Author's note:

Do you ever have that giddy feeling of: oh, now the story's really getting started? I felt that while writing this ahhhh

Best. feeling. ever. 

By the time 9 pm crept around, you'd already set up a candle in the center of the training room. A respectful shrine to your fear of the dark. Its light sputtered and was a little weak, but at least it illuminated the room with a glow. 

By 9:15, you felt annoyed. By 9:30, you felt irate. Standing attention in your glossy blue-and-gold spidersuit, waiting on Miguel.

Around 9:45, he sleepily tumbled in the room. It was clear he'd forgotten about the session. His chestnut hair was tousled, as if he'd just slunk out of bed. Wiry glasses balanced on his nose and made the sharp slant of his red eyes even sharper. He wore a thick, dark grey sweatshirt that gave him a deceptive resemblance to a cozy bear. 

"You wasted my time," you quipped, staring at Miguel with your arms loosely crossed. "Should I beat you until you can't walk?" You rolled your eyes up to the ceiling, mocking his stupid sticky note. You weren't sure how he'd even known which bed belonged to you. What if he'd terrified a hapless spiderman with his threat? 

"Go ahead." Uncharacteristically, the corner's of Miguel's mouth flicked up into a small, amused smile. "You think you can?" 

You released an angry noise, because you obviously couldn't. Miguel sighed and adjusted his glasses with two fingers. "I'm sorry I'm late. Really."

You blinked, a little shocked by how easily the apology glided off of his sharp tongue. But Miguel probably took his own punctuality very seriously. He took most things very seriously. 

Wasting no time, you demonstrated your basic web-slinging techniques while Miguel offered up corrections from the ground. 

"Hey, how are you liking those webs?" Miguel asked when you landed. He'd forgotten that Lyla had given you his laserlike, powerful webs, and seemed pleased that you still used them, even after your own had been repaired.

"They're stronger," you admitted, and Miguel's smile was genuine. You decided you liked sleepy Miguel. He was softer. A little slower. Gentler. 

Unfortunately, it didn't last. As the night drifted onward and Miguel crawled back into alertness, his permanent, resting scowl slunk back onto his face and his orders became barks. 

By 11:30, exhaustion seeped into your bones, and you dully wondered how long Miguel would command you to repeat the same, sideways-flying movement. 

"I said tuck your chin!" Miguel shouted up at you, frustration pulling his dark eyebrows down. Your costumed feet smacked into the ground, right in front of him. 

"I tucked my chin that time!" You insisted, flushed with physical exertion and irritation. 

"Clearly not, if we're having this conversation." Miguel glowered down at you. "Do it again." Groaning, you jerked back down your mask and paced across the floor. Preparing to do it again, even though your muscles whined in complaint. 

But you didn't get the chance to. The wick of the candle snuffed out and coughed its wisps of dying smoke. Dismay ripped a hole into your chest and darkness encroached into the room, spilling over everything like a black tide. 

"I can't do this, not right now," you feigned annoyance, batting back the fear that swarmed your chest like nightmarish bats. 

"Do the chin tuck. What, is the darkness gonna hurt you?" 

"Miguel." Panic laced your voice. 

"Like I said earlier, grow up. You're not a kid anymore. You're spidergirl. You can't afford to be scared of the dark." 

"Miguel would you just light the candle please?" You snapped, a little spazzy. Fear rushed up and down your arms in feverish chills. You couldn't see anything. 

"Alright, alright, I'm looking for it," Miguel mumbled, his nimble footfall tapping with a sound like the clipping of hooves. "Calm down." 

You dropped to the floor, trying to calm yourself. On the floor, the images skittered up your skin and wrapped around your head. Rats, rats everywhere. Burrowing into your clothes and whipping their naked, fleshy tails against your skin. Sitting on the floor had been a terrible idea, but now the terror turned paralyzing and you didn't dare move. You let out a little, breathy sob, but clapped a hand over your mouth so Miguel wouldn't hear. But it didn't work against his heightened hearing. 

Miguel's scattered footsteps abruptly paused. Silence. "Are you actually crying?" 

"No." You were crying. 

"Geez, Parker," Miguel sounded uncomfortable and nervous. For someone who puffed with exaggerated confidence in every other area, your crying seemed to hurl him off balance. "Stay where you are. I'm coming to find you."

"Okay." 

