#Secure Installation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

clowningaroundmars · 5 months ago

Text

Hobie1610 pt. 2

after god knows how long (months tho tbh), i am happy to present: hobie1610 part dos! In this installment, we see how Miles eventually rounds right back to Hobie Jones to apologize after pt. 1's gigantic blunder

hope y'all enjoy! :)

>pt. 1 here<

>pt. 3 here<

It was several weeks into the first semester-- with winter just right around the corner-- before Miles finally got around to confronting the little Hobie Problem that he had.

Being laden with pounds upon pounds of assignments to get done before the holidays and then trying to keep up with Spiderman duties on top of it all, managing his parents’ overwhelming expectations once again, and trying to survive as a teenager in general forced his first day blunder onto the back burner for much longer than Miles would have liked.

Sure, his anxiety is a bitch sometimes, and it holds him back from directly addressing a lot of issues in his life, but Rio didn’t raise any neanderthal. Miles knew that when he messed up, he messed up.

Problem is, every time he’s tempted to just reach a hand out to his dimension’s Hobie Br-- Jones, pat his shoulder lightly, pull him into a corner somewhere during lunch maybe, and finally man up and apologize… that’s when some crook starts some problems downtown, or some mad scientist finally snaps somewhere and starts to wreak havoc with crazy gadgets a bit too unnervingly close to his neighborhood.

Or Miles gets back to his dorm room and sees that he has an assignment due the very next day that he hasn’t even had the chance to hop on yet, because of aforementioned crooks and mad scientists.

It was all driving him crazy.

And so now here he was, up on a rooftop in the middle of a chilly fall day, hanging out with his inter-dimensional besties (who he lightheartedly calls the Spider Squad but he hasn’t quite brought that up to them yet).

They were on a lunch break after pummeling and restraining some prisoners-- who somehow got out of the Raft-- that tried to make their way across the Brooklyn Bridge. Miles sure appreciated the help, which was one of the many positives of letting Hobie Brown make dimension watches for everyone, mostly so they could all help another Spider shoulder the burdens that usually befell them.

But the teens-- being teens, of course-- also used their watches to just pop into an open portal and hang out with each other as often as they could. Who could blame them? Being a superhero and a kid was overwhelming most of the time. Sometimes they needed a listening ear or a supportive shoulder to cry on every now and then, and getting the opportunity to chill and explore a whole new world for them was always a thrill.

(Miles himself could never deny the excitement of getting to go to Mumbattan for shopping trips every so often, either.)

So with all of that in mind it was tempting to, after seeing the long and lanky punk Spiderman climb through his own multi-colored portal, ask Hobie if he could go back to New London with him. He needed to get something off of his chest.

Hobie, languidly as ever, hikes a skinny shoulder up in a nonchalant shrug and goes “ye’ sure, mate. Somethin’ up, or?”

Pavitr leans forward from his conversation with Gwen-- the little snoop, goddamnit-- and swallows a particularly big bite of his sandwich. “Oooooh, Miles and Hobie? Alone, in New London? Wow!” He elbows Gwen, who shakes her head and snorts into her bottled juice.

Miles puffs up. “Hey, it’s not like that! We just need to talk. In private. Nothing’s wrong, I uh… I just need some advice. That’s all!”

Hobie’s grin is full of teeth. “Waidaminnit. Miles Morales... Thee Great Miles Morales, needin’ my advice? Interesting!” His freeform locs bob and wiggle teasingly with every movement of his head.

Feeling put on the spot, Miles pouts as he picks at some lint on his spider suit and finishes off his soda as quickly as he can manage.

Gwen, bless her heart, notices his discomfort and scooches closer to him on the rooftop ledge. “… Is everything alright, by the way? It isn’t anything bad, is it?”

Miles glances at her before returning his gaze to the concrete several stories below. “Uhm, nah. Nah, it’s… y’know, it’s just more inter-dimensional weirdness. But I’m sure I can fix it. I think,”

He then shoots her a grateful smile for her considerate check-in, and pulls his mask back down over the lower half of his face. Gwen understands this as his “I’ll be back for another check-in later,” behavior and simply nods back. She knows not to push him.

