Miles mórales oneshots

The scars 🥀🕊️

Tw: self harm
Miles pov

Returning from patrol, I shed my suit and collapse onto my bed. It was the Green Goblin again, he caused a lot of destruction, a lot of death, a lot of people he couldn't save. I tried my best, but still, lives were lost. I need to get stronger, to save everyone. I'm Spider-Man; I have to save them all. Weakness isn't an option. Pulling out my phone, I watch the live news report: "27 casualties today, 35 injured." Twenty-seven lives lost—I could've saved them. I can't afford to be this weak.
He tossed his phone onto the bed before quietly slipping into the kitchen to grab a knife. Returning to his room, he positioned the blade against his thigh, feeling its cold edge press into his skin. One... two... three... four... he repeated, carving 27 deep cuts—each one representing a life he could've saved. He cut as deeply as he could, making a few mistakes, seeing white amidst the red.
But that was just a side effect of his punishment. Suddenly, I hear my window slide open, and Hobie stumbles in, falling to the ground. "Shit, where am I?... Oh hey, sunflower~" he says, a big dopey grin on his face. I quickly hide my bloody thigh, covering it with a blanket, unsure of what to do except to play it cool. "Hobie? What are you doing here?"
"I decided to drop in, literally," he giggled, getting up and lying on the bed. "Why are you up so late?" he asks. "Oh, you know, just studying," I reply, feeling a little light-headed. "Ha, nerd!" he says in a goofy tone.
"Why are you here?" I ask. "I was going to go bother Pav, but I guess I stumbled into your universe instead," he says.
"Maybe you should go to Pav's universe," I suggest, trying to get him to leave.
"Nah, I'm comfy now. Besides, we haven't talked one on one for a while now. Just, you know, checking up on you," he says.
"Well, I'm about to go to sleep, so you'd probably be bored," I lie.

He looked at me. Hobie never showed his emotions on his face, but his skin—you could see what he was thinking. He was tinted blue, with words reading upon his skin: 'poor kid,' 'that's a lot of blood,' 'maybe I should tell him.'
I looked down at the blanket, now soaked in red. Glancing back up, he knew that I knew he knew. I got up, my head dizzy, but I managed to make it to the bathroom and lock the door. Sitting on the floor, still bleeding and feeling queasy, I put a towel on it to stop the bleeding.
He knocks on the door. "Mate, open the door," his voice calm. He jiggles the doorknob. "No," I said. "Mate, let me help you," he says. "No... just leave," I plead. "Mate," he persists. "I said no! Just leave, please. I can handle it," I said.

There's silence for a bit, then the door jiggles and it opens. Hobie had picked the lock. I'm too weak to move, so I just hide away in shame. He looks down at me, and for the first time, I see concern on his face. He closes the door, picking me up and putting me on the sink counter. He looks through the cabinets for bandages and something to clean the cuts with.
He puts the sterile wipes on my cuts, and I wince a bit. "It's okay, you're alright," he says. I pout a bit; no, I wasn't. I didn't like the wipes.
"Mate, come on, with how deep these are, you can get an infection," he says. "How'd you get these anyways?"
"From a fight with Green Goblin," I quickly lie. I've gotten really good at lying on the fly.
"Hm," he says. "Let me tell you a story." I look at him, confused.
"There once was a Spider-Man who wasn't happy. He tried being happy, but it wasn't as easy as he thought," he says. "He would be angry at himself for things he couldn't control. He loved being Spider-Man, he loved being a hero, but he didn't like that he couldn't save everyone though."
I'm now invested, looking with wonder as he wraps me up.
"So he would take it out on himself. He'd burn himself, cut himself; he would do things you should never do to your body," he says. "But he learned something from an older friend: you can't save everybody. You can try your goddamn hardest, but you can't. People die every day; it's a part of life. And when he learned that, he felt better. Sure, he was sad that he couldn't save everyone, but at least he saved as many as he could."
My eyes welled up with tears as he finished wrapping me up. "He also learned that taking it out on himself wasn't helping him. It wasn't going to bring the people back; it was only keeping him from saving others," he said, looking into my eyes. "Now I'll ask you again, how did you get those?"
My eyes betrayed me as warm tears slid down my face. "I'm sorry... I know better... it's just," I couldn't get the words out. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. "It's alright, mate. I'm here. Let it out," he says.
I cried, stumbling out rants about the stress of being Spider-Man, the stress of not saving everyone, the stress of not being strong enough.
He had picked me up, and now we were in my bed, holding me close. "How many people did you save?" he asked. I couldn't remember, not enough, that's for sure.
"You're focusing on the negative too much. You can't save everyone; that's just a fact. But that doesn't make you weak. Cutting yourself will not help you, will not bring the people back, and will not make you feel better," he says, his voice a little stern but comforting.
Hobie pulled up his sleeve, revealing a range of neatly and purposely placed scars all along his arm, with a tattoo of a cutting board around it. "The story I told you was about me. I was in the same boat, but that boat is sinking. It's not healthy," he says. "I won't tell anyone, but you gotta promise to stop."
I nod, but it wasn't a genuine nod. I'll just get back to it when he's gone.
"I'll be checking up on you every day, and if it gets worse, I'm going to get HQ involved, and we both don't want that, do we?" he says. I shake my head no. He holds me close, running one hand through my hair and the other rubbing my back.
"You're not weak. I was like you, and I know you think you're weak. You're not. You're the bravest, smartest, and sweetest Spider-Man I know," he says.
I smile, a genuine smile. I nuzzle my head into his chest, and I fall asleep.