Silk & Cologne | Miguel O'Hara

Chapter 16 - Normal

It's been about a week now since the apartment attack. There hadn't been any news from Earth-1997 so it was business as usual for the Spider-Society again. Miguel would monitor the multiverse for any signs of anomaly activity, send in a team to deal with it or lead his own team personally. Whenever I was present when Gwen or Hobie or Peter B. would get the call to join in on a mission, my eyes always sparkled with wonder when a portal opened up and I watched them run through. I became curious what the other dimensions would look like.

Maybe if I trained enough, I would get to be a part of all this?

But whenever I'd catch Miguel staring at me, noticing the wonder in my eyes, there was an expression that he made that I couldn't quite decipher. But I knew it was something along the lines of too dangerous . I had previously asked Peter B. what fighting in other dimensions was like, and he said if it weren't for Miguel's invention of the Gizmos or day passes, your atoms would break apart bit by bit, slowly killing you.

"Your atoms don't exactly feel too jazzed about being in another dimension," as he once put it.

Miguel had also briefly explained the process to me the other day during one of our work out sessions. He said that I was almost about to experience the "glitch" process myself while Spider-Doc was tending to my wounds after he and Peter B. first rescued me. When I realized it all, it started to make a little more sense.

Now I understood the look in Miguel's eyes a bit better. He didn't want me to get myself killed. Understandably, I knew where he was coming from. I'm still fresh with my powers, despite my training and progress to control them. But I still had hope.

In between training sessions, I'd work on composing various routines like the one I displayed to Miguel during our mock battle. Just in case. Spider-Man had to actually start fighting villains eventually. Maybe not in my dimension, as per our agreement, but perhaps in Nueva York? Maybe another another dimension?

I had thought about asking Miguel to teach me how to fight, well, properly anyways. I knew with each Spider they had their own unique fighting style. I could mix my dance moves into my evasive maneuvers, but for my attacks? It could work, but be a little tricky. Which is why I need to learn some actual fighting moves.

In between his Spider-Society duties, Miguel would take a little time out of each day to come visit me in my dimension and help me clean up my apartment. Some of the furniture was salvageable and easily repaired, while others weren't as lucky. I could understand Miguel's frustration when he tried helping me fix my bookshelf after I had gathered and cleaned up my toppled book collection.

"Miguel, are you sure it goes that way?" I asked him as I read through the old instruction pamphlet I had saved from the movers.

"Pretty sure," he nodded firmly. "Any other way looks stupid,"

I glanced back at the instruction manual, looking at the pictures of the display before looking back at the shelf. "Only if you're sure,"

"Lisa, really, I have a PHD in biology, engineering, physics, I think I know how to fix a bookshelf from IKEA," He chuckled with a warm huff, his chest puffing up with pride as he worked.

He carefully forced the piece in, snapping it in place. He wiped the sweat off his brow as he sat up. His holographic outfit was a blue tank top with beige cargo pants and white sneakers. He stepped back, admiring his work before looking over at me.

"So?"

"I think you fixed it!" I beamed, smiling at him. "Now I can finally put these books away,"

Until the board cracked, and toppled down, creating a domino effect that knocked over the other boards. My mouth gaped open at the sight, no words coming out. I glanced over to Miguel and I swear I could see his left eye twitching.