Lore dump!! Everyone's fav!!!!!

  My feet pace Miguel's pristine hallway. My fingers tug anxiously on the collar of his shirt I'm wearing as I plan my next move.

  Outside the front door Gabriel O'Hara stands - this universe's Miguel's brother, the brother who knew this version of me. The very version of me that died two years ago. The very brother I had been avoiding lest I give him a futuristic heart attack.

  I think it might already be too late for that.

  My head falls into my hands as I groan. Why didn't I think before opening the door? Of course people of this reality would react like Gabe when they see me - I'm supposed to be six feet in the ground. Miguel really did screw my brains out.

  I resist the urge to head upstairs and wake him. He's a busy, busy man, and he needs all the rest he can get. I can handle this myself.

  Besides, it's Gabriel - sure, an alternate version of him, but he's still pretty much the same guy I knew. Maybe. I hope.

  I'd always had an affinity for Miguel's younger brother. In many ways he was like a younger brother to me, too. I was distraught when he died, and so was my Mig. Seeing him alive is weird, but a good kind of weird. It's like seeing an old friend.

  I'm not sure he feels the same. I'm actually pretty sure he'd rather not see me at all.

  I bounce on the balls of my feet and gather the courage to open the door. Come on, Y/n. You've faced worse. Scary Miguel, for one. If I'm not scared of scary Miguel, then I shouldn't be scared of anything.

  But when I grab the door handle and swing it open, I'm terrified. I plant my elbow onto the frame and send Gabriel O'Hara a grimace of a smile.

  "Wassup, man?" I say shrilly. I rest my check onto my fist and sweat. "How's it hanging?"

  Gabriel's frozen. The only movement he makes is the quick rise and fall of his chest. Everything else about him is statuesque - even his eyes don't flit about my face like how mine do to his. He is thoroughly in shock.

  I can't even blame him. If I saw my version of Gabriel (who is also supposed to be dead) without warning, I'd freak out, too. In fact, I have. I did.

  "Y/n?" Gabriel says thinly. His shock transitions swiftly into disbelief. "You're meant to be dead."

  My grimace grows a thousand times more grimace-y. "I got better-?"

  Gabriel shakes his head, as if just remembering that the multiverse is a conceivable, very real thing, and that his very brother practically commands it. The hug comes unexpectedly, so swiftly that I stumble back a few steps, and Gabriel buries his face into my shoulder.

  If this Y/n and Gabe were anything like Gabe and I were, then just as I saw him as a younger brother, he saw me as an older sister. My throat grows thick. I wrap my arms tight around him.

  "I missed you, too," I murmur.

  Gabriel huffs and pulls away. His hands rest on my shoulders. "Coño, he really did it." Gabriel sends me a despairing look. "You shouldn't be here."

  By 'did it' I assume he's referring to Miguel taking the place of my husband when he died. I used to share his disbelief. I still sometimes do. As for the second part of his sentence? Well, my heart sinks. I'm not surprised by his reaction, per say, but it still hurts to hear. I grow silent.

  Gabriel exhales slowly. He releases my shoulders and steps around me to enter Miguel's suite. He glances at the massive painting of dead-me, glances at me-me, and takes a tense seat on one of the cream-coloured couches. He holds his head in his hands. I awkwardly close the door and hover in the entrance to the living room.

  "Where's Miguel?" he asks.

  "Upstairs," I answer quietly. "He's asleep."

  "How long has he been travelling to your dimension?"

  I look away and feel like a scolded child. "... four months."

  Gabriel leans back in the couch and runs his hands down his face. He spits a curse into his palms. "He's an idiot."

  I don't speak. I'm also suddenly wishing I'd stolen some of Miguel's pants, too, even if they would swim on me and trip me over. This isn't the kind of conversation to have while wearing only my boyfriend-slash-husband's very large shirt.

  Just as I'm about to make an awkward escape towards the stairs, Miguel descends wearing only sweatpants and scratches his head with a yawn. I'm too stressed out to even ogle him. Gabriel stands, his expression stony. His older brother doesn't meet his gaze.

  "Gabe. I thought I heard you," Miguel says as he heads into the kitchen. He's already on the defence, and the energy in the room is thick and tense.