Miguel shuffled through the darkness. You squeezed your eyes tight and tried not to think about rats. Even after 14 years, their cruel beady eyes and filthy, ugly teeth haunted you. The shape of Miguel's monstrous shadow startled you. 

"Stop freaking out," Miguel demanded in a stern voice. He gripped your shoulder, his touch unsure. His clumsy attempt at comforting you. 

"I'm trying." 

Miguel studied you with that same contemplative, serious expression from the cafeteria. As if you were a tricky puzzle. One he wanted to fix. "They say people aren't scared of the dark. They're scared of what's in the dark."

"Oh. That's what they say?" You tried to snark through gritted teeth. 

"So what do you think's out there? What are you so scared of?" Miguel challenged, awkwardly attempting to calm you down with cold logic. Trying to convince you that your fear was irrational. 

"Rats," you whispered, your gaze nervously flicking through the shadows edging the room. You could remembered the numbness seizing your legs, the trapped panic as you struggled to breath under the crumbly weight off the collapsed roof. 

"Why are you looking over there? Do you see rats over there?" Miguel demanded, a little roughly. Agitated, you raked a hand through your hair like a claw and stayed silent. Miguel cleared his throat. "You don't want to answer? Fine. I will, then. You don't see anything." Miguel pressed two fingers against your jaw and turned your head, forcing you to meet his gaze. 

"That's right. Look at me." Miguel's eyes blazed with determination in the darkness. He was crouched over like a mountain cat, one hand holding the side of your face. "What do you see now?" You swallowed hard, clinging to the details of his face like they were a lifeline. The strong ridge of his nose. The harsh angles of his forehead. Miguel's thumb slipped under your chin and tilted it up. "C'mon. Answer me." 

"Just you." 

"Right, you just see me." Miguel nodded with approval, his hand still firm against your cheek. His callouses lightly scratched your skin. "You know why that is?" 

You shook your head, unable to think through the foggy curtain of fear and dizziness. Although, somewhere the fear had shifted, every so slightly, to a strange feeling you didn't dare to name. 

"Because the only thing in the darkness is me," Miguel said quietly, his breath so close it flicked the wispy hairs around your face. "There's nobody but the two of us in here. You have nothing to worry about." 

And all at once, like a tornado whipping around your clothes, you realized exactly what the candy-tinted fear was. Being alone with Miguel. It was less like fear, and more like exhilarating apprehension. Like shivering as you stared down the sharp dip of the rollercoaster. 

No. I'm not about to do this. Not for Miguel. 

"I'm tired," you announced, your erratic heartbeat mocking the lie. You felt your pulse, pounding through your veins like a wild ocean. "And I hate the dark. Can we get out of here and go to bed?" 

With a keen expression, Miguel pulled his hand away from your neck. You brushed yourself off and rose to your feet. When your toes curled and fidgeted against the ground, you told yourself that it was only the residue of terror from the darkness. 

"Miguel," you guiltily realized, eying the ground. "Can you go first? It's still dark, and-" Miguel cut you off with a curt nod and an annoyed huff that blew up his thick hair. 

"Just don't expect me to hold your hand on the way out," Miguel warned in a low grumble. "Because I won't." 

"I expected as much." 

"Good." 

Silently, you filed behind his lumbering form as he ducked through the empty, echoing hallways. The main atrium, typically singing with sunlight, was lit by nothing but the lonely glow of the moon and the swirls of stardust in the heavens. Through the enormous panels of windows, the galaxy bared its best pearls, a vast expanse of glittering vulnerability. 

"Get a move on, Parker," Miguel grunted, his feet faltering and his chin tilted upward. "I'm going to stay out here a moment and think." 

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" You murmured, staying by his side. You'd been in the atrium before after dark, but never on a night as clear as this. "Stars like that make you want to write something beautiful." 

"Or they make everything quiet." Miguel's words were soft and sincere. 

"Or that." 

You blinked at Miguel, at the hard lines of his face. A person like him must be desperate for quiet, clinging it between wonderstruck fingers whenever it made a rare appearance.  

Miguel stared straight ahead, up at the stars. His pinky finger flexed, barely. Reaching through the darkness. Reaching for you.

And the stars danced slow, and time danced slower, and for a moment you thought he might actually hold your hand. 

Until the sky exploded, and shards of glass tinkled down, singing like windchimes. Through the broken window, a skeletal monster bowled Miguel over, and dug its black thumbs into his neck.