“Well,” Hobie unfolds himself from his position on some scaffolding on the side of building, straightening himself up to his full height and stretching, “I’m all finished, then. Prob'ly not a good idea to go swingin’ on full stomachs, though. Let’s take a quick walk before headin’ home, yeah?”

Miles grabs Hobie’s hand and helps him hoist himself up over the ledge, and the teens all gather their trash into one plastic bag together. They chatter and slip their masks on as they casually walk down the side of the half-constructed building, finally touching down onto the concrete alleyways and relishing the quiet of an empty block before heading to the congested streets of downtown Brooklyn.

They all eventually bid each other their farewells after a few quick photo ops from excited New Yorkers, but of course not before Pavitr leans into Miles’ ear conspiratorially and whispers: “Let me know how it goes, bro! Good luck!”

Pav punches Miles on the shoulder lightly and winks at him, then he does a backflip into his golden-bright portal and blinks out of existence.

Miles rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Does he want me and Hobie to be together, or me and you? I can never tell with that guy,” he groans at Gwen, whose shoulders are shaking with badly-concealed laughter.

“I think he just watches too many of those soap operas, honestly. Trashy daytime TV will do that to a guy sometimes.” She quips just as humorlessly.

Miles gives her a sidelong glance and a smirk. “Right. Rots your brain. Poor Pav!”

Gwen and Hobie laugh at that as Gwen pulls up her own portal.

“I’m thinkin’ we need t’ stage an intervention, really.” Hobie adds.

“Yes, and soon,” Miles points out.

“I’ll see what I can do to pull him away from those shows, but you know how his aunt is,” Gwen snorts. “Plus, I’m pretty sure Pav is just a huge romantic anyways, soaps or no soaps.”

“When I’ve got relationship issues, I guess I know the guy to go to, then,” Miles shrugs, then throws Gwen a casual salute goodbye.

She stands in front of white and multi-colored splotches of watercolor floating out from her dimensional portal as she salutes Miles back, giving Hobie a quick wave. “Let me know how your little inter-dimensional weirdness problem goes too, Miles! Talk to us in the groupchat every once in a while!”

And like that, she’s gone.

So now Hobie and Miles were left alone together.

Standing in the middle of a dirty alleyway on a cold autumn afternoon wasn’t Miles’ exact definition of a good time, though… why wasn’t Hobie opening his own portal right now? Miles turns his mask’s gigantic white eyes up to his dimensional variant (and boy was that a weird thing to think about when Hobie brought that up one day during a Spider Sleepover at Gwen’s) and gives him a pointed stare.

Hobie’s own painted eyes meet his.

“So…” Miles says.

“So…” Hobie says, his grin evident in his voice.

“Are we or are we not going back to yours?” Miles stuck his fists on his hips impatiently.

“First,” Hobie says as he holds up a long skinny finger, “I gotta know what this is about. ‘Cause we all know you, Miles. I don’t wanna enable any avoidant behaviors, mate. You know how it is.”

“What?!” Miles throws up his hands in the air. “Dude! SO not cool! You are not my dad.”

Hobie shakes his head. “You know I’m right, though. This ain’t about your parents, is it?”

Goddamn Hobie and his parental instincts. When is this guy ever going to get off of mom duty?

Miles huffs. “No, Hobie. It’s not. Look. I just, uh… if you don’t wanna go back to your dimension, then can we get away from like… this area in general, please?”

Hobie hummed in thought, then shrugged and shot a web up to a nearby street lamp. Together, the two Spidermen swung through the concrete jungle that was earth-1610’s New York City until they ended up somewhere near the Financial District in Manhattan, happening upon a sort of indoor rooftop terrace party that a bunch of corporate yuppie-looking people were enjoying behind giant glass windows. A few of those yuppies were out onto the actual rooftop smoking and talking amongst themselves in the cold while the party bumped along behind them.

The sun was setting quickly, and darkness descended upon both Spiderman as they scaled a nearby building and sat on a water tank to secretly watch the party from a little ways away. Miles took solace in the dark most times, and drank up the view of what few stars could be seen in the New York City skyline.

