Chapter Text
Miles Morales is a musician.
He’s always known to be honest, but he’s reminded of it when he digs through his uncle’s old things and pulls out a violin.
He hasn’t played it since he died. He’s not sure why he holds it anymore. His hands are stained– pierced with grief and blame that makes it too hard to hold anything at all.
but other than a musician, he’s also brave, and he doesn’t give up. So he rests the instrument on his collarbone to be supported by his left hand and shoulder and closes his eyes.
The notes are soft but they hurt so bad and it reminds him so much of how he wishes somebody knew.
He plays faster.
He wishes he could tell his parents everything. He wants to tell them about Miguel throwing food at him, how his mom was right and they didn’t root for him, and they never would. He wants to scream at the universe because his dad could’ve died.
He wants to scream “look at me!” But he’s not sure they’d see.
He starts guiding himself out of his house but he keeps playing.
There has always been something special about Miles Morales. He’s always had a spark. He makes people go “woah!” when they least expect it.
Spider-people are storms. They take in everything, just to destroy it and spit it back out. They’re left to figure everything out on their own to pick up glass pieces and bleed with it. Spiders make heads turn but only for a minute– a slight minute where people look but they don’t see, and to be frank, they’d never let anyone either..
Miles makes people look, then look again. He makes them think “what-if”, he gives them hope. Miles is a storm– but not quite in the way of Hobie Brown or Gwen Stacy. Miles draws them in and keeps them there. He sits there and collects the pieces and puts them back together. Miles doesn’t leave anybody behind.
Yet, nobody knows Miles.
He’s led to the Williamsburg Bank Building, where he stands up high and lets the notes of his instrument held like a weapon deep between his ribcage, and he listens to himself, he listens to the beauty of what he’s created, because nobody ever does.
He thinks of “I never should of come to see you”, and “you’re a mistake” and lets pure venom fall from his eyes because if he doesn’t it’ll come out in harmful words and slammed doors, it’ll come out in hands in his pockets and “I don’t know what to do”, it’ll come out in misinterpreted promises and–
and Miles–
Miles–
“Miles!”
He’s met with 3 pairs of wide eyes.
Hobie rips his mask off to give him the biggest grin he’s ever seen and drapes his arm over his shoulders.
“Holy crap mate, why didn’t ya tell us you could play?”
Miles would answer, really, he would. But he was kind of in an angsty moment, and Hobie’s arm is just pissing him off more than making him feel proud.
Miles is a musician, he’s known this. It just feels… off, to hear it from anybody but the person he longs to hear it from.
And he could describe it to you, sure. But that person is six feet under and Hobie won’t stop shaking him.
Miles simply nods, because he also hasn’t stopped crying and he doesn’t trust his voice right now.
Pav waves his arms around and starts pacing around while Gwen smiles at him and agrees with everything he says.
“That was seriously impressive! I mean I can play an instrument– not that, I’ve ever tried but I’m suuuuuper smart so I bet I could, you know, but you were really good”
He drowns them out, because Miles doesn’t want to be praised. He doesn’t want to listen, he wants to be heard.
He feels dizzy. Should he feel dizzy?
“Where’d he go?” Pav says, looking around.
Gwen’s expression changes from impressed to worried.
Not that it matters.
Miles left.
He just wants to be seen.
So he goes to the one place he stands out. The one place he doesn’t belong.
__________________
He arrives on earth-42, completely soaked, because it never seems to stop raining here.
He stares into the eyes of a fate that could’ve been his, a wrecked city and a dead Jefferson Morales, a fate that seems to fit him so well, but never could be his.
Earth-42 is beautiful in Miles' eyes.
It’s beautiful in it’s tragedy. A sky filled with smoke mixed with colors that looks straight out of his sketchbook. The way the sounds of accidents and rare laughter merge in an addictive harmony. The way the city not only looks but pays attention, not necessarily because they want to, but because it’s the only way they’ve been able to live.
Miles is beautiful in this world’s eyes too. He’s beautiful in the way that he doesn’t belong. He’s beautiful in the way that even if the building is always half way burnt down, he still goes over and tries to save them. Beautiful in his mix of colors that don’t quite match with the color scheme yet fits so well in their hearts.
Miles is beautiful in all his differences.
He lifts his violin up as he did before, the venom already dripping down his cheeks, but keeps his eyes open this time to gaze into a broken city, one that he can’t help but love and plays.
The people stop and they stare, but they don’t quite smile, they don’t have much of a reaction actually, but Miles is just happy to be seen. So he smiles a smile that seems to make them forget just for a second that their sun had been covered by the polluted air so long ago.
Miles sways and seems to let the music rip him apart if he wasn’t already so broken.
Pure electricity seeps out of his palms and adds to his mix of colors and music and something about it just seems so–
Someone puts a careful, very hesitant arm on his shoulder and Miles is snapped back to reality almost instantly.
“Maybe don’t start an earthquake with your playing.”
He looks back and looks into a mirror. Well, if the mirror was slightly damaged. 42 is so much tougher than him. But right now… he looks… not softer. No way. Miles isn’t sure this guy is capable of looking anything near soft, but he looks kinder in a way.
