【 Stranded 】 Miguel O'Hara

Part 5

"Christ Miguel, you'd think we'd be talking about assassinating the president or something." Lori said, pushing away a broom poking her side.

"You're not far off." His voice was dry as he shut the door, enclosing them in the dark in what seemed to be some sort of custodian's closet.

Miguel had been unbelievably meticulous in finding a quiet place to talk. He had led Lori to the highest floor of the venue —where in the first place few people roamed, and then squeezed them both into a dark, cramped closet where no soul could interrupt. In fact the space was so cramped that when he turned to face her, she was practically buried in his chest.

They stood in silence for a moment, the only sounds being Miguel's shuffling in an attempt to create some space between them. He only managed about elbows length. Lori also shifted backwards as much as she could in turn. But not because he made her uncomfortable in any way. In fact his somewhat blasé attitude towards her only offered relief. But at the end of the day he was still a man, and an attractive one, which was something to be wary of in her case.

His eyes flicked down to the jittering hands at her side. "Are you sure you're fine?"

Lori followed his gaze. In all honesty she hadn't realised that she had been shaking from the incident. And if anything It was more out of anger and adrenaline, but perhaps a tinge of fear had lingered.

She felt her chest warm at his concern but she quickly joked to dismiss it. "Hold my hand?"

It worked for the most part because he blew out an annoyed breath. "Funny. Now can we focus on the problem at hand?"

"If you insist." Lori ribbed.

Miguel refrained from another sigh. "The good news is Alchemax has tritium. Your friend wouldn't admt it directly but she danced around the topic too much for it to be false. Bad news is, they're working on a new project. A supercollider. "

"Sounds villainous." Lori commented.

"They're gonna run it. At a reveal party in two weeks." His hand dragged over his face. "And if it runs, the multiverse isn't gonna string itself back together like the last time one went off."

"The last time?"

"It blew a hole in the multiverse."

She tried to hide her horrified expression upon learning that their multiverse was seemingly continuously in peril. "Oh cool, so this is literally do or die... Why don't you seem worried?"

He sucked in a breath. "Well, we won't have to wait two weeks. I'll get tritium before then, fix the watch, call for backup, and destroy the collider."

"Then what's the problem?" Lori raised a brow. He couldn't have brought her all the way here to tell her just that.

Miguel looked her square in the face. "Your friend, she's spearheading the project. So we'll be going against her whether you like it or not."

Silence lingered as Lori paused. Against her? Like she was some kind of villain...?

"I need to know you wont interfere." Miguel said, leaning down to level with her eyes.

"I can talk her out of it. I'm sure she doesn't know what she's doing."

"No. You doing anything out of the ordinary is a risk to the canon."

Lori blew out an annoyed breath. "You said it yourself before. We don't even know what the canon is." She shot her eyes to his broken watch.

He folded his arms with a superior look. "Harry Osborn. In almost every other universe, he becomes a villain. It's likely this one is no different."