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Miles woke up again from another dream.。
It was NOT a good one.
Similar dreams have been haunting him like ghosts off and on for the past year. Sometimes Miles would dream of the day he became Spider-Man, also the day Peter Parker died before his eyes. But the difference was that the person crushed under the ruins became him; he looked up in horror through his torn mask, with Kingpin standing before him like a hill, and the prowler; he tried to open his mouth to call for his Uncle Aaron, but it felt like something was blocking his throat ; and before Miles had time to make any sound, Kingpin's fist had fallen --
He also dreamed of being caught by Dr. Octopus and hung upside down in mid-air, or was torn apart by the prowler's palm, and there's also the lizard man's tail wrapping around him until he suffocated ......
But what scares Miles Morales the most was dreaming about Peter Parker.
Just like tonight's dream.
He was standing in front of Peter Parker's grave, still holding the key he had accidentally damaged; his mask wouldn't fit and was loosely over his head; and just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, the earth in front of the grave suddenly began to loose--
A decaying, white bone of the corpse's hand with flesh on it reached out from inside and grabbed Miles' ankle; he was terrified and stepped back, but the hand wouldn't let go anyway, so as he stepped back more and more corpse skeletons stuck out of the ground-
"Kid...y-you must...promise me."
"Yes, yes I will--I promise you Mr.Parker yes!! I promise!!"
Miles woke up screaming, then realized it was just another nightmare.
Similar scenarios have happened too many times in the past year. Too many times to count.
He couldn't go to a psychiatrist because he couldn't tell a stranger"Hey I'm your new Spider-Man and I am freaking out right now because I'm only 15 and I don't know how to be a hero to protect this city oh and Peter Parker basically died to save me."
He couldn't tell Dad or Mom either, because-because he just couldn't. He wasn't ready, and he couldn't imagine how Mom and Dad would react after telling the secret.
He had tried to tell his roommate that Ganke understood him - easing his anxiety somewhat - and Miles remembered the relief he felt the first time he told Ganke his secret; but as time went on he became wrapped up in loneliness and fear again; ordinary people, especially minors like him But as time goes by he begins to be wrapped up in loneliness and fear; there is still an unbridgeable gap between ordinary people, especially minors like him, and the concept of "To be a hero".
He longed to meet with Gwen again, or Peter B Parker, he wanted to talk to them, his kind, but even they could not fully understand what Miles was carrying - not to mention that he had never seen them again.
So everything that happened a year ago. About him saving the multiverse, eventually only turned into a page of Myers' book of paintings, was turned over, and then with his endless anxiety together with the time to cover up.
But some wounds were not meant to be fix by time.
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"Spider-Man, do you copy? Spider-Man from Earth-138, do you copy?"
"……”
"Oh my god--I cannot believe this--Spider-punk, are you in there? Do you copy?"
"......."
"Hobart Brown!! DO YOU COPY?"
"Gotcha."
The answer finally came from the other end of the communicator at the moment when Miguel was about to become impatient, with a harsh electric guitar plucking sound; Miguel felt a bit unbearable, yet Hobie was the first one to speak up:"Just so you know, I hate labels so I prefer to be called--well to be honest I prefer nobody calls me at all ."
"Oh believe me, nobody wanna calls you if this was not an emergency--I don't even know why you are still here, but here we are. So listen there's another villain at the wrong time, wrong universe--Earth 1610, I want you to be there, take care of it and come back. And try not to let anyone sees you. Like just...try your very best."
"Yeah yeah, I heard you."
Hobie carried his electric guitar and opened the portal; Just before Miguel was cut off, Hobie suddenly asked:"Earth-1610, is this the one where Peter Parker died and the kid got bitten by an interdenominational/mutated spider？"
"Yes--why are you asking?" Miguel's voice became alert for a moment, while Hobie still sounded unconcerned:"Just asking."
"Wait, you're not seeing him, a'right? You can't meet another Spider-Man at this point--we cannot afford for another hole in the multiverse!"
"Sure," Hobie didn't hesitate to cut off the signal; the last words Spider-Punk uttered at the moment he pulled off his mask were:"No more holes."
Miguel looked at the hung-up signal on his wrist and wondered for the millionth time about this move he made to invite Spider-punk to join the league.
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The interdimensional villain that appeared in the 1610 universe was Carnage, a symbion from the comic book universe; it was a tough opponent for Spider-Man, but perhaps relatively easy for Hobie; he used his electric guitar to send out a shockwave that finally stripped Carnage from the poor man he had bent over, and found a way to contain the symbiote in preparation for teleporting back to HQ.
As Hobie finished everything and was about to leave, he saw the flashing red light on his wrist communicator.