Maybe it’s a Miles Morales thing.
He rolls his eyes, just to show attitude because how many people are going to keep interrupting him? And he’s about to face the city once more before 42 grabs his wrist and pulls him… away from the edge.
Ah, he was scared I’d fall.
“You’re coming home for dinner, my mom hasn’t seen you in a while.”
He takes a glance at the instrument– the weapon that seems to keep everybody away– and nudges his elbow a bit.
“Bring the violin too, mama would like it.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking away like he’s so sure Miles is even going to follow him.
Yet, he still finds himself yelling at 42 to wait up for him.
So much for an angsty moment.
__________________
“Come on man, open it up.”
Uncle Aaron is smiling at him brightly which makes him even more suspicious than before. The wrapped present is a weird shape first of all, and second it’s not even his birthday and Christmas is months away so he doesn’t understand why he’s getting something in the first place.
Aaron has always been a mischievous guy. He loves to break the rules, just as much as he loves to make Jefferson mad with all his antics, and the way he ropes Miles into them too.
So Miles, in all honesty, has the right to be suspicious.
He carefully unwraps the head– or what he thinks is the head, of what seems to be an instrument.
He inspects it for a bit, to see if it’s some kind of fake violin that’ll turn into a super weapon or have multiple functions– you know, the usual stuff you expect in a present– but it doesn’t.
“Tío, I really… love it, you know. But what am I supposed to do with a violin?”
Aaron chuckles and places it on Miles’ collarbone and sets his left hand where it’s supposed to be.
“play it.”
Play it? He scoffs.
“And what makes you think I can play the violin?”
Aaron sits down on his– very cool, that Miles totally wants one day– couch, and motions for him to start.
“You’re into all that nerdy stuff right? So come on, try. You know, I was quite the player back in the day. The ladies were all over me.”
Miles rolls his eyes because if his playing was anything like “the shoulder touch”, he doubts anything his Uncle says is true.
Regardless, he hesitantly presses the bow onto the strings and plays a horrible note.
His uncle bursts out laughing and almost falls off the couch, reaching a hand out to Miles.
Miles immediately swats his hand away and covers his face in embarrassment.
“man, shut up. shut up.”
__________________
Aaron– His uncle, the Prowler, is dead.
Miles sits in his room, because he’s too scared to visit the apartment. Too scared to look at the couch, or try the punching bag with nobody to hold it for him.
He’s scared, because he’s seen two people die in one day, and he doesn’t know who’s next.
They ask him to play the violin at his funeral.
Miles can’t even hold it right.
It feels heavier than it usually does, the weight of his worries and his guilt, making his hands heavier than usual.
Miles never plays after that.
he’s scared he never will.
__________________
Miles is at HQ, to get away from his parents.
He loves them, he really does. Hell, he fought a universe’s worth of spider-people for them, of course he does.
But they kept asking questions and he’s not sure he can tell them the burden of being Miles Morales yet. Too scared of them actually understanding.
Too scared of them wanting to help him, because he doesn’t even know how that’d work. He’s gone a whole year with this alone, and even if he’s had a bit of help, it’s still not the same.
That’s the thing about Miles Morales. He is a star. He is constantly looked at but never seen.
He surrounds himself with mirror shards, and everyone bleeds trying to keep up with him, simply because he shines– burns, so bright and they don’t know where to step.
Miles doesn’t tell them, because he’s too scared of them listening.
So he says them in his notes instead.
The whole gang walks in, their eyes already on him, and his breathing seems to slow.
Miguel simply sits down on one of the stray couches, not letting go of his coffee mug, and for once Pav is quiet.
They don’t say anything, instead they watch him. And Gwen– Gwen looks so worried but seems to be so proud of him, and he can’t even tell what for because he seems to ruin everything around him.
“You’re a mistake!” Miguel had said.
He clutches the bow harder.
Peter B sets Mayday down beside him and gives him a soft smile.
“You want to play something for us?”
They all look at him expectantly, but they don’t push– not for a moment. They just watch him. They wait. They see him.
He puts the violin in place and gets carried away almost instantly, and in no time more spiders come to the lobby to see him play.
In every note, he speaks of a bleeding city, that’s not his but loves and holds him with stained and suffering hands, Of a loving mom and a father who tries. A dead uncle, yet the one who he seems to see all the time. A hurt boy with braids who cares so much, Peter Parker, the best spider-man he’s ever met. He makes sounds of betrayal, and love, and the very light all of it seems to shine on him. Of glass shards and an aching heart, one that can’t help but want more. His note screams of unrequited love and heartbreak that seems to never want to leave, but they scream of healing and everything Miles is made of.
The acid falls once, until it blooms into something different. Miles feels the joy of the sun on his face, and the touch of his uncle and “Keep going” and he finally thinks he can do it.
Then he plays the last note and they all clap, but they seem to understand.
Miles is a musician.
He’s known.
But this–
This is so different.
And–
(They scream louder before Hobie drapes his arm over his shoulder and the violin feels more light than anything and he’s happy, and he knows Uncle Aaron’s proud and Miles–)
He thinks he likes it.