Chapter Text
"What are these nodes where the lines converge?" Miles asked, curiously poking one of the crimson web lines that Miguel had created to explain to him the fundamental events of being burdened, or blessed, with the spiderman abilities.
"They are the canon." Miguel said. "Chapters that are a part of ever spider story, every time." Miles began to notice more and more of them appearing around him, Gwen, Hobie and Peter. While Miles was staring at them with the same curious look in his eyes that Mayday Parker had, the others were nervous, trying to avoid the nodes in case they came face to face with one of their own tragedies. Miles glanced away from the node that showed different versions of spiderman being bitten by the radioactive spider, to one of different Peter Parker's getting married to red headed Mary Janes. "Some good..." the Venom appeared in one, portraying a grotesque image of people being overcome with a menacing dark ooze. "Some bad..." Miguel fell silent for a few seconds. "Some very bad." In front of Miles wordlessly tumbled apparitions of spidermen and women kneeling at the dying corpses of their uncles. Miles even saw himself and his uncle Aaron, frozen in the moment before his death.
"Just keep going." Aaron's voice echoed around the dark chamber.
Miguel paced the webs until he paused in front of one. "And this one, event ASM90, a police captain close to spiderman dies saving a child from falling debris during a battle with an archnemesis."
"Captain Stacy... I'm so sorry." One of the spiderman cried into the corpse of the police captain. Miles looked at Gwen, she did not move. Peter turned away from the holographic reminder of his trauma. gently pushing his nose into Mayday's curly hair.
"That happened to you?" Miles asked, his eyebrows creasing heavily. Like Gwen, Peter stayed quiet.
"And me." Spiderwoman murmured. Miles' eyes flickered to Hobie, whose gaze was dancing around the holographic reminders.
"Ey? What of it?" He shrugged.
"That's how the stories supposed to go, canon events are the connections that bind our lives together. But those connections can be broken," the chamber began to tremble subtly at the very mention of such a thing happening. "That's why anomalies can be so dangerous." Miguel stared hard at Miles, but his confusion was still present. "Inspector Singh's death was a canon event... you weren't supposed to be there and you weren't supposed to save him, that's why Gwen tried to stop you." The sounds of people crying out in fear rung familiarly to Gwen, Miles and Hobie as Miguel reran the events that had just happened. Miles watched Gwen trying to convince him not to help the inspector and his heart dropped.
"I thought you were trying to save me." Miles noted sadly.
Gwen turned her face away in shame. "I was doing both..."
"Because you changed the story, Pavitr's dimension is unravelling. If we're lucky, we can stop it. We haven't always been lucky." Miguel murmured.
"That wasn't me." Miles insisted. "That was the spot."
"It's what happens when you break the canon."
"How do you know?"
"Because... I broke it once myself." As Miguel began to explain what had happened when he had tried to give himself something as simple as a family and a daughter whom he adored, and the dimension collapsed around him, more nodes began to move closer, devastating depictions of death, destruction, suffering, all there to prove Miguel's point. "You break enough canons. You save enough captain's. You try to stop enough deaths..." in front of Hobie, who had been trying not to pay attention, spun the node where he saw himself. An image of himself, shifting and changing, cradling the body of a woman he had spent the last year battling with himself over forgetting and preserving. Her hands broken under an impact, placed against his face like she was the one comforting him.
"I will always just want to see you."
Hobie felt his face contort away from his consent or knowledge. His mouth, parted as if his image of a memory was expecting a reply, twisted in sadness, pulling his lips down as his eyes followed, mirroring the expression of the spiderpunk from a year ago who had just failed to save the woman he loved. He told her he didn't agree with her going to Oxford because of the elitist, classist establishment that they represented, not because of the clock tower that Harry Osborn would throw her off of. He had tried to shield her body with his, but even then, she did not have his strength, as much as in that moment he would have given it up to her.
Perhaps knowing that it was all a canon event made it easier, but he wasn't sure. Maybe if he had become a part of the spider society before he had met her. Maybe if he had been told she was fated to die no matter what he tried to do... but he knew he wouldn't have done anything differently. He wouldn't have deprived himself of her love because he knew he would lose her, even if the grief almost made him tear off the mask of the superhero who couldn't catch her in time every time he caught his reflection. Nothing really changed and he grew to despise it even more, why wasn't the world crying out in agony over the loss of her. Why did the sun keep rising to stare at a world that was dimmer, why did the stars appear to an empty space beside him that would never look the same as it did to her. Hearing the echo of her voice was like a taunting evil and a prayer answered at the same time. Every time he threw his bottles, every time he graphited government buildings, every time he yelled profanity at the police, at fascists, at sympathisers, he would hear you laughing at him, he would use your favourite colours without noticing, he would see you in everything except the world.
"Hobie..." Gwen murmured, placing her hand on his shoulder. Gwen who had shared so many similarities with his and she knew it too. When he called her Gwendy, she knew who he was trying to refer too, who he was trying to pretend like he was seeing again. He turned his face away, trying to act like it didn't really bother him.
"What of it..." he murmured, barely audible.
When Miles contested to Miguel about the canon events, about how he wanted to change the fate of his police captain father, and when Miguel captured him to stop him, Hobie didn't hesitate to help the boy he would have been if he'd known escape.
"Use the palms." He mouthed.
When Miles began to run, he hoped that maybe then, if he had taken his own advice all those months ago he would have given Miles another ally.