"You doing okay?"
"You done?"
Two messages, one from half an hour ago and the other just ten minutes ago.
Hobie changed his mind. He opened the portal to send Carnage back to the base, and then sent two separate replies.
"Yes."
"No. "
He's definitely going to piss off Miguel by doing that.
Good.
Just as Hobie was about to wander around this universe at will, his spider sense snapped to life. Looking in the direction of the sense, Hobie saw the boy's figure.
The boy who happened to be bitten. The new Spider-Man on Earth-1610.
Hobie chose to follow him without hesitation. He doesn't care whether he will be scolded when Miguel knows about this--frankly he barely cares about anything.
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Still drowning in fear, Miles sat up from his bed and buried his head in his hands; the feeling of being grabbed by a corpse in his dream was all too real, causing him to soak his clothes with sweat; he gasped for air, and just at the moment when he was slowly regaining his composure, his spider sense snapped to life.
He looked back just in time to see a figure outside the window.
A masked, uniformed superhero with long studs on his head and a guitar on his back. The white parts of his eyes on his mask were now wide open, as if puzzled, or seeing something interesting.
"Spider-Man?"
Miles jumped up from his bed with some inexplicable nervous unease and...excitement. This was, after all, another one of his kind he was seeing again after a gap of almost a year.
"W-wait Are you like another superhero coming from another universe? Oh shoot this again...so, you wanna find a way home? W-wait wait, what kind of version are you, like the Rock&Roll Spider-Man?"
Hobie was amused by Miles' reaction. Apparently the newly succeeded Spider-Man on Earth-1610 is just a kid.
"Name's Hobie, Hobie Brown. I hate labels but if you must know, you can call me Anarchism Spider-Man."
He looks at Miles, who's now with a confused expression, so Spider-punk casually pushes open Miles' bedroom window and flips in, landing right at Miles' table. hobie puts both legs up on the chair and crosses them:"First off, I'm not a hero, coz calling yourself a 'hero' made you become a self-apologetic narcissist or the crown."
"...Wow."To this, Miles could only spit out three letters in response.
Hobie is different from any Spider-Man he has ever met before. Hobie is a little ...... cooler. Myers could not think of any other more appropriate adjective.
"So where are you from? How did you get here and how you found me? Were you here because of that collider accident? But I thought I have already sent everyone home--"
"Woah--easy tiger. One at a time. Want me to spill my secret identity, huh? Not gonna be that easy."
"Oh c'mon," Miles protests,"You've seen MY face, and I thought we're supposed to, you know-- My name's Miles Morales, by the way.."
"What, exchanging our secrets?" Hobie cracked a smile, yet still he unmasked himself.
"How are you even cooler under your mask?"
Miles couldn't help but let out a sigh of amaze when he saw Spider-punk, who showed his true face. The Hobie under the mask was completely different from what he had imagined - a little cooler. He had two lip rings, at least three eyebrow studs, and various metal jewelry on his ear bones, and his hair reminded Miles of Basquiat.
"I was this cool the whole time."
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"So what were you doing, in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, just deciding to get a little...moisture in your eyes?"
Hobie casually folded his long legs, and the subject made Miles stiffen; he knew Hobie didn't care and was just joking with him, but he wasn't ready to share his long-suppressed pain with someone he'd just met, so-
"Just. . some stupid dreams."
Miles pretended not to shrug, but his still slightly trembling wrist gave away his secret; Hobie noticed it, of course, but he chose not to say anything.
"Sure. Then I guess I'll leave you to rest--off I go."
"Wait--don't go! Please!!"
Miles eagerly stood up and blocked the window to stop Hobie from leaving; he didn't know why he was doing it, why he was so desperate to interact with another person he had just met less than an hour before. Maybe he had just woken up from a nightmare, maybe he was attracted to Hobie's "coolness", or maybe ......
He's just... He's just... feelin' a little lonely is all.
"Could you stay for a little while.... Miles looked at Hobie with pleading, not knowing how sad and pitiable his eyes looked:"Like...if you're not busy or anything.... I need to--I just, you know I don't see another guy like me from time to time, and I NEED it, so...please?"
"Sure."Hobie agreed very readily and sat back down on Miles' desk in the process :" I'll stay if you will tell me, what exactly were you doing ."
"....Okay fine." Miles gave up. His desire to talk to his own kind overcame everything, including his sense of distrust of strangers.
"I was...having this nightmare of...being trapped by a dead body. And it had happened too many times for a year and I was... I was scared, okay. I panicked cause the feeling was so...real."
"There you go. Continue."
His desire to talk to his own kind overcame everything, including his sense of distrust of strangers.
