Note: Little behind-the-scenes bit I realized I forgot to mention in the Chapter 4 endnote; Kingpin managing to messily eat a fancy, full steak dinner with a knife and fork while technically in custody IS a reference to Law-Abiding Citizen. Whether he knows better than to try and stab Spider-Man with the leftover bone, we'll see… Also, we're again getting into a bit of the non-linear territory here. If it seems… weird or confusing or repeating, I just ask that you all bear with me.
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 5
Jefferson was, honestly, grateful to the whole weird gang of… Spiders? Was that the right term? Whatever the proper plural of a multi-gendered, multi-species group of Spider-Men like Miles' friends was, the ones who'd Jeff interfered with so Miles could get back had taken it well. They'd stayed with him, even if they were all clearly tired and had other places to be, once they'd wheedled the events of the day out of him.
"Hey," he turned on the bench they had all taken. "I just wanted to thank you all for... being here with me, and… and for helping Miles when this whole Spider-thing started."
"Ey, no skin off, Cap." That paper-machè-punk-Spider offered, his prior vitriol at Jefferson's apparent temerity to exist as a police officer vanished in the face of the circumstances that had reunited them.
"Miles helped us just as much as we did him. Probably more. This is the least we could do for him." The anime schoolgirl Spider offered. The giant Spider-mech of hers that had folded itself up against the ceiling in an effort to conserve space in the waiting area nodded in assent. Jeff noticed that Gwen remained dead silent, simply curled up in on herself.
"Hey, guys!" Another voiced called out, and everyone turned to see that older, kinda-hobo-who'd-put-himself-back-together version of Peter Parker stumble in. How he'd managed to get his mask off and bathrobe back on mystified Jeff, because for one, his good arm was still in a combination of sling and cast. For two, his left hung limply, utterly dislocated. "Oh, yeah, don't worry, I was just stopping in to get the other arm checked," He rambled as he neared the group. "MJ would be SO angry if I didn't get it looked at before I came home. Also, boy, do you NOT want to mess with Napoleonic supervillains. Or, was he Green Goblin AND Napoleon at the same time? Not sure, some of these alternate universes make my brain…"
He finally noticed Jeff was in the middle of the rough bench huddle of Spiders. " Jeff, what are you doing here?" All good humor vanished; he was aware enough to know that Jefferson Davis would ONLY be in the headquarters of the Spider Society if something very bad had happened.
"What is it with you Spiders and your insistence on first names?" Jeff grumbled as he leaned forward and took another gulp of coffee. He was on his fourth cup, and he knew he ought to not have had any, ought to have just let himself relax and sleep. The Spiders would have woken him if any news came. But sleep would just let his mind dream up worse and worse possibilities. So coffee it was. And another retelling of the day's terrible events, as the older Peter's face fell further and further as he heard more and more.
"FU-fudge, fudge!" He yelled once Jefferson finished.
"'I'm sorry, did you just unironically say 'Fudge' in of 'Fu-'" The Indian Spider-Man was silenced as Peter's foot smacked onto his mouth.
"I will not swear around Mayday, and not swearing when she isn't around makes it easier. Sort of. But, crud, one of you, help me cram this arm back in. I need to warn Miles. And you too, Jeff."
"What do you mean you need to warn-" Jeff was cut off as Paper-Spider-Punk grabbed Old-Peter's arm and pushed and twisted without even a word of warning, eliciting a loud scream.
"FUUUUUUUUU-dge! I just need- AGH, how is it so much better and worse at the same time?!" Older-Peter shook his left arm furiously. "I just need to tell you both, if a big evil-looking devil dude comes to either of you, and offers an magic deal to save Rio's life, DO. NOT. TAKE. THE DEAL. I didn't take the deal, and part of me regretted it for a while, but then I met a version of me who DID take it. Not taking that deal? BEST decision of my life, if how his life turned out afterwards is any indication."
"I'm sorry, when you say 'deal with the devil,' do you actually mean-" Gwen finally tried to cut in.
"DREW!" Old-Peter screamed as he spotted her. "Drew, is Big Brother still up and running?" The woman sighed and approached.