The clouds were scarce on this particular fall evening, so the red and yellow hues on the horizon were completely uninterrupted. Miles’ dimension took on an almost ethereal glow sometimes, and during this time of day, he was more than grateful for it.

Hobie was silent as he watched the sun set alongside Miles, until the entire city was enshrouded in darkness and the stars of the cosmos seemed to have fallen from the heavens and landed right onto the buildings and bridges laid out all before them. Lights from cars making their nightly rounds and tall buildings glittered all around them, and just beyond the skyscrapers, bits of the Upper Bay could be seen shimmering and reflecting the glittery light right back.

It was breathtaking. Beautiful.

But time was running out. They couldn’t sit here and watch the scenery and the people from several hundred feet away forever. Miles also knew Hobie had stuff to deal with in his own world, a million miles away from anything he could ever know. With a world-weary sigh, Miles finally takes his mask off fully and winds it up and around his hands, over and over.

“Your problem botherin’ you that much, Mi?” Hobie grins at his friend, taking his own mask off and running a hand through his locs.

“It’s just… I…” Miles chews on the inside of his cheek, wondering how to proceed.

It really was a weird problem to have, all things considered. There aren't many instances where someone pisses off a dimensional variant of their friend, and they have another version of that very same friend right by their side to ask how to even go about fixing the rift they caused in the first place.

“It’s just that I... like… I messed up pretty badly, right? And I know it’s totally my fault,” Miles is speaking quickly now, bottled up words now spilling forth like water, “but my anxiety started spiking up randomly out of nowhere and I just blew it, man. I wasn’t really thinking. Well, actually, I was. I was overthinking but I didn’t really mean to leave this guy hanging for so long afterwards and--”

Hobie throws a leg over his other one, propping himself onto an arm and leaning back to face Miles. “Okay. Okay, Miles, that’s cool. Thanks for the disclaimer, bruv, but we’re gonna have to start from the beginning.” He chuckles.

Miles laughs nervously. “Right, right. Yeah,” he takes a breath, licks his lips and tries again.

“So… on my first day of school I bumped into… you. I mean, not you, I mean like my dimension’s version of you.”

Hobie raised a pierced brow. “Wait, there’s another me here, too?”

“Yeah, yeah and I just almost crashed right into-- wait.” Miles’ brain took a second to buffer. “What do you mean too?”

“Ehhh, we found another me in some odd dimension or another. Y’know, like, one of those ones we don’t go to often. It was whatever,” Hobie shrugs casually.

Miles had a couple of questions about that but he decided to stick to the topic and not get distracted for now. “... Right, cool. So yeah, I almost crashed into you at Visions, except it wasn’t you.”

Hobie nodded. “You almost crashed into Not Me. Got it.”

“… Because I was late for class and not really, uh, thinking. Like at all. But it was you, you know what I mean? Not You is super bad at directions and navigating buildings, I guess, so I helped him out. Annddd I guess he wanted to be my friend afterwards, but.”

“Mhmm,” Hobie hums, in a tone that sounded a lot like him saying go on, then.

“Did you, uh… did you know your name is Jones sometimes?” Miles scratches at his ear awkwardly. “Hobie Jones, not Hobie Brown. It was weird when I found out, because another student said his full name and so that’s how I found out in the first place,”

Hobie inhales. “Hmm! Interesting. Dunno that I like the sound of that, if we’re gonna be honest here. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue the same, I think. But alright. Why’s that so important?”

“Uhhh,”

Hm. Shit. This was the part Miles dreaded getting to in the first place.

How was he going to put into words the weird dread that befell him upon learning that this Jones character might very well be this dimension’s version of his MJ? How could he possibly explain the thrilling electricity that races up and down his spine everytime he totally does not think about dating, kissing, possibly even having children with this other Hobie? How was he going to get that across to this super-cool, super-hot, super-put-together version of him?

Speaking those kinds of words out loud right to Hobie’s chiseled face made Miles slightly nauseous. He opted to circumnavigate that little problem altogether.