  "What do you think you're doing?" Gabriel snaps. "When you found 928-B, we agreed not to interfere!"

  Ah, yes. This is definitely a pants conversation.

  Miguel turns his focus to me before I can escape. His red gaze is guarded. "Would you like a coffee, cariño?"

  My eyes flicker between him and his brother unsurely. "Uh... no, thanks."

  "Don't ignore me- Dios, I hate it when you do that," Gabriel hisses. He approaches the kitchen where Miguel tensely makes himself a drink. "I told you it would be a bad idea! You're messing with the very nature of reality."

  "Is there a reason you came here?" Miguel asks.

  "Miguel!" Gabriel shoves his brother around to face him. "This is wrong! She's meant to stay in her world, and you're meant to stay in yours. You can't exist together." 

  Miguel's expression tightens. "Her world lost their Spider-Man. I wasn't about to let Y/n and our daughter live there without protection."

  "They're not yours!" Gabriel argues. "You can't just escape your life to join theirs, it's unnatural, Mig! She's dead!"

  Miguel flinches. His gaze jumps to me, standing hesitantly in the middle of the living room. I shift beneath the grief in his eyes. I know who I'm reminding him of, here in this world, in this home, in this shirt.

  Every part of my world is gone from me. Every part except Rosalina's bracelet. I'm even more of a spitting image of the woman he lost.

  Miguel's hurt gaze falls away. "I couldn't risk it, Gabri. She's precious to me. They both are."

  Gabriel turns away with a low groan. He rubs the back of his neck and glances at me. When our eyes meet, his bounce away. Miguel returns to making his coffee - an excuse to look neither of us in the face.

  "You can't cheat death like this," Gabriel says. "Neither of you can. Miguel, you're always talking about keeping order to the multiverse." He gestures between us. "How is this order?"

  "How can I be Spider-Man and let them live in a world without one?" Miguel counters as he stirs his drink. He's trying hard to remain calm - to explain himself, to not shun Gabriel's concern - but his facade is slipping. His anger is beginning to sizzle beneath the surface. He's a bomb moments from detonation. "I can't choose to just leave them - it goes against what we all stand for."

  Gabriel's face grows dark with frustration. "There are millions of worlds out there without Spider-Man!"

  Miguel's mug shatters beneath his palm as he swings around to bare his fanged teeth at his brother. "And there's only one with my wife!"

  Gabriel and I flinch at Miguel's booming roar. It reverberates through the suite and rattles my bones. The two brothers glare at each other for a moment before Miguel releases a disgruntled sigh and shakes the ceramic from his hand.

  "It doesn't matter what you'll say," he continues as he harshly plucks shards from his skin. "I'm not leaving them."

  Gabriel sends me an imploring look. "Y/n, come on. You know this isn't okay. It's not healthy."

  I glance between the two of them; Gabriel, desperate for me to be on his side. Miguel, head bent and shoulders taut as he removes the splinters. Despair sits heavy in my gut. Take me back to ten minutes ago, where my head was still lying on Miguel's chest while he slept. Keep me there forever.

  But, as much as I want to disagree with Gabriel... he's got a point. And it's not like I haven't been aware of this ever since Miguel arrived - I struggled with it until he grew on me. Then I just ignored it.

  I step past Gabriel and meet Miguel by the kitchen island. I pick up his gashed hands and smooth his tense talons back down to the pads of his fingers. His exhale is slow, long. He relaxes by my touch.

  "You're right. It's not healthy," I murmur. Miguel's gaze shoots to me, but I continue staring at my thumbs running over his fingertips. "But I have a daughter at home who I'd do anything for, and she adores her dad. Besides." My eyes jump to Miguel's face with a small smile. "I adore him, too."

  Miguel's troubled expression softens. I peck his fingertips.

  "He's not going anywhere," I say. "Neither am I."

  Behind me, Gabriel makes a sound of frustration.

  "Fine! Fine." He waves us off. I glance at him over my shoulder and catch him shaking his head in disbelief as he stalks to the couch. "Clearly I can't convince you."

  Gabriel slumps onto his back with his hands over his face. Slightly guilty, more so amused, I lift Miguel's sore palm to my lips to kiss.

  "It was a good effort," I offer.

