His story isn't mine...

That bad, huh?

———-

Miles sighed a sigh of relief. Content that this ended without any arguments.

Concerned about his posture and previous words, Hobie parted his lips and asked, hoping to crack his friend open. "You sure u okay, mate?

Miles opened his mouth, once again ready to lie, but this time the words refused to come out. He stepped away from the wall, just a little. Tucking his hands under his armpits and rocking back and forth awkwardly, wondering if he should speak.

Hobie was the person to go to if you had problems. He was always there, always ready to give his opinion without being biased.

Miles looked up at the older male and was glad that he was still there despite the time he was taking to speak.

Reading the expression on Miles's face, Hobie smiled.

"It's okay; I ain't going nowhere, mate." He reassured him. A reassurance that he actually needed.

Miles exhaled at that as he began to speak.

"I—" "You don't have to tell me now." Hobie interrupted.

"I want to—"

"You can wait a few weeks, even months, and hey, heck, years are fine too."

"Hobie!" Miles yelled.

A smile explode on Hobie's face, seeing that one tugged at Miles's lip as well. He was fooling around to help Miles relax.

"Thanks. I needed that." He confessed. Hobie shrugged. "Anytime, yeah."

He sucked a breath of air and let it out. "I...I went to Miguel."

"Hmm," Hobie hummed as Miles looked at him with one eye closed as if he were a child that had done something they shouldn't have done. Miles knew damn well that that hmmm really meant. "Why would you do that for?"

"I wanted to get along with him." He answered Hobie's silent questions.

"Why?" He asked, with the corner of his lips raised. His eyebrows low. Hobie was definitely judging him. Miles began to think.

Didn't someone state that Hobie was the one to come to if you wanted to talk without being judged?——Oh, it hit him. Actually, it was Hobie himself who was going around promoting himself to others. So he's definitely gonna judge him.

Miles exhaled through his mouth, avoiding the other male's gaze. A blush visible on his cheek as he began to scratch the back of his neck.

"For Margo."

He confessed, Heat rising to color his cheek.

His voice was barely above a whisper, and if it weren't for Hobie's spider hearing, he wouldn't have heard it—but he did. A surprise look, which exploded into a full smile, emerged on his face.

"You got it That bad, huh?" Hobie joked his arm around Miles's neck, who shyly looked away.

————

While gathering his thoughts, Miles exhaled.

"Alright, listen, Miguel. What you did wasn't cool," a small pause. "No," he backtracked. "It was fuck up! I know it was your job, but the way you handled it—" his voice died down.

His eyes met the ground. That's where he was looking at now. He couldn't go further than that. The words wouldn't come out. He felt pathetic as he looked up at the punching back with Miguel's pic on it.

He was in the HQ training room. Every afternoon after everyone had left, he'd go there, trying to comfort miguel— well, more specifically, the picture of Miguel. It was his training for the real deal.

Speaking was always easy for him. But when faced with him, Faced with Miguel, he'd go speechless.

First, Miles had just decided to acknowledge the man and give him the basic respect, then tried to get along with him for Margo; well, that backfired, so there he was trying to prepare himself to comfort the Vampire, but he wasn't getting far, was he?

He let out another breath. To him, no one was there to watch him screw up, but he couldn't have been more wrong.

Margo was a few feet away from him, standing at the door. She was always the last one to leave the headquarters since it was her job to check the system to ensure it was operational at the end of the day and at the beginning.

It had been a few weeks since she had taken notice of the teen's peculiar behavior. She did not, however, step in. He needed some room. She gave him precisely that because she knew he wanted to handle things himself. So, she let him handle things on his own.

But right now, as Miles sat on the ground, he pulled his mask off for air, and when that wasn't enough, he grasped the neck of his suit and pulled firmly. It suddenly felt uncomfortable tight to him. It was crushing, and it wasn't the only thing.

The weight of everything—every word, every spiderman that was chasing him that day—

Everything was crushing him.

Yeah, it was easy to forgive, but forgetting wasn't. How could he forget when he still had nightmares about being chased by strangers he thought were just like him? By friends, he has begun to consider family, and by someone who couldn't help but jump at him while saying he was abnormal and that he didn't belong—

Ha—

Miles was struggling to breathe. Literally. His lungs were empty. He wasn't...breathing.

Oh, no, for fuck sake, Please no,

"Breath, Miles breath."