Thank you snowcloud8 for another review, and wow I can't believe it's been a month! Ooo I like the theory! And for Spanish, I honestly found a lot of help on Tumblr from fluent and native speakers when it comes to Spanish. Thanks for the support!

Reader's Perspective - Two Weeks Later

I watched Miguel draw me a bath with his bathtub (man had a bathtub and a separate shower in his bathroom, I'm still constantly surprised by how well off he is).

While I was happy to be finally out of the medical wing, my mood had shifted to a perpetual state of depression. I had nightmares nearly every time I fell asleep, usually terrible flashbacks of the attack, but also scary dreams related to my pregnancy. My wariness these past couple of weeks only grew with how distant and distracted Miguel had been acting. He kept reassuring me that he wasn't going to send me home again, but he seemed so upset that I had gotten hurt and "all his worst fears were coming true," as he often says, so now I wasn't so sure.

Jess was now back home until further notice. She had given birth to her baby, but I didn't know any details, or if she or the baby were okay. I knew she was alive, but that was it. The entire team was really shaken up by what happened, honestly everyone seemed more distant and quiet now.

I couldn't handle the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, feeding into too much emotion wasn't good for my own mental health.

Miguel had been busier, pushing off plans he had because more and more disruptions in the Spiderverse had occurred. Lyla seemed upset about something that happened, it wasn't often I saw her convey an emotion to "worry" but the conversations they would have often revolved around an incident that happened when I was still recovering. They wouldn't tell me what, but my guess is that it was bad. I didn't push it further, honestly not having the energy to dive into any more distressing stuff.

"Okay, that's enough water. I hope I didn't make it too hot." Miguel turned off the faucet for the bathtub.

He helped me get in, my body was doing much better than it had but was still very slow. The water felt amazing; he had added Epsom salt to help with the soreness. He got a towel ready for me, leaving it close to the tub and told me to call for him if I needed anything. I was only half-listening, my own thoughts drowning out most of the world around me. There was one topic that had been heavy on my mind, not just since the attack, but since we had entered this weird… relationship? I wasn't sure what it was, and that was the problem.

"Miguel, what are we?" I asked him, my eyes studying the ripples in the water.

"What do you mean?"

"Like us, what would you say we are?" I responded, stressing the sentence a bit more.

He was silent, closing his eyes to think. The hesitation irritated me, it should be so easy to just say it.

"What do you consider me? A lover, girlfriend, baby mama, friend with benefits? I need to know, I can't keep doing this runaround anymore."

"Where is this coming from?" He asked, a bit taken aback.

I just couldn't deal with this indecisiveness today. Maybe it was because I was sixteen weeks pregnant and my hormones were on a rampage.

"Why can't you just answer the question?" I challenged.

Silence.

Visibly hurt and annoyed, I turned over in the tub, my back facing him.

"Whatever, just go." I clipped.

"Please, mi vida, I'm sorry I upset you, it's just-" Miguel began.

"Don't you fucking say it's hard to understand what we are when I'm literally pregnant with your baby. You've said you loved me, but maybe that doesn't mean much to a man like you."

I know that was harsh, and part of me regretted it the moment it slipped from my mouth, but I felt justified. I heard him leave the bathroom, the door closing behind him. I wanted to burst into tears while I was alone, but I did my best to hold myself together.

I lingered in the water until it got cold, not wanting to get out. I eventually got too uncomfortable and had to. His tub was high, so I knew I would have trouble stepping out of it in my current state, but I didn't want to ask Miguel for help. I drained the tub, stood up, and tried to reach for the towel. I put one leg over the tub very slowly, trying to be careful not to slip. I managed to get out and wrapped the towel around me.

My change of clothes were outside the bathroom. I grumbled to myself, knowing I was going to need help getting dressed.

I peeked out of the bathroom, seeing Miguel sitting on his couch watching those telenovas he liked to watch. His expression was blank, his eyes rimmed with dark circles. I went over to the bed where my clothes were neatly folded (by Miguel), and attempted to dress myself. It hurt to stretch my body in certain ways and wasn't working at all.

"Let me help." He said, coming up from behind me.