  "Never would've worked," Miguel mutters grumpily. I send him a look to be nice. He scrunches his nose in disagreement.

  "Son ambos unos idiotas," Gabriel grunts from beneath his hands. He drops them to the side and stares at the ceiling, the total image of surrender. "If you're gonna be here, Y/n, then never open that goddamn door. What if Dana sees you?"

  Miguel tenses again. My brows furrow at Gabriel in confusion.

  "Who's Dana?" I ask.

  Gabriel stares at the ceiling for a silent second more before sitting up with interest. He's no longer frustrated. He's curious. "You don't have a Dana in your world?"

  "Not that I know of?"

  "How's that possible?" Gabe asks, and looks to his brother. "I thought sibling realties had direct copies of events?"

  "Y/n and her Miguel met younger than the rest of us," Miguel says. "I'm not sure why. It might contribute to him not telling her about being Spider-Man, either."

  My confusion grows. I'm glad they're no longer arguing, but now the two geniuses are speaking smart that I'm not quite smart enough for. "Is that not normal? I mean, I know the whole 'not telling me he's Spider-Man' isn't- wait, who's Dana?"

  Gabriel's eyes widen. He points at his bother. "Anomaly universe." His stunned gaze turns to me. "Your entire universe is an anomaly."

  "Let's not jump to conclusions," Miguel says with his nicked palms raised. "We don't know that."

  "What would that even mean?" I ask. "Aren't anomalies bad? Who's Dana?"

  "Not necessarily," Miguel says.

  "Tell that to the Spider-Man who died because of the spider that bit the right kid in the wrong universe," Gabriel mutters. He goes ignored.

  "It might mean that of our sibling realties, yours is a singularity that branches off on its own," Miguel explains, although he's mostly thinking out loud. "Sibling realities are entwined by identical canon events - in our sibling realities, my event of meeting Y/n is by her asking for an interview-"

  "That's the same as me," I interject. "I asked him for an interview, too."

  "But how old were you when you asked for the interview?" Gabriel asks.

  I shrug my shoulders. "Nineteen. We went to the same college."

  At Gabriel's stunned expression, I turn to Miguel in puzzlement. What was the difference, then? Two years? Three?

  Miguel sends me a gentle look. "We were twenty-eight."

  My jaw drops open in disbelief. "Huh?"

  "That's how old the rest of us were," he continues. "All of us."

  "Twenty-eight?" I echo in disbelief. At his nod, I lean my arms against the bench and have to take a moment to digest this new information.

  Twenty-eight. I knew that Y/n and Miguel had been in a relationship for five years in comparison to mine and Mig's fourteen, but meeting at twenty-eight? I'd assumed they met earlier, or were friends for a while before dating.

  I can't imagine how different of a person I'd be if I'd met Miguel at twenty-eight. We took on adulthood together, our first proper jobs, our first home. Twenty-eight year old me would've done that alone, or with... someone else.

  I can barely comprehend it. Miguel's so imbedded into who I am. 

  I peek up at him. "Does that mean Rosita's the only version of herself, too?" I ask.

  "No," Miguel answers, and he's looking at me in concern as if I'm about to faint with all this information overload. Probably because I am. "There's a branch of sibling realties where she was born before you died."

  "And there's another branch where she's named after me," Gabriel pipes up. His smile is awkward. "'Cause I died before she was born."

  I rest my forehead on the bench. Miguel places his hand on my back and rubs it consolingly.

  "Are you okay to handle one more bombshell?" he asks softly.

  I nod.

  "Dana used to be my fiancée."

  Still resting on the bench, I slowly turn my head to him. "What?"

  "We dated in college, I proposed, she left me a few years after," Miguel slowly explains.

  "It was a canon event that she dumped your ass," Gabriel snorts. Miguel shoots his brother a scowl before turning his soothing gaze back to me.

  "A few months later, Y/n walked into Alchemax and demanded an interview with me," he continues. "Rest is history."

  I circulate that in my already cluttered, spinning brain for a second before the disbelief sets in. I pull myself upright with a frown.

  "You were engaged to somebody else?" I ask, a little more than hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I forgot," he admits sheepishly. "I should have told you, I know. But between the multiverse, and you and Rosita - she never crossed my mind."

