick. He could see the shooter; bald, white, in a beige trench coat, holding a large rifle, and looking scared shitless at the pissed superpowered teenager in front of him.
Miles punched clean through the rifle, however bad it hurt. He didn't care. He put the bastard through the wall, and through the one behind it. Punched the man almost through two whole apartments, then finally blasted him down with webs, made sure he wouldn't be going anywhere until they dissolved. Miles then leapt back down to the street and sprinted back up his building's wall, back to his parents.
"Mom, Dad, I got…"
Miles didn't finish. The sight was too much. The apartment full of bullet holes, most of their furniture and appliances shot to hell. The TV had somehow been spared, one man staring down the three who'd been waiting for him. Rio was slumped up against the dividing counter wall between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment, Jefferson desperately pressing at her midsection with gauze from her first-aid kit as blood and bile seeped through her casual clothes and down into the floorboards from the bullet wound in her stomach. Both the entry wound and the exit…
"No," Miles sprinted forward, scrabbled desperately at the first aid kit before he realized he was just making it harder for Jefferson to find what he needed. "No, no, no, Mamí…" His mind raced. It didn't matter what hospital they took her to; everywhere was too far away…
Distance… Einstein said time is relative, and time is part of space, and…
Miles tapped desperately at his watch, opening a video feed to Margo.
"Miles, what's- Oh my FUCK, what-"
"Margo, we ain't got time! Listen, the Society, they got doctors? Good ones, cause it's all superheroes and Spiders there, yeah?" Miles demanded, hoping against hope he was right.
Margo winced as someone yelled from beyond her call to 'Turn that shit down!'
"Yeah, yeah, it's a multiversal mixture of medical science, beyond the cutting edge and with a rapid response by design, but Miles-"
"S'all I need to hear, thanks, Margo!" Miles cut the call. Rude? Yes, but every second counted. He'd apologize later, he thought, as he drew out the antenna. "Jess, you there? Drew?" The image of the afro'd, sunglass-bespectacled Spider-Woman popped up.
"Morales? What are you-Oh good God-" Her eyes widened as the video call let her see what, who, was behind him.
"Yeah, tell your medbay or whatever you call it to prep for a GSW to the gut with a bad exit wound, high-caliber rifle." He could see her balk.
"Morales, you can't just-" He punched in the coordinates and opened the portal.
"Fucking watch me, Drew. We're in this because of YOU and YOURS. So you're gonna make this right, starting with the fastest, best medical care in the Spiderverse you can possibly give my mom."
So, tonally, bit of a shift from the first two, and that was very much by design. I wanted to buck tradition and expectations a bit, and show instead an actually healthy Spider-Man relationship with the civilians in his life once the secret is out. With the world at large, really, that mostly likes Spider-Man as ATSV seemed to show for Miles. Frankly, I don't think how I wrote the Morales family as whole dealing with the Spider-Reality of Miles being Spider-Man is in any way out-of-character. Things just go pretty right for them even as extra pressures apply. Because that original pressure of "What secret is Miles keeping?" is FINALLY gone, and they can all just be honest and supportive of each other like they clearly always were before he had to start hiding his Spider-Manning, however awkward Miles might've found that support in the past.
I ALSO made everything up to the shooting happy, because I figured it would make that hit that much harder. Miles' Dad being so proud of the good work his son is ALWAYS doing, Rio being proud and caring for him in her own way. How much BETTER they all are because of knowing this and being able to act on it.
But it's not all good, and god, how TRAUMATIC it must be for Miles for either of his parents to be in danger again after ATSV and BTSV, and chapters 1&2. There's a reason he doesn't joke and punches the shooter through two apartments. There's also the reason he's so short with Margo and Jessica, and Miles' short temper in regards to the Spider Society, and assassins and baddies taking shots both figuratively and literally at his parents; we've only just seen it begin. As the description promised; this isn't another leap of faith. It's a plunge into anger and fear and violence that can only come from those you love most being under such threat, and you having such power to put a stop to it. I can only hope what Miles will be doing in chapters to come doesn't seem too unreasonable given all he's been through and all he's carrying around with him. And there's layers to that latter he hasn't even talked about with ANYONE yet.
Writing Hobie was fun; I plan to actually put more research into British slang whenever he pops up again, but I figured him breaking out one of the original British Police Pejoratives and tuppence seemed good enough for a talk that's mostly business in regards to the bootleg Spider-Band brand Watch. Also, yes, that was Once Upon A Time in the West that Jefferson was hoping Miles would learn to appreciate. I also HAVE to believe that Spidey-Sense would warn its Spider if they were about to eat something they were unkowingly allergic to, and that's a bit of humorous worldbuilding I really hope to be able to expand on in SOME future work.