"I wish you wouldn't call it that, Peter." She grumbled.
"But it's the perfect name!" Older-Peter half-pressed, half-whined, and Spider-Punk called from the far end of the bench,
"Too bloody right!" And held his gaze firm at Drew's glare.
"Yes, the monitoring system is still up, but why would you possibly-"
"I need to know if Miles is considering making any deals with demons, and I need to warn him not to besides, but I don't want to interrupt him if he's in a big fight."
Drew gave him a look that suggested she thought he ought to spend the night and get his head examined, but Older-Peter looked about as serious about this as Jefferson had seen him look about anything. And while they hadn't known each other long, Jefferson got the sense he didn't get so serious about much. And Jessica Drew obviously thought the same, because she sighed and motioned for him to follow.
"Y'know, if it does work, I'm gonna have a bevel a work to do." Spider-Punk said, as he slipped effortlessly from the far back of the group to the dead center. "Half the reason I put our watches together was so Big Bro couldn't keep eyes on us anymore."
"And half the reason the system monitors you all is so we can send help if you need it." Jessica Drew cut back.
"I thought that's why we have an panic button, Jess?" She could only sigh and nonverbally concede the point.
"So, when you all say 'Big Brother,' are you talking…" Jefferson trailed off as they walked into a massive room that was nothing but screens. More screens than he could count. Some showed Spiders waltzing or relaxing around the building they were all in. Others showed them swinging and battling through cities, many of which looked like different versions of New York City, though many seemed to be something else entirely. Jefferson was pretty sure he saw a Space Spider-Man somehow swinging around in an asteroid field. And many more showed what were obviously their civilian identities attempting to go about their lives. All the shots caught many non-Spiders in the feeds.
"Ok, no, yeah, I gotta agree with you two." Jefferson pointed to Punk and Older-Peter. "Big Brother is the perfect name for this. This, THIS," Jefferson waved a hand in front of him at the uncountable number of screens monitoring the many Spiders of the Spiderverse. "Is the sorta thing I had a problem with, why Miles probably thought he couldn't tell me he was Spider-Man until he literally had no choice but to. Cause you're the kinda people who think building a massive inter-dimensional civil liberties violator is just perfectly fine."
"We're going to be voting in a few weeks on whether we even keep the system up and running, Captain." Jessica Drew said, as she tapped away at holographic keys. "Once we can actually spare the time, resources, and people to either take it apart or keep it running. It was Miguel's idea, and like most of his ideas, I'm reconsidering it. But for now, we might be able to see what's happening with Miles. And you don't have to stay."
Jefferson paused at that. And, against many of his principles both personal and professional, stayed put.
"Lyla, can you pull up a feed on Miles Morales of Earth-1610?" Drew called out. That same little golden image of a Spanish lady with a bob cut, heart glasses, and fur coat popped into existence, and everything about her face and body language said 'Yes. But you won't like it.' She waved a hand and one of the screens moved forward.
"Your fucking TEACHERS!" Jefferson recognized the Kingpin's voice, even if it was more nasally than he remembered it, cut across the background noise of the room. "YOUR CLASSMATES! You got some bodega or pizza joint you like, nice guy behind the counter gives you Spider-freebies? DEAD! That white-and-pink Spider-chick you probably thought you were so cute with back in the collid-
The screen coalesced into a hazy image, Kingpin lying in rubble and a broken, fancy table amid a very fancy room, his rant stopped short and a look of utter terror on his face. Miles, his top half stripped bare, had a hand pressed up against the crime lord's left cheek, and an expression of cold, detached fury that Jefferson could not have ever imagined seeing on his boy.
"You really don't know how to quit while you're ahead, do you, Willy?" Miles said, with a deadly calmness his face and body did not bear out. Then he squeezed his hand ever so slightly and pulled. And Wilson Fisk screamed as Jefferson had never believed he could, as the flesh of his cheek tore and peeled away with Miles' hand.