I wanted to protest, but knew it was pointless. I wore some stretchy sweatpants, and an old graphic t-shirt I had brought from back home. It was tighter around my stomach. I was showing more now, my bump was small but since I was in my second trimester this was when it was expected.

Miguel placed his hand on my stomach. Little twitchy sea monkey was starting to kick now. I saw a ghost of a smile on his face, feeling all the movement in there.

"Are you hungry?" He asked, his tone low and almost cautious.

I only shrugged, still stung by his resistance to my question earlier.

"I prepped you dinner if you want it. I have to leave, if you need anything don't hesitate to call."

He left without waiting for me to respond. Perhaps I had upset him, he had left the TV on so I don't think he was actually planning to leave today. Oh well, he can go pout and think about what he should've said. I told him not to be an asshole, and here he was, being an asshole again. I sat on the couch and whipped out my notebook. I liked to copy down Spanish phrases from the telenovas, hoping to become fully fluent one day. As mad as I was at Miguel right now, I wanted to still surprise him with what I've picked up, hoping we could have an entire conversation in Spanish one day. I also wanted the future baby O'Hara to be bilingual, which I know wouldn't be an issue on Miguel's end.

One of the male telenova stars gripped the hands of the female telenova star, looking intently into her eyes.

"Eres la esencia de mi vida." She told him, inches from his face.

"Vas a ser la madre de mis hijos." He replied.

She blushed and he pulled her into a passionate kiss.

"Well that's bold as hell..," I mumbled, scribbling the phrases down in my notebook.

I turned the page of your notebook to scribble some more silly phrases in, noticing some writing I had done a couple weeks ago, before the attack. It was notes about Gabriel and how to find him. I furrowed my brow, studying my writing and what I was able to uncover. I had honestly forgotten that I was actively trying to track Miguel's brother down. It was hard doing it on my own, asking Lyla would make it so much easier, but I didn't want Miguel to get tipped off.

Another note also had the name 'Miles Morales' with a question mark. I was also trying to find out more information about this kid, too, and why he was causing so many issues for the Spiderverse.

Being attacked and put in the hospital has really slowed down my little detective snooping, but I didn't plan on giving up. I just had to find Gabriel's last known address or place of employment, and find out what Earth Miles was from - easy peasy right?

Yeah, right. Who was I kidding? My dimension travel watch even had a child lock on it, preventing me from using it to open portals. This was a safety precaution while Miguel and Lyla figure out what malfunctioned with the portal opening to that horrible dystopian world, but still… I felt restricted like a kid on one of those child leashes. The only new thing that had been installed was Spider Byte adding a text to speech function-

Margo!

An idea popped in my head. I couldn't ask Lyla for help, but Margo most likely would.

I left the apartment to race to find her, hoping this would work.

I found Margo in the control room where the Go Home Machine was. Entering the room did make a chill run down my spine, the memories of this room caused nothing but a deep, unpleasant feeling of resentment and fear. I clutched my notebook tightly, trying to steady my hands from trembling.

Margo was working by herself, virtually jumping from console to console, listening to some upbeat techno music, humming to herself. I couldn't sense any other Spider People here, to my immense relief. She didn't notice me right away, I had to get closer before her concentration was pulled. Her face lit up at the sight of me, and honestly that felt good. With how injured I was and how disheveled and messy I had looked like these past couple weeks, it was nice for someone not to look at me with any sense of pity or sadness.

"Sunshine!" She greeted, instantly flickering over to me. "I heard you were back, but I wasn't sure if it was true! I heard some other rumors, but I wasn't sure they were real either, I guess they are…" she added, glancing down at my stomach.

"Yeah, I'm back for good now." I replied, unconsciously rubbing my belly.

"I'm surprised that this happened, especially with what happened to you in this room all those months ago… he was so mean…" she gestured to my stomach, her brows drawn down in anger toward Miguel.

"What can I say, it just kind of happened?" I tried to shrug it off.

"I don't know what you see in him." Margo mumbled, scowling at the unpleasant memory.

"Damn, that must be hard to figure out." I laughed, lightheartedly, rubbing the back of my neck.

She rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the end of her lips.

"Listen, Margo, I need your help with something. I'm hoping you can look some things up for me without tipping off Lyla or Miguel."