  "But she still comes here, apparently," I say curtly.  "Why?"

  Miguel can't meet my gaze. "We tried again after... and she's stubborn."

  "Oh." I cross my arms tightly over my chest, awkward. So, she was an ex-fiancée and a failed fling. One that's not quite ready to let him go just yet. 

  "It was never going to work out," he says. "I... ended it with her the same day I left for your dimension."

  My hurt transcends sharply into shock. "Miguel," I admonish.

  Gabriel snickers from the couch. "She did not take it well." He nods at me. "Now I know why it was so sudden."

  "You're unbelievable!" I exclaim, and knock Miguel's stomach with with back of my hand. Then I send a disappointed look to a chortling Gabriel. "Both of you are! That's awful!"

  "It wasn't exactly a well thought-out decision to move," Miguel hastily defends beneath my darkening scowl. "It actually wasn't thought-out at all," he mutters to himself. "But I couldn't keep seeing Dana and live with you."

  "You are a deeply flawed individual," I say.

  Miguel concedes that with a nod. "I know," he confesses. "We weren't even really dating-"

  "Miguel."

  "Right." He nods quickly, agreeably. "Shutting up."

  I raise my eyes to the ceiling and sigh in exasperation. I am suddenly and entirely emotionally wearied. My head won't stop spinning.

  "I-" Miguel goes to speak, but stops when I hold up a hand.

  "Shut up," I plead. He silences himself. I huff and send both of them a smile that probably doesn't reach my eyes. "I'm going to go upstairs, take a shower, and try to process all of this without crying." I turn on my feet to ascend the stairs. "Hasta luego."

  They don't try to stop me.

  Miguel's bathroom is like the rest of his pad - stupidly futuristic. I spend ten frustrating minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the shower before giving up and asking Lyla to turn it on for me. When I step into the warm spray, I lean my head against the glass wall and think.

  Anomaly universe. Dana. Millions of Rositas (or Gabriellas) without their moms.

  I do end up crying. 

  When I finally leave the shower and start to dry myself with a white towel - because colour is apparently nonexistent in this Nueva York - I'm paused by a knock on the door. I wrap the towel around myself and open it to reveal Miguel with a pile of clothing in his arms.

  "Are you angry at me?" Is the first thing he asks.

  I'm tempted to say yes. I'm tempted to make him squirm for keeping something so big as being engaged to another woman from me (intentionally or not). But the worry in his red eyes as he watches my shifting expression is so potent and genuine that I'm quick to cave.

  "Oh, Miguito." I pull him down to kiss his nose. "I thought you were meant to be angry at me, today."

  "I was," he says, and he looks at me so pathetically from between my palms, "but I don't like it when you're angry at me, so it was cancelled out."

  I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning in amusement. This is exactly why I'm never scared of Miguel when everyone else is - he's just a big puppy beneath his terrifying exterior. Then again, he's not a big puppy to everyone else.

  I stroke my thumbs over the apples of his sharp cheeks. "I'm not angry," I reassure. "I'm just shocked. It was a lot to take in."

  "I'm sorry."

  "You're forgiven." I kiss him and he sighs through his nose in relief. I pull back to send him a look. "But I will give you shit for this forever."

  Miguel tilts his head understandingly. "That's fair. I have to go back to HQ. Jess tried to contact me but Lyla was on do not disturb, so she sent Gabe."

  Damn it, Jess. I raise my brows. "On purpose?"

  "Probably not. It's an emergency." Miguel shrugs. "It was only a matter of time before Gabe found out, anyway. I washed your clothes."

  I take them from him. "So fast?"  

  Miguel's smile is crooked. "Welcome to 2099."

  "I don't have any underwear." The glare I send him is halfhearted.

  Now he's unapologetic. He rests his arm on the door frame and leans down close. "Your fault for initiating something without a spare set of clothes, cariño."

  I give the stink eye up at him. "Remind me to bring an extra pair next time you plan to destroy my panties."

  "I'll make note of that." Miguel holds my chin and kisses me long, soft. I soften beneath his affection.

  I hold the clothes tight to my chest, squeezing it with fluster as he steals even more kisses. I drop my chin and gaze up at him through my lashes. "I thought you said there was an emergency..?"