“Listen, don’t ask, okay? Seriously, man, I’m not playin’. Buuuut… if I pissed you off real bad, how would. Like, how could I make it up to you, theoretically speaking?”

Hobie exhaled a laugh. Miles could see his bright grin even in the low lighting of the night. “Huh? How’d you go from helpin’ Not Me out to pissin’ ‘im off all of the sudden? We’re missin' a step there, Milesie. C’mon now,”

Miles laughed too. “Ho-biieee, I already told you, man!” He hated how whiny he sounded, but this really wasn’t the time. “You cannot ask me about it!”

Hobie tossed his head like a horse. “Oh my god, mate. I can’t give ya solid advice when I don’t even know what the hell I’m givin’ advice for. I gotta know what happened, bruv, what’d ya do?”

“Just--! Ugh,” Miles deflated. “I maybe sorta... ditched him all of a sudden. Like, out of nowhere. When he, uh, when he needed me.”

Hobie’s glittering eyes bore holes into Miles’ hot face. “Mhmm? Why for?”

“Hobie, for the love of all that is good in the world, just--! Throw me a bone, here, man. I am dying of embarrassment right now!” He buried his face in his hands as Hobie rocked back with laughter.

“Why’d ya ditch ‘im?! That doesn’t sound like ya, Mi. Sounds like a real wick thing, but not a Morales thing to do. C’mon, what did Not Me say to you? You can pretend I’m him and I’ll apologize an’ everything.”

“No no no no, Hobie you don’t get it,” Miles sighed. “He didn’t do or say anything. That’s the thing. I just… I freaked out I guess, when I looked up his name and saw that he was a super accomplished model and everything. He’s got thousands of followers on Flickstagram, even. But I just…! I dunno what my brain was doing to me, once I saw that. I guess I just had a mini panic attack and just… bounced. Then, obviously I had tons of homework and Spiderman stuff to deal with, so ever since then, we’ve just been avoiding each other in the halls and I haven’t had any time to even tell him anything. I really messed up, man.”

Hobie was unnervingly silent as he thought for a good minute. The night had really fallen thick onto the city and the temperatures were dropping fast. Miles could barely see his own breath clouding in front of him or even Hobie’s face now that the darkness completely enshrouded them both, and it made him a little nervous.

“So…” Miles prodded carefully.

“Super accomplished model and everything, eh?” Hobie quietly asked after a little while. Miles couldn’t see Hobie’s expression, but he could hear the rhythmic rubbing of fabric against fabric as Hobie rubbed at his arm with a gloved hand.

“Uhhyup.” Miles confirmed.

“Hm. Utterly fascinated now, mate. Tell me more about this other me, then. He cool like me, or a total neurotic space cadet?”

Miles rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I can’t tell you much. We haven’t gotten to talk much. I guess you can be the judge, here’s his social media here...”

He then pulls his phone out of a recently-added pocket he found the time to sew onto his suit, taking inspiration from his mother’s own yoga leggings that she got as a birthday gift a few months before. The fact that spandex was able to hold so much but still stay so snug against your body was nothing short of a modern miracle, in Miles’ opinion. He was grateful for it now as he unlocked his phone and tapped on Hobie M. Jones’ page right out of the search history on his phone’s Flickstagram app.

Once he hands his phone to his friend, he has to resist the urge to suck in a breath as he watches the bright light from his screen illuminate Hobie’s features in ways he’s never seen before.

Hobie takes a second to scroll for a bit and Miles watches as the light plays across his features with just a bit more rapt attention than he normally would. Must be getting late, and Miles’ brain has historically been known not to work very well when he was tired.

Then, Hobie handed the phone back to Miles and folded his arms across his knees.

“Interesting, interesting,” was all he muttered. Thankfully, he did not comment on the “M. Jones” part of the username.

Miles tried lightening the mood. “Let me guess. You hate him because he’s not a fascist-fighting punk like you, huh.”