She seemed to ponder my request for a minute, bringing up a virtual wall of code and skimming through it like she was reading a children's book. I had a very mild understanding of coding and tech, as much as people in my generation did when it comes to general knowledge, but the likes of this was a bit beyond me. This futuristic tech just went over my head.

"Depends what it is, there's a firewall that Miguel put up to keep confidential information only available to him and Lyla. Accessing it triggers a response and will alert Lyla, what are you looking for?" She explained.

"I need the last known addresses or places of employment for a Gabriel O'Hara from this universe. Also I need to know what universe a Spider Person named Miles Morales is from." I told her, reading the notes from my journal.

"Wait, Gabriel O'Hara? Isn't that Miguel's last name?" Margo questioned, arching an incredulous brow at me.

"It is, which is why we don't want him to find out, right?" I replied tersely.

"And as for Miles Morales, you know there could be multiple versions of him from different universes, right?" Margo answered, her tone impassive.

"There's a Spider Person named Miles Morales who is causing issues with the Spiderverse apparently, maybe he's an anomaly? I just want to find out where he's from for… research purposes."

"Uh-huh." Margo was unconvinced.

"Please, I know it doesn't make sense but it's very important." I was kind of begging, but didn't want to sound too desperate.

I went to place a hand on her shoulder, and my hand phased through. I don't know why I did that, she was a virtual hologram projection and wasn't even fully present in this world. Lowkey embarrassing that I did that. Margo broke out in giggles she tried to stifle with her hand. It was pretty funny, and pretty stupid.

"Okay, I'll help you." Margo agreed, already digitizing herself in front of a console.

She typed rapidly, bringing up multiple screens as she searched for both Gabriel O'Hara and Miles Morales. ACCESS DENIED popped up angrily on a few of the screens, making Margo twist up her face in irritation as she continued to type.

"So I'm guessing that's it." I sighed in disappointment.

Margo scoffed: "Don't forget who you're talking to."

She continued to type away, from what I gathered she was trying to bypass the firewalls put in place. It was like watching a virtual battle in binary, or whatever. She seemed confident and I didn't want to break her determined concentration.

Miguel's Perspective

Miguel watched the virtual screen with Lyla and a horrified Peter B Parker beside him. A black hole had opened up in Earth 9591 and started swallowing up all nearby mass with its unforgiving gravitational pull. It was too risky to send anyone to that world to try and patch up or slow down the process. Even for a world that evil and broken it was a grotesque sight to see such destruction. Miguel swiped the screen away, unable to stomach it much longer.

"I told you not to go there, Miguel, now look what happened!" Lyla exclaimed, gesturing with her hands wildly. "You knew what would happen if you killed Doc Ock, he wasn't supposed to die!"

"You caused another rift, I thought the entire goal of starting this society was to prevent things like this from happening! Miguel-" Peter followed, just as distressed as Lyla's program allowed her to be.

"He told me he was tipped off by someone, meaning them being sent there was a set-up and not a glitch." Miguel countered, his tone stony.

"Miguel, that's besides the point! You doomed another universe, and this time intentionally!" Peter shouted, Miguel avoided his eyes. "What will this do to the rest of the timeline?"

"You-know-who is not going to be happy with you…" Lyla chimed in.

"Who?" Peter echoed, confused.

"The big boss." Lyla answered, casting Miguel a discontented look.

"Wait, hold on… you're telling me Miguel is not the boss?!" Peter brought his hands up to his head, physically astounded.

"I am here, but there's more of us trying to hold the timeline together, I am not the only one." Miguel explained. "There's forces above us, the likes of which are hard to understand and comprehend when it comes to the balance of the fabric of spacetime."

"What, like God?" Peter returned, equally confused.

"No, nothing like that. It's hard to explain." Miguel sighed, bothered by the whole situation. "It isn't anything religious, it's scientific, it's just hard for our brains to grasp the concept of their existence. They don't view time as something linear like we do, they can transcend time and space."

"So like The Spot?" Peter deadpanned.

"No…" Miguel brought his palm up to his face.

"I mean, Spot can technically evolve and reach that point of power if we don't stop him in time." Lyla interjected.