  Miguel closes his eyes and rests his forehead on mine. "There is," he grumbles. "Do you think you'll be okay getting back alone?"

  "You kidding me? I'm an expert with this Gizmo thingie."  

  Miguel smiles at my confidence and kisses me again, twice more. And he would kiss me until the sun set and rose, but Gabe's impatient shout from downstairs pulls him away.

  I lean against the doorframe and watch him leave until he's out of sight.

••🕷️••

    The feeling of wearing my jeans without underwear was so uncomfortable that I had to take a quick stop home to grab a new pair before heading back to the HQ.

  "There you are!" Peter practically attacks me as soon as I stumble out of the portal and into Miguel's station. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

  I look up at him with wide eyes, still heavily disorientated. "What? What happened?" My panicked gaze flickers around the base. "Is it Miguel?"

  "No, it's nothing serious." Peter grabs my arm with a smile and turns me around to see a heavily pregnant woman with shoulder-length red hair watching him amusedly. "I want you to meet my wife!"

  My eyes widen. I pause to slow my racing heart.

  "Petey," his wife says with gentle amusement. "You need to stop scaring people with your excitement."

  "I can't help it!" Peter says. He slips from my side and brings her into a gentle hug. One hand rests on her protruding belly. "I just want to show you off."

  Though I'm still reeling from shock, I smile breathlessly at the two of them. His wife meets my gaze and she shakes her head in amusement as her husband's antics.

  She seems a lot more calm and professional than I was expecting from Peter's wife. I'd assumed she would be more like him; a little eccentric and very chatty. Opposites attracting proves to be true yet again.

  "You must be Y/n." She steps forward with a hand outstretched. "I'm Mary-Jane, but people call me MJ. It's nice to finally meet Peter's best friend." She smirks. "I think I know you just as well as he does from how much he talks."

  I snicker and shake her hand with a smile. "Sounds like Peter. Nice to meet you, too."

  "Well, now I'm self-conscious that I overshare," Peter huffs.

  "You do, but I love it," MJ says with a hand on his arm.

  "Thank god," he exhales. "I'd be worried if you didn't like it."

  MJ chuckles and squeezes his arm.

  "How far along are you?" I ask MJ.

  She glances down at her belly with a weary sigh. "She should be here in a month." MJ sends me an exhausted look. "I just want her out already."

  I smile sympathetically. "It does get that way. When I was pregnant with mine I think I was close to going insane from how long it took." 

  MJ shakes her head with a frown. "And the back pain."

  "The back pain," I echo with a grimace. "Is Peter waiting on you hand and foot?"

  "I am!" Peter chirpily answers. "I'm her faithful servant first, Spider-Man second."

  "He's been very good," MJ agrees with a grateful smile his way. He puffs up proudly. "He even tolerates my mood swings with grace."

  "I do lots of things with grace," he says. His Gizmo buzzes and he reads a quick message. "Like leave you two lovely ladies to your chat and go catch a bad guy in Earth-369." He inputs a portal's coordinates and it opens up behind him. He kisses MJ goodbye before pointing at me. "Take care of my wife, Y/n."

  "You got it, buddy," I vow. "I'll take her to the cafeteria."

  "I'm trusting you," he says with one foot in the portal. "She means everything to me!"

  "Go, Pete," MJ insists with a snort. She pats her stomach. "We'll be fine in Y/n's capable hands."

  "Okay!" Peter chirps. "Bye-bye!"

  MJ and I share a humoured smile when he slips into the portal. The red light of the space-time rip fades and the station returns to its neon gloominess. I lead the way to the cafeteria; slow, to account for MJ's waddle.

  "He's fun," I say.

  "He's overbearing," MJ says with a sigh, though not upset. "I love him to bits, but I'm so glad he's got a mission. I need some space."

  "Overprotective?" I guess with a grin.

  "You have no idea." She rubs her stomach with a smirk. "This little girl's not gonna know what'll hit her." MJ then sends me a serious look. "Does the cafeteria here have hot dogs?"

  I blink, taken aback. "I think so?"

  "I hope so. I've been craving them so bad," she complains. "I don't even usually like them but I feel like if I don't have some immediately, I'll keel over."

