Note: So, ATSV lit a creative FIRE in me like few properties have in years, and two ideas came to me in the immediate aftermath of getting home from the theater. This, and something that is some crazy speculative, double-post-canon, OC-adjacent nonsense. Fanfic at its most classic, in other words. That being said, I DO intend for Miles' characterization in the 2nd idea to be informed by his behavior here. And I just really want to write this one out regardless. I'm also experimenting with the order of events here more than I ever have, so this is gonna be a bit nonlinear. Hopefully it's readable.

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 1

Suddenly, I'm hit!

It's the starkness of the dawn.

And your friends are gone.

And your friends won't come.

So show me where you fit…

The song buzzed away again in his earbuds as he walked slowly up the steps. He'd liked its tune, the singer's voice, for years. But the lyrics had been speaking to him lately in a way that was both terrible, and perfect. Especially…

He opened the apartment door slowly, seeing that detectives were still idly checking even as Rio and Jefferson Morales worked to patch the dearth of bullet holes in the walls, ceiling, and floor, Rio rolling her arm against the bandage still wrapped around it. Sargent DeWolff was helping sweep away the nice glass coffee table they'd just bought that had exploded into a million pieces under the hail of gunfire. Miles slipped his mask off on… hopeful instinct, maybe, and realized instantly he'd made a terrible mistake. All activity had already stopped as he'd entered, all eyes had turned to him. Then with the mask off, the spatters clearly visible on his face beneath the thin fabric were revealed in their full, bloody ignominy.

Miles could feel it. That Cop Judgment, that his dad HAD been getting better at keeping a lid on in the last year and change. Finally. But getting it from an apartment-full of cops, for what everyone clearly knew or at least suspected had happened from what they'd heard, that was another matter entirely. He strangely didn't get even a hint of it from his dad, who simply cleared his throat as loudly as he could and descended the ladder he was on, leaving the caulk gun at the top.

"Everyone, if we could just get a minute?" He asked, and they all filed out. DeWolff clapped a reassuring hand on his shoulder, old-partner-cop-Aunt that she was, making sure she got out last so she could stand in front of the Morales' door, so they could have all the minutes they needed.

"We… we need to talk about this, Miles…" Jefferson Morales declared, however uncertainly.

So show me where you fit…

It had been the most impossible, chaotic, desperate, dangerous day of Miles Morales' life, and that was saying something. Dragging The Band (as Hobie insisted the new bunch of Spider-Rebels call themselves; his idea on that title as well (titles were different than labels, he insisted)), half of whom he made it clear he didn't want there nor trust, back to Earth-1610. They'd tried to impress, keeping identities secret for the sake of time, the danger that both New York City and the Morales's were about to be in. Which wasn't to say that they hadn't been taken seriously, but rather that even their worst theories and worst-case-scenario plans hadn't turned out as bad as things had gotten.

An entire Multiversal army of superhero Spiders descending on New York City and the seemingly unstoppable abomination that Johnny Ohnn had turned himself into, tearing through the city as the Spot sought his targets and the army meant to make sure he reached one in particular. Although, that massive Multiversal Spider army had splintered in the face of what Gwen and the others had to tell it, and started fighting itself as much as the Spot and the Band. It was most certainly in the Top 3 running for Worst Super-powered Brawl in NYC. Central Park was just gone by the end of it all, for one. That had to count for something.

And then there was that moment. Miles had worked a plan, between himself, his Earth-42 counterpart (who was seriously scary smart; that much intelligence in the hands of an unapologetic antihero? Miles pitied whoever ended up becoming the superheroes of Earth-42, and he already saw how Miles G. treated the actual supervillains…) and a couple scientists Miles G. knew could help and owed him favors. He hadn't given anyone in the Band the details, cause he knew at least one of them would try and stop him. Or at least argue about it, and they wouldn't have the time for that.

And so as he stood in the center of the Williamsburg Tower, looking at the looming transdimensioal monstrosity, working up the nerve to do it, everyone clearly realized he was about to do something. Something they all wouldn't let him do, under normal circumstances. But normal circumstances these were not. Only one had the courage and gall to do anything about it, though.

"W-Wait!" Gwen's voice had pleaded, and he'd spun to tell her in no uncertain terms that she didn't get to ask him to do or not do anything anymore. But she ripped her mask clean off, lifted up what little of his still remained on his head after being portal-tossed into and through most of New York City and not always successfully dodging around Miguel O'Hara's freaky spider-vamp claws, and kissed him. Desperately.

In a way that said she knew she shouldn't, but she had to anyways. So he would know just what he meant to her, so he'd know she knew just what she'd broken between them with her lies and distance. So he'd know how damn sorry she was for not trusting him, him who she loved more than anyone or anything. He could taste her tears on his lips as she pulled away and yanked the maybe-quarter of his mask left on his face back down.

"MORALES!" The furious roar came from behind them, and Miles could only growl in furious exasperation as O'Hara clawed his way to the top of the building, far fewer Spiders with him than he'd clearly meant to come with. "YOU'RE-"

He didn't get a chance to move or say anything further. Gwen launched herself at him, a full-strength leaping Spider-tackle, something that would probably risk killing a less durable superhuman, and took him right over and well past the edge. She wasn't looking at Miguel, though. Even as he struggled and swiped, and she ducked and punched. She was looking back at Miles, the saddest confidence he'd ever seen coloring every inch of her still-unmasked face.