"Ooooohh, I'm quaking in my boots, Morales." Kingpin mocked as he began to limber up a bit. Miles simply glared at him, utterly nonplussed. Kingpin cracked his neck, and approached nonchalantly. Suddenly, he swung, a furious, powerful punch. He roared as he threw it, knew he'd-
He hit nothing but air. Spider-Man, Morales, had leapt up and over expertly, and spun on his hands atop the Kingpin's outstretched arm. Spun so he could drive his still-costumed feet right into the giant man's face. Kingpin sprawled backwards against the table, scattering what remained of his dinner across it. He growled and scrabbled at the plate, grabbed the large, serrated steak knife off it and started to swing. Most would expect a wild, uncontrolled assault.
Not from him. He was careful, calculated. Everyone, everyone, assumed he only ever relied on his frankly freakish size and strength to fight, but he had trained. He knew how to fight properly, had been trained by some of the best fighters and killers his vast criminal fortune could buy.
And he couldn't even touch Morales. He didn't get it. The kid had gotten lucky with his superpowers a year and a bit ago, but Kingpin had been preparing, physically and mentally, for the rematch he dreamt of. That he'd orchestrated with the perfect revenge scheme.
And it didn't seem to mean a thing. Morales hadn't even had to break out the zapping trick; he just dodged and punched and kicked, with all the skill and power that he had gained in over a year of superheroing. And even then, he was clearly holding back. The sheer fury on his face, that switched between a burning red-hot and a cold, calculated malice; if he had tried as hard as everyone in the room was beginning to realize he could, this fight would've been over from his very first kick.
He could've cracked Kingpin's head right open, like an oversized egg. So why didn't-
SLAP!
Everything came to a halt. Kingpin's apparently futile assault, Morales' dodges and expert counter-attacks. The bustling of agents as the ones who'd tried to stop Spider-Man's entry were wheeled away, and a heavy back-up team approached cautiously, and then dared go no further at what they saw.
Morales had just smacked him across the face. Like he was an undisciplined child, or some school-yard bully.
"You fuckin-"
SLAP!
God, but the kid was fast. Even the old Spider-Man hadn't moved that fast, not even in their most desperate fights. Though, he'd also probably never been so personally pissed off at him.
SLAP!
SMACK!
SLAP!
His head had started to ring and spin. The sheer force Morales was putting behind these hits, Fisk figured he was lucky that he hadn't-
SLAP!
SLAP!
SMACK!
SLAP!
He was numbly aware of the intense pain in his mouth, and his eyes tracked the flying tooth in disbelief.
As damn good as it felt, Miles couldn't help it. It also honestly kinda scared him. Because he'd never, in his life, thought he could be so angry. So ready and eager to hurt another person. It reminded him, all too closely, of how Miles G. had behaved back on Earth-42. The cold but hateful brutality that he had suffered under, and so projected back and inflicted on everyone but Aaron and Rio. Especially so in how willing he'd been to hurt his enemies when he had the time to.
It had scared Miles to see himself, even if it wasn't him precisely, prove capable of those things. And he'd tried not to let it show then, but he figured his Earth-42 self had picked up on it anyway. He at least hadn't seemed too insulted.
Except here Miles was, a damn near mirror for Miles G. as he effortlessly fought and beat Wilson Fisk utterly senseless. Beat him so easily and so badly that a whole federal SWAT team was so afraid, they wouldn't step in to try to stop him. And that scared Miles. Almost as bad as Earth-42 and Miles G. first had, had continued to in their own ways ever since. In their hints as to what the world could become if Miles failed too badly. What he could maybe become if he was pushed too far. And so Miles' body, infused with Spider-powers, did what it always did when he got truly scared and uncertain.
On his next slap, one that drove the Kingpin down against the table and smushed his dinner against the back of his also-very-expensive suit coat, he could feel it. That tightness. His hand had stuck on reflex. But it also still carried forward, the force of his super-strong slap still pulled.
Fisk roared in agony and fury as the flesh of his cheek tore and peeled away, stuck firmly to Miles' bare palm and finger-tips.