“I can’t be th’ judge of that, Miles. You know social media ain’t real life, and all that just looked like his portfolio to me, if we’re gonna be honest.” He checked his spiked bracelet in the light of Miles’ lit up screen. “I think that this other me doesn’t really feel too comfortable openin’ up and lettin’ other people see who he really is, though. So if you do go off an’ apologize to ‘im, I don’t think it’ll be very easy to gain his trust back.”

“Hold on,” Miles shakes his head and tucks his phone away again. “You got all that from looking at his Flicksta for not even a minute? How do you even know all of that?”

“’Cause he’s me, bruv. I know that look on his face, on those candids. Even them professional shots look… like, well, I dunno how t’ explain it. I guess it’s just sort of like--”

“If you know, you know?” Miles puts in.

“Mm,” Hobie smiles and nods. “Yep. That. He’s… withdrawn. Held back. I ‘unno… doesn’t seem like he has many friends.”

Miles sits back to think about the distant and carefully-put together mask that Hobie Jones slipped onto his face back when an annoying student butted into their conversation just before 2nd period that fateful day. Not to mention how famous he seemed, that the whole school wanted to pull him into a million different directions just for some selfies and autographs in general…

“He’s famous. He has a billboard up near the school, even,” Miles says without thinking.

“That explains it, then.”

Miles thought aloud for a bit. “He told me that I was the only person in the world who didn’t look at him like he was made out of solid gold. Hmmm,”

“Right then. That’s a start, eh?”

Miles sighed. “I-if… if someone who you thought could be like, your only friend in the whole world. Your only real friend… if that person abandoned you out of nowhere, with no explanation… how would I go about making it up to you?”

Hobie doesn’t comment on the phrasing of that question, either. He lays a warm hand on Miles’ cold shoulder and squeezes.

“Listen, Mi. You’re real special, you already know that. If he liked ya enough to wanna be your friend the very same day you two met, then I bet you can come up with somethin’ that’ll stick eventually. That being said… a little food ain’t never hurt no one.”

They stare at each other in the dark for a second.

“Uh, what?” Miles asks.

“Y’know. Like a peace offering. Bring ‘im a peace offering, make your apology, and then leave the poor kid alone. Let ‘im sorta… well, let ‘im kinda just chase you a little bit, right?”

Miles’ brow was raised high now. “What, like. Just leave some food and a note for him at lunch or something? Dude, that is so lame!”

“It’s about the mystique, mate. Trust me. Gotta keep the intrigue up, don’t crowd him too much or else you’ll scare man away, right? I hate when people grovel at my feet if I’m gonna be dead honest with ya. Don’t make too much of a big deal of it, and he just might forgive ya. You two'll be holdin' hands in no time,”

“Is that it? Is it really that easy?” Miles was skeptical.

Hobie shrugs and removes his hand from Miles’ shoulder. “Hell if I know, but if he’s anything like me, it just might work. Just be prepared to take it on the chin if he doesn’t forgive you in the end, though. Gettin’ ditched like that with no warning’s a bit hard on someone who’s never had any friends to lean on in the first place.”

Made sense to Miles. He shrugged, nodded, and then had only one question left to ask.

“… Cool. Got it. So, uh. What kinda food do you like, anyways?”

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

And that was how Miles ended up making a quick run (swing, really) over to his favorite Jamaican store for a dinner plate with some beef patties thrown in during the next day’s lunch period.

He couldn’t afford to be seen by security, so he suited up at his usual place on the rooftop of the school and sailed down to retrieve his peace offering as quickly as he could before lunch was over.

What luck, that he had the same lunch as Hobie Jones! Made this whole run a pretty easy thing to do at all, which was always a bonus.

Once he made his way back to the school, he hurriedly stuffed his mask back into his bag and practically jumped back into his uniform, not even taking the time to stop and check if his suit was properly hidden. No time for that, when the period was almost over and he hadn’t even gotten a bite to eat for himself.

Miles also took the time to write up what he hoped was a sufficiently appropriate apology note the previous night after getting back to his dorm room at a late hour, and he tucked that into the crinkled paper bag as carefully as he could manage. A grease-stained apology note was definitely not a cool thing to receive, especially from someone who wronged you out of nowhere and wasn’t even man enough to say that apology to your face.