"Okay, but if there's beings that are higher than us that are in control of the timelines and not just the Spiderverse, doesn't that mean you have to answer to them? Aren't they going to be upset that you've toyed with spacetime more than once now?"

The question posed a heavy reality. Before Miguel could answer Lyla altered him to something, popping up a virtual interface before his eyes. A bunch of code flashed across the screen, displaying various attempts at firewall breaches.

"Looks like someone has breached security and got ahold of some confidential information." Lyla reported.

"What? Who?" Miguel questioned, already growing angrier by the second.

"From the control room." Lyla reported.

Miguel left without a second word, ready to confront whoever was doing this. He had enough on his plate, the last thing he needed was a security breach disrupting anything else.

Reader's Perspective

Public transport in Nueva York rocked. After Margo gave me the information I needed I was able to leave the tower and hop on a high speed rail pretty quickly. The chairs were super comfortable too, I had enough elbow and leg room to stretch out and get as cozy as possible. I studied my notebook, looking at the address I had scribbled inside that Margo had given me. It was a little bit outside the city, but not too far that it would take hours.

I rehearsed in my head what I would even say when I knocked on the door. Would Gabriel even answer, was this address even relevant anymore? It hadn't been updated in two years, and people renting in big cities sometimes hop from place to place, and given that Miguel and his brother weren't on speaking terms, what if he moved to get further away from him?

The train reached my drop off in another twenty minutes, by that time I was having doubts when I stepped off. I wasn't familiar with this area, I could easily get lost out here. It wasn't as crowded and covered in as much chrome and neon like the main part of the city; this area had a bit of a countryside feel to it, it had actual houses with lawns. Margo had downloaded a digital map to my watch so at least I had some kind of a guide.

Part of me snickered to myself, thinking about the days back in my world where printing out directions from MapQuest was a necessity.

After walking a few blocks I started to question even further if this was a good idea. I was getting winded, my still-recovering muscles were starting to ache, and my feet were killing me. I swear they were swelling inside my shoes. My watch pinged, alerting me that I was close to my destination. I glanced over, seeing a quaint little house surrounded by a chain-link fence. It seemed pretty well kept and not very futuristic, some junk littered the yard in the corner but the home did seem inviting. I opened the gate, my pulse quickening as I made my way down the path and toward the front door.

I brought up my fist to knock, then hesitated. This was the future, wasn't there a special doorbell thing I should press instead of knocking? I glanced around and didn't see anything techy looking or out of the ordinary, it looked like a regular doorbell to me. I pushed it, unsure if it had worked. I stood around for a minute then decided to knock on the door anyway.

There was no answer for two minutes. I debated if I should ring the doorbell again, or if anyone was home. I had come all this way and I did not want to return to Miguel's apartment empty handed, he would demand to know where I went and it would be too much to explain without speaking to his brother.

The front door whooshed open, startling me with a little jump. In the door frame stood a tall, slender man. Goggles hung around his neck, he wore a white tank top and cargo pants. He looked like he had been tinkering or working on something. I could honestly see the resemblance between him and his brother.

He looked at me up and down, taking in my appearance, his eyebrows raising in curiosity as he noticed the roundness of my stomach.

"Can I help you, miss?" He asked.

I noted to myself how he also had an accent like Miguel.

"Are you Gabriel O'Hara?" I asked.

"Yes…?" He answered, a bit cautiously. "Do I know you?"

"No… I um…" I stuttered, not really knowing what to say. Perhaps I should've rehearsed more on the train, right now I sounded like a bumbling mess. "Okay, this is going to sound really weird, but I am, um…"

Gabriel seemed to nod with every word I said, trying to follow but still looking a bit suspicious. I don't blame him, I would be too if a strange pregnant person knew my name and ended up on my doorstep.

I took a deep breath, knowing the best way to deal with it was to just come out and say it. (Because doing that did wonders for me in the past…) I told him my name, then proceeded to blurt out the rest.

"I'm your brother's…" I started, and once again the words snagged in my throat.

I didn't get any reassurance earlier today from Miguel so I still didn't know what the hell I was to him.

"I'm pregnant with your brother's baby."

Spanish phrases from the song Para Agradecer by Chicano Batman

My characterizations of Gabriel might be a bit different from the comic version of him in future chapters.