"YOU GOD DAMN LITTLE SHIT!" Fisk screamed as blood spurt and flowed, doused his shirt collar and stained the table. "YOU THINK I'VE FUCKED WITH YOU ALREADY?! THINK I'VE CROSSED THE LINE?! OH, I AIN'T EVEN STARTED WITH YOU, YOU UPJUMPED SPIDER-PRICK!" He scrabbled desperately on the table, getting unsteadily to his feet. Anyone else would've been cowed by his rage.
Miles numbly realized he had long since passed the point of caring.
"I don't CARE where you stashed your parents, I'm gonna FIND them, and make sure you need to BURY them, you little shit! And once they're dead and gone? Oh, EVERYONE is on the chopping block after what you've done today! Puerto Rican, right, Morales? Big, extended, family? NOT ONCE I'M DONE WITH THE-"
Miles had spent two months after sending the original Spider-Gang back to their home dimensions studying human anatomy and testing where his super-strength started at a baseline. He needed to know what not to hit, and how hard was too hard to hit where it was safe to attack, so no one he fought who wasn't also super-powered would be hurt too badly.
Hence, he knew just how hard to punch Wilson Fisk right in the liver. Enough so it would shut him up, drive him to his knees. Maybe took a year or two off his life-expectancy from how high his blood pressure jumped in response, but also stopped well short of actually rupturing the organ and risking the man dying.
Fisk dropped to the surface of the table, roaring in pain, tears erupting down his face in sheer biological reflex, running over the bleeding lower layers of skin of his right cheek.
"FUCK!" Fisk roared and tried, for all the world, to intimidatingly punch the table and rise again. Instead he weakly slapped it, and barely got shakily to his feet. "And… and once you're out of tios and tias, primos and primas, then come your friends, Morales…" He gasped out. "You been in two schools a while, yeah? I'm gonna make some guys very rich and very bus-"
Miles interrupted him with a punch. Not full-Spider-strength. His number crunching back at the start of Spider-Manning said he could probably punch off a few supervillains' limbs if he hit them at full strength, held nothing back. A full-strength blow would certainly kill Fisk. Instead, Miles punched hard enough that he could feel the nasal bridge break and crumble beneath his knuckles, and plow Fisk back down into the table, which itself audibly cracked beneath the force.
"You should quit while you're ahead, Fisk." Miles declared. He reached down and seized him, lifting him clear over his head before leaping into the air, to the clear astonishment of Fisk and probably everyone else. Miles himself was a little surprised, but tried not to let it show. Instead, pulled his arms back just a bit, and threw Fisk down.
The massive crime lord utterly obliterated the table, and the floor beneath it. Miles let himself drop into the newly-formed pile of rubble, just short of Fisk himself. Who slowly propped himself up as he growled in agony and anger.
"Your fucking TEACHERS! YOUR CLASSMATES! You got some bodega or pizza joint you like, nice guy behind the counter gives you Spider-freebies? DEAD!" Fisk nasally roared in what was honestly a now-pitiful defiance, a desperate attempt to maintain the image of himself that Miles was systemically destroying. "That white-and-pink Spider-chick you probably thought you were so cute with back in the collider-"
It wasn't red Miles saw at that particular insinuation that he didn't let finish. It was a blinding, white-hot fury, so hot it seemed to be cold. Miles dimly recalled when he'd gotten into the dry ice that cooled little ice cream cups at a big family party when he was little. It was so cold, his cousins told him, it would burn and scar like fire. He'd of course been dumb enough to pick some up bare-handed to see if they'd been right. So impossibly cold, it had indeed felt like it had burned. His hand had blistered and numbed almost instantly under the burning chill, and he'd run sobbing to his parents.
That was what this hatred was. So cold, it burned. So hot, it chilled and numbed. He could feel his self, his soul, shudder and blister and loose all sensation, just like his hand had all those years ago. Maybe this was what Earth-42 and losing Dad had done to Miles G. Maybe something just like this was how he'd started to become what had so scared Miles when he'd seen it in its final form, after a year and change of gestation and transformation and brutalization.
Miles stalked up to Fisk and gently cupped his left hand against the crime lord's cheek, and for a terrifying second that made his hand stick all the harder, even harder than he could've made it on command, he understood his alternate, Prowler self.