He arranged everything as best he could while flying down several flights of stairs down to the cafeteria.

Once Miles pushes past the double doors into the large cafeteria area, he feels the tightness in his chest and the heat radiating from his gut outwards intensify more as he gets closer to his target.

It takes a bit of wandering to finally spot Hobie, but then Miles sees him: sat at a table near the center of the room. He’s surrounded by a bunch of fake friends all talking loudly over one another and trading phones over their meals. Hobie Jones himself looks forlorn even when in the middle of a group, surrounded on all sides by bodies he doesn’t even look directly at, even when he turns his head slightly to speak to them.

Well, shit.

Miles was not expecting Hobie to have fallen into so large a group of friends so soon. He spotted the same girl who pulled him aside for a selfie that one time sat at the same table, and her and her little posse were just gossiping loudly about any and everyone.

Miles found his feet stuck to the floor upon finally laying eyes on the scene.

Ugh. God. A bunch of preps poking their noses into his and Hobie’s business while probably begging to read the very private note that Miles wrote for him was absolutely not anywhere in his list of things he’d like to experience today.

So Miles did a sudden about-face and walked away quickly, before he was even spotted.

Plan B was set in motion, then: give the bag over to Hobie before the next period.

Miles always dreaded the class he and Hobie shared right after lunch. The awkwardness subsided after a while, since it was kinda hard to feel so bad about The Incident when the entire class had to cram for quizzes and do research for essays, but the pit in Miles’ stomach as he purposefully averted his gaze away from that corner of the room was never easy to ignore.

But now, after weeks of gloom and doom, Miles found himself actually being excited for the bell to ring. He quietly made his way upstairs to the top level and slipped into the classroom as gracefully as he could manage.

Sure, he was nervous as hell about it all, at the end of the day. But he wanted this little problem that’s been put away for far too long to just… finally be done and over with. If for nothing else, he just wanted one less student at Visions hating his guts, really.

He placed the paper bag onto Hobie’s chair and scooted it underneath the desk to hide it from the rest of the classroom. The last thing he needed was some other nosy student swiping it up and rifling through the contents before Hobie could see it.

Miles ate part of his sandwich in the peace and quiet of the classroom, enjoying what precious little minutes he had until the bell rang and everyone-- including the teacher-- filed in to start the class’s lessons of the day.

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

Miles’ simple plan was a success, just as his buddy Hobie Brown had predicted.

Hobie Jones had read the note quietly in his corner of the room and hastily shoved the dinner plate into his backpack soon after.

Miles didn’t know if that meant he was forgiven or not, but at least he took the (probably cold) food with him and read the note without tearing it up into a million pieces, so at least Miles had that going for him.

There was one last step to really clinch the victory, though; an invitation to meet up at the rooftop later that day, before the last bell finally rung and let all of the kids out of the school for the day. Miles still had a lot to get off his chest that he couldn’t quite lay down on paper, and he needed to properly apologize to Hobie’s face to finally put his conscience at ease.

Whether or not Hobie took the invitation was left up in the air, really.

Miles made sure to try and get a head start so he could make it up there before Hobie could, but he made sure to add “be up at the rooftop by 3:30pm if you’re coming or I’m bouncing” to the end of the note, because as much as he wanted to make amends with his dimension’s Hobie, he was not going to let petty school drama get in the way of Spiderman-ing.

Miles was a man of standards, and he held himself to some level of professionalism, thank you very much!

It was cold that day, very cold.

Miles was lowkey regretting his decision to meet outside now as he tucked his chin deeper into his big puffer jacket, warming his hands with his warm breath before shoving them into his pockets.

He hoped Hobie had gotten used to getting around the hallways a bit more now, and that he could find his way up to the roof level without becoming completely lost and just giving up entirely.

As the minutes crawled by, Miles found himself unlocking and locking his phone multiple times, checking the time, checking for any notifications to distract himself, and wondering just why he decided on the roof to meet instead of, say, his dorm room hallway or whatever.

Then, the roof access door slowly swung open, and there stood Hobie M. Jones in all his six-foot-something glory.