  I laugh. "Yeah, that sounds pretty normal for pregnancy."

  Fortunately for everyone in the Spidey-HQ and the wider multiverse, there are hot dogs in the cafeteria. MJ eagerly piles three onto her plate, which I carry for her back to a table overlooking the city.

  When she's halfway through her second hot dog, she bursts into tears.

  "I'm sorry," MJ cries through a mouthful. "These just taste so damn good."

  "Oh, honey." I giggle sympathetically and pass her a napkin to wipe away her tears. "You don't need to apologise. I remember how god awful those hormones were."

  "So bad," MJ sobs. She shoves the rest of the second hot dog into her mouth and presses the napkin to her eyes. "Sho bahd."

  I pat her shoulder reassuringly. "It's okay. Let it all out."

  "Did you cry like this?" MJ asks through sniffles.

  "Yep."

  "Does it get easier?"

  "Yeah," I answer, a little shrill, and shrug helplessly. "When the little bugger's out."

  MJ groans like she's dying.

  "But-" I shuffle closer and wrap my arms around her shoulders. I rub her arm firmly. "But when you have your little girl in your arms for the first time, then you know that all of this hormone-back-pain-craving bullshit has been worth it." MJ's watery blue eyes lift to mine and I smile gently. "You'll see her face and she becomes the centre of your world."

  MJ sniffles back another wave of tears. "I know. I can't wait until she arrives." She looks down at her remaining hot dog and bursts into fresh sobs. "These taste so good!"

  I can't help the laugh that escapes me. "They are pretty good hot dogs."

  A few hours later and battle wearied, Peter and Miguel find us curled up in the same booth. We'd spent the time exchanging stories of our work, or of our husbands, or of pregnancy. Of MJ's eighteen-year-plan for her kid, and of Rosita, and of the weirdness of Miguel's and I's relationship. Just like her husband and I, we quickly became friends.

  "You two getting up to mischief?" Miguel plants his hands on my shoulders. I lean my head back with a greeting smile.

  "I've invited MJ and Peter over for dinner next week," I say. "We're going to ask Jess and Kellan, too."

  Miguel's brows raise. "Okay," he agrees.

  Peter sends a shocked look between us all as he slides into the booth beside his wife. "Wait, we're doing normal adult things?" He shakes his head in disbelief. "I didn't know we could do that."

  MJ chortles. "We can be normal adults, Petey."

  "Give me one example and I'll believe you."

  MJ turns to him. "Last week, when May's cat got out-"

  "I lied, honey," Peter says, sincerely apologetic. "I didn't catch that cat without webs."

  "Okay-" MJ concedes, "then the quiz night we attended for my work? That was pretty normal."

  Peter hisses through his teeth. "Yeah, when I went to the bathroom after eating the chilli, it wasn't because of the chilli. Or the bathroom." He shrugs helplessly. "There was a hold up at a jewellery store across the street. It was a quick fix."

  MJ sends me an exasperated look. "So I guess we can be normal adults and our husbands can do their thwip-thwip stuff."

  I smile amusedly. "I guess so."

  Miguel rests his chin on my shoulder while Peter and MJ continue to bicker about normal adult scenarios.

  "How was your mission?" I ask quietly.

  "It was fine," he answers. "How was talking with MJ?"

  "So refreshing," I say with a small smile. "It's nice to talk to a normal person. And one that's married to a Spider-Man, too. We've got a lot in common."

  His hands squeeze my shoulders. "I'm glad you're making friends here, cariño."

  I smile at Peter and MJ. She's begun to cry again, and Peter's frantically soothing her. They're the classic image of first pregnancy jitters.

  Before I met this Miguel, I didn't have many friends. I had Elle, who was perpetually long distance and in the opposite timezone. I had Alicia at work, who was less of a friend and more of a pain. Even the other soccer parents were never really in my tiny social circle.

  But now I have friends - genuine friends, friends that I can see everyday, friends that don't talk behind my back or spread gossip and rumours. Peter, Jess, MJ, Patrick. Even other Spidey's are beginning to chat with me in passing.

  My chest warms with appreciation. I rest my temple against Miguel's cheek.

  "Me, too," I say.