"You really don't know how to quit while you're ahead, do you, Willy?"
And Miles pulled. Slowly. He dragged his hand across and away, and let Fisk scream.
So that "touches dry ice because there's no way it's ACTUALLY so cold it's the cold equivalent of a 1.5 degree burn" anecdote Miles makes is sadly a case of Write-What-You-Know. Stupid-8-year-old me, at a big family reunion that doesn't happen on near such a grand scale anymore, heard what it would feel like if I handled the dry ice that the little ice cream cups were kept in without the thick, insulated gloves that were specifically for getting the ice cream cups out safely.
"There's no way that's ACTUALLY how it works!" Stupid-8-year-old me thought.
The amount to which you Find Out is directly proportional to the amount you Fuck Around. And you don't get much higher on Fuck Around as a middle-low class White kid in the Midwest than willfully picking up a big chunk of dry ice with both hands and holding it for a couple seconds until it REALLY starts to hurt. I'm probably lucky my hands still work properly, and I can type stories like this out. But enough about my childhood medical emergencies (boy, could I go ON about those)! However cool and non-standard a metaphor for murderous anger they can turn out to make!
Writing from Jefferson's perspective was honestly fun. Him only calling Gwen by name, and referring to the rest of the Spider-Band in his head by base physical/stylistic descriptors, was an unplanned touch at first, but once I started it, I couldn't stop. He's not so impersonal as to not use their names; he's just DEEP in the midst of intense trauma compartmentalization, and Gwen's the only one of the band he knows with any degree of real personhood. So the whole thing becomes this desperate series of descriptors in his head, because he's so caught up in worrying in the middle of his mind, he can't give anyone the full consideration of proper identification in his head.
And yes, Peter B. DID maybe get an offer from Mephisto to save Aunt May's life. And Peter B. did the SMART THING and REFUSED. Circumstances possibly weren't an exact 1-for-1 as Civil War, but Mephisto DID need to try and keep May from being born. Here's one dimension where he'll get his ass kicked by her in years to come. And I also figured for as much as Spiderverse Mayday and Peter B's very happy marriage to MJ are maybe great big middle fingers to Quesada and the last decade of Spider-Man editorial, I oughta add my own two cents.
So Peter B. makes the point that, BOI, a counterpart of his TOOK THAT DEAL, and LOOK AT HIS FUCKING LIFE SINCE THEN! LOOK AT THIS POOR, BEATEN-DOWN SPIDER-MAN! MOST SPIDERS ARE THANKFUL THEY DON'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH HALF THE BULLSHIT THAT HE'S HAD TO! THIS POOR PARKER, FROM EARTH-616…
And then there's the beatdown. Writing it mostly from Kingpin's perspective was again a late idea, but one that really paid off. Kingpin probably DOES just figure it was sheer luck with the venom strike that let Miles win their first fight. And he may even be right. But Miles has had almost a year and a half to hone his skills, and is good enough to fight off and escape an literal ARMY of Spider-People. He can handle Kingpin no problem when he takes it 200% Deadly Serious.
Which also made for a much more natural segue into Miles' other big emotional conflict in Retrograde, beyond his feelings on much of the Spider-Band and their betrayals of him. It's how Prowler!Miles (aka Miles G.) acted on Earth-42 as a vague but VIOLENT anti-hero (or anti-villain, maybe? The test footage kinda has me hoping for a fucked-up Robin Hood sort of identity for Earth-42 Miles as the Prowler. Rob from the supervillainous rich, give some to the needy poor, keep some for ourselves, and FUCK UP ANYONE who gets in our way regardless of who they are, that kinda deal).
And how Miles is now both worried that he's becoming like Miles G, and is scared that he maybe isn't as bothered by that as he thinks he ought to be. And just what all THAT means for him going forward. Though, he didn't hit soul-blistering-dry-ice-rage until Kingpin threatened Gwen…
Suggests the existence of Napoleonic Green Goblin. Or, even worse, NAPOLEON OSBORN.
Refuses to elaborate.
Leaves.