He could do it. She believed that, however much she didn't want him to do it. Because it would clearly be something crazy and dangerous and self-sacrificing because what other kinds of plans could Spiders ever come up with? But she believed he could do it, without a doubt. He could see it.

Then she and Miguel fell beneath the edge of the building, out of sight. Then the building began to break apart, drawn into the vortex of unreality in the rough shape of a man that the Spot was now. Miles let the venom flow in him, through him, from him. Let it light up every vein and inch of skin it could. His venom-powered talent for energy absorption, dispersal and disruption. With the effects of mental will and multiversal constant math on nascent reality that was what Johnny Ohnn was mostly comprised of. He'd worked out all the theory with Miles G. on Earth-42. Now was the time to test it.

"OOOOoooHHH, LllooOOoooKKkkkinnNnngggG SSSSCAAARRRYYYYY, MmMmmMIiIIiiiLLlLlEEeeeSSsss!" The Spot roared mockingly, his head twisting and warping, the swirling mass of nothing and half-copies of himself trying to force themselves to exist around where his jaw had been all contorting into a vague suggestion of a mocking, shit-eating grin at what he'd just done.

Fucking-

Miles leapt, glowing, a crackling fist drawn back to strike. He leapt into the depths of possibility and nonexistence that swirled in front of him, desperately running calculation after calculation in his head on repeat before he disappeared completely into it. It had felt like an eternity, but everyone said it only took seconds before Spot imploded back into a helpless, harmless bare white body, and he and Miles tumbled through the air unconscious. Sp/dr and Peni caught them both on the way down, stuffing Ohnn into a portable Spidercell before slamming into the concrete.

Miles came to, clambering out of the Spider-mech's arm.

"No. No, no, no, NO!" The Spot screamed, wailed, smashed his fists against the digital cage that held him.

"Just… give it up, man. You-" Miles began to say, but stopped at the sound of cracking stone and breaking glass above him. Spot's damage to the top of the building had spread, and the whole front face was starting to come down. "Peni!" The Sp/dr moved as fast as he'd ever seen it move, shoving on cars and firing webs to toss bystanders into the larger web it wove at the next intersection, all of them landing harmlessly upon it.

Miles tossed several that way for his part as rubble started landing around him, and resorted to lifting and shoving cars himself that were stuck and unable to move, trying to clear the way and move the people in them as much as possible.

"Sorry bout your breaks, dude!" He yelled as he shoved and winced at the terrible screech of metal, but better new breaks than being dead, right? He turned to survey the situation. Other Spiders, both the Band and the fracturing sides of the Spider Society, were helping. Almost everyone was out, except…

Miles' blood ran cold. A little boy in a bright red shirt, so terrified at having been separated from his parents he couldn't perceive the danger around him, sat in the middle of the street crying. And sprinting towards him, to force him out from under the whole face of the building rushing down upon him was…

Miles fired his webs and tore himself forward with every ounce of his strength, but he could tell already it wouldn't be enough. Especially not when his Spider-Sense screamed at him and part of the top façade caught him on the shoulder, driving him to the ground. He scrabbled desperately, tearing himself from underneath it, feeling the costume and skin of his shoulders and chest rip and bleed against the stone, as the rubble fell closer in what seemed to be slow-motion, as the child was covered as best he could be from the danger by-

"DAD!" Miles screamed on reflex and reached and tears began to fall as he knew it wouldn't be enough. As he saw the surprise, and then the most terrible acceptance and love and pride fill Jefferson Morales' face. "DAD, NO!"

The redheaded baby with the knit spider-cap plopped onto his arms and he barely had time to register the red and blue and bright fuzzy pink blur tear past him and into the gap between the street and the rubble as it crashed down.

BOY, did THIS flashback get away from me! This was supposed to be a quick summarization of a fight and forced identity reveal in a long-but-single-chapter story, and I HAD to put so much MORE into the flashback as it came to me and went onto the page that this is now gonna HAVE to be a big multi-chapter affair, cause there's NO better cliffhanger than what's here already. We haven't even gotten to the GOOD SHIT I actually had PLANNED yet.

And, is THIS my first songfic? Based on my personal definition, no. I'm including lyrics at key moments for effect, but songfics to me have always had the song interspersed through the whole of the work, have the work and song kinda wrap and warp around each other thematically and tonally. In a way I'm not interested in writing, nor reading most of the time, as the song lyrics always feel like they're just taking away from the More Story that could be in their place. Hence Retrograde here, and elsewhere as the story goes, being mostly pseudo-diegetic.

It just ALSO hit me coming home from the theater that Retrograde (by James Blake) is such a perfect tonal and lyrical fit imo for where Miles is and maybe will still be at in regards to several of his friends and his situation in general for some of, and maybe past, both ATSV and BTSV. And I KNOW that better songs I don't even know exist will get picked for that purpose instead, so I'm writing this while the idea can still be good and not contradict the actual story. But also, F***K CANON! FREE YOUR STORIES! DOWN WITH ESTABLISHMENT!

In the spirit of Hobie and Miles and Gwen and the SpiderBand.