"Just...don't let anybody know about this, a'right? Coz like... I wanna live up to their trust, hate to let them down. I mean the whole NewYork city's counting on me, I don't want them to know that I'm this weak and, and....you know sometimes it's just too much."
Miles took a deep breath. He wasn't ready, but he needed this.
"Being a hero--or whatever you'd like to call it, protecting the city...things like that, it is too much. What if I failed him, failed Mr.Parker?He basically died...to save me a-and, I don't wanna let him or anybody down."
Miles signed. It does feel good to talk to someone about his...whatever he's been experiencing.
But Hobie was keenly aware of what was going on. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket, his eyebrows raised high:"You didn't spill out the truth, Spider-boy. C'mon, you can talk to me, I'm not gonna tell anyone. Plus I got nothing to do now. Or you don't have to, then I suppose there's no need for me to stay here--no? You don't want me to go, huh?"
Hobie looked down on the other man, he knew what Miles was going through right now - he himself had been through a similar pain, heck, every Spider-Man's been through this.
And he also knows that Miles needs this. He needs to say it, to put his fears and confusion, everything out there - in front of Hobie.
"What are you really afraid of, like what's your true fear?"
Truth. He wants the truth. And Miles...now Miles gonna decide whether to expose his greatest fear as well as his vulnerability, to Hobie, who he has just met.
"What if...what if I slipped and die...or worse, something happened to my parents? I mean I saw it happened to..to uncle Araon."
"What if I can't save them but to watch them...to watch something happen to them?"
There he goes.
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The mention of his uncle's name made Miles' voice start to get dry, his eyes burning, and to avoid being caught Miles deliberately turned his head hard and pretended to clean up his desk: "what if the next time... it was my mom, dad? What if I can't save them...."
Once the subject was opened, it was as if it could not be closed. Now, Miles finally has a chance to find a way to tilt his angst, fear and anxiety. No one can understand how he's gotten through this year.Being along, facing the pressure and expectations that shouldn't be put on the shoulders of a fifteen years old boy.
"And I kind of miss him...my uncle Aaron, I miss him every day... Back to the time I would basically share everything with him, a-and he, he always had the answer. He was the one that can ease my pain, to let me get myself together....and now he's, he's...."
Miles' voice began to tremble, and just as Hobbie was about to step forward to check on him to avoid Miles' overexcitement, the new Spider-Man took a deep breath and regained his composure:"And now he's gone. I saw him shot by Kinpin, and I saw him died. Right in front of me. And I-I can't say that, any of that to my old man coz...coz I know he misses him even more than I do. And I hate to bring this painful memory up to him."
Miles didn't know why his voice began to tremble, just as he didn't know, in the same way, why he opened up to Hobie. Maybe it was the sense of calmness and detachment that Hobie maintained from the beginning——He cares about Miles, that Miles can feel. But on the other hand Hobie never crossed the boundary. He's pushing Miles, but not to the edge. He's...curing Miles in his own way.
"It's okay." Hobie said gently . He's words got this...magic that calms Miles down easily.
So Miles continued.
"You know Peter--my world's Peter, Peter Parker, he was only 26 when he died a-and, and he had always been Spider-Man since he was 16 or even younger..."
"How old are you?"Hobie suddenly asked.
"15...but that's not the point."Miles glanced at the other man in confusion, he didn't know how old Hobie was yet - but that didn't matter now.
"It could be anyone behind that mask. I'm just...I'm just happened to be the kid who got bitten. Why me? I'm not complaining--I love being Spider-Man, I love to protect my city, my world, but I'm just...why me? What's the meaning of my existence...and why did they have to die???"
He's just a kid after all. The meaning of life and death is way too heavy for Miles. He hadn't had time to understand the definition of death, but was forced to feel it first.
The air fell into a silence. The dark clouds outside the window silently crossed the moon, allowing its light to shine inside.
Finally, after a full ten minutes, Miles couldn't stand the silence anymore. He looked to Hobbie with a little pleading :"So...are you gonna say anything? Like anything, whatever...just, say something please..."
Then Hobie finally spoke up. His eyes fell firmly on Miles:"Listen boy, I'm not gonna tell you, that everything is going to be okay or it's fine it'll pass. I'm going to tell you the truth, a'right? And it's gonna hurts."
Miles was drawn to Hobie's deep black eyes. He seemed to fall into the end of the universe, everything around him disappeared, and his heart began to beat faster and faster, causing his ears to hear only Hobie's voice, the sound of car horns outside the window, all these …all gone. Just Hobie and him. In his room.
"The truth is, you'll never be alright. The moment you were bitten, it has become an inevitable event. Nothing would be the same from now on. You'll never be the same innocent boy, and even if you weren't wearing this mask, you'll still be a different person. You will be angry, lost, confused and even start to grow this...self hatred. "
Hobie watches calmly as Miles states the facts. He suddenly begins to walk toward Miles, eventually coming to him; Hobie braces both arms around Miles, trapping him in the small space between the glass and Hobie's body.
"So here you are, facing with two choices, to go back and be a normal boy, or to wear this uniform."
Miles didn't notice that his eyes were tearing up just then. He was so engrossed in his conversation with Hobie that Miles had forgotten how to react when the other man suddenly came closer.
Hobie came closer and closer to him, and Miles could even see the reflection of the lip ring at the corner of his mouth; then something happened that Miles never thought it would.
Hobie kissed the corner of his eye.
"You know what your tears taste like?"
Miles was in complete shock and didn't know how to respond. He likewise didn't know why Hobie had suddenly kissed him ...... but it didn't feel bad.
A kiss is one of the most intimate acts between people, and the reassurance a kiss brings is sometimes worth a thousand words.
"Sunflower. That's what it tastes like."Hobie answered.
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When Miles finally came back to his senses, Hobie had returned to his original position. He leaned against Miles' table with his legs crossed, looking as calm as if nothing had happened.
But Miles could feel that something was different. It was like a warmth slowly flowing throughout his body from where they touched - like a beam of sunlight.
"You know the funny thing is, I did the same choice several months ago when I sent every one of them home." Miles took the mask that Hobie had placed on his desk and looked closely at it. Their uniforms were all very different, with the same cobweb pattern and large blank spaces representing the eye parts; and Hobie's mask had only a few more rivets of varying lengths than his.
Each uniform represents a different character, and responsibility.
With great power, comes great responsibility.
"And I think my choice hasn't changed. It won't change."Miles put down Hobie's mask and gave his answer.
He is, Spider-Man.
" I heard that. It was indeed amazing and I salute you."Hobie greeted Miles with a gentle wave :"So I guess you do possess the courage to be your city's protector. "
"Being alone is our fate. And that is why I don't do team. I don't believe in consistency. "Hobie continues："But I'm not gonna let you be alone. Not tonight. I'm gonna stay here with ya, so you can sleep."
"One day you'll find that the breaking news of your press becomes, SPIDER-MAN IS BACK, and it will be you. And by the time you do, don't forget to do it cool."
Miles smiled:"Yeah, I think I will. Probably won't be as cool as you. But I'll give it a shot."
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As Miles resumed his bed and prepared to sleep, Hobie suddenly pulled something out of his pocket.
"Here, I want you to have this. It's a gift, take it."
Miles looked at what Hobie handed him, a triangular shaped guitar plectrum. It must have meant something to Hobie, so Miles took it.
"Umm...thanks man. How old are you again?"Miles finally couldn't resist the temptation and asked the one question that haunted him.
"How old do you think I am?"Hobie asked him instead.
"Err...20-ish?" Miles couldn't be sure. Hobie looked a little older than him, both in appearance and mentally.
"Just turned 18 yesterday. But age is just a meaningless number trying to get anxiety into everyone or to be an excuse for cowards who are not going to take up their responsibilities."
Hobie walked towards Miles and sat on his bedside :"But you're not one of 'em. You're not like any of them, Spider-boy. Look I know how it feels to take upp this position, being a so-called hero, but you did a good job, I'd give that to you."
Before Miles could say the word thanks, Hobie continued:"And I like you."
"Is that why you kissed me?"
"Yes, and no. Most of the reason that I kissed you was because I wanted to. And I still would."
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The rest of the night Miles chose to cuddle with Hobie. The bed's way too small for two almost-grown boys, but they still managed to find a way around it.
Hobie's both arms were wrapped around his wrist--they cannot possibly be more intimate.
"U know what, next time we meet, let's just pretend we've never met before, eh?"Hobie rested his head on Miles' shoulder:"It's more, interesting this way."
"How do you know we'll meet again."Miles was half-asleep, but he still got so many questions, like how did Hobie get here, why did he know Miles' the newly succeed Spider-Man, and how are they gonna meet again--
"What, you never wanna see me again?"
It wasn't until Miles hastily shouted "No" that he realized that Hobie was just playing a joke on him.
"Relax, Peter Pan. We'll see each other again. And before we do, don't you forget to miss me."
"Yeah I think I will."
Then they fell asleep. The next morning when Miles woke up, Hobie's long gone.
And Miles would definitely remember that on one night, a Spider-Man coming from another universe kissed him in front of the window, and tells him that his tears tasted like sunflowers.
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