Miles sucked in his breath as Hobie’s big brown eyes scanned the roof and fell upon his face, and the both of them stood rooted to their spots for a split second like deer in headlights.

Then Hobie grunted, tugged at his ponytail to let it loose, and his long dreads fell all around his face in one graceful movement. Miles felt his mouth go dry.

Miles’ feet moved on their own. They met in the middle, and a strong wind rushed through to tousle Hobie’s impressive locs some more as they both stared each other down.

Miles finally opened his mouth to speak, feeling his voice catching in his throat for a split second, before being interrupted anyways.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Hobie says quickly, tucking his own chin into his expensive-looking jacket’s collar as well.

Miles’ brain bluescreened. “Wait, wha?”

Hobie huffed out a laugh, the vapors of his breath being carried away in the chilly wind like dandelion seeds. “I’m being serious, man. It’s… it’s cool, honestly. I get why you ditched me. It happens all the time,”

Miles’ heart sinks. “N-no, Hobie, look. I really messed up and I felt like I had to-- wait, what do you mean all the time?”

Miles had a sweeping feeling of déja vu overcome him then.

Hobie chuckled ruefully, shrugging as he shoves his hands deeper into his own pockets, mirroring Miles. “I mean, like… you think you’re the only one who ever ran for the hills after seeing how famous I was? It just happens. That’s my life, I guess.”

Miles’ lower lip stuck out a bit. “But that’s… dude. That is so depressing!”

Hobie shook his head, tossing a loc out of his face. “Sure, but it’s… it’s just my life. It’s just how things are when you’re a model around here.”

They looked sadly into each other’s eyes before Hobie averts his gaze to his shoes, scuffing the toe on the roof floor for a second before looking back up and continuing.

“… You, uhm. How’d you… how’d you know that I like Jamaican food, though? I’ve never told anyone about that before. Nobody but my family, anyways.”

“Uhh, lucky guess?” Miles offers him a lopsided grin.

Hobie smiles for real this time, the corners of his eyes crinkling just like his earth-138 counterpart. “You really are a weird guy, just like you said before. What else did you want to tell me, before we both gotta bounce?”

Miles gaped at him like a fish. “You… you have to let me apologize, though. Like actually. Before we both have to go.”

Hobie nodded. “Okay. I’m all ears,”

Miles took a deep breath. “I…!" His voice caught in his throat for a second. "Uh. Do you wanna maybe… hang out, like outside of school sometime? Maybe grab some more Jamaican food from my favorite place?”

Hobie looks at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “You… that’s your apology?”

Miles sighed. “I’m bad at conflict management, man. Just let me treat you to some more lunch and then… maybe we can just let this whole thing go, yeah? You won’t ever have to talk to me again after this, I promise!”

“You are seriously sending me mixed signals here,” Hobie says. But he doesn’t seem opposed to the idea.

“I know, I know! But please, just humor me, man. We can do it this weekend, even. I just… feel like a total dick after what I did and I wanna be able to actually make it up to you.”

Hobie directs his shy smile back down to the ground. “Jesus,” he mutters.

Miles holds his palms forward. “What? Is that a no?”

Hobie laughs, full and bright and it-- fuck-- it fills Miles with a dizzying thrill that makes him laugh, too!

“Fine… but if you ditch me again this time, you asshole--” Hobie grabs the front of Miles’ jacket and yanks it towards him, putting the both of them closer together and making a complete heatwave roll through Miles’ nerves, “I will-- uh,”

Miles doesn’t register why Hobie stops speaking all of a sudden until his eyes slowly follow down to what he’s looking at, and then both of their hearts stop at the same time.

In Miles’ earlier haste to jump into his clothing after his meal run, he forgot to button a few buttons on his shirt, which left his very visibly black and red suit out in the open with just one small yank of his coat’s zipper. The top of his red spider emblem shone bright against the dark spandex.

For a second, the world stopped. The wind stopped blowing, the cars down below stopped honking, Miles stopped breathing.

Then, he hastily took a step back and cleared his throat, hoping against hope that Hobie would not recognize the spider suit so easily.

“S-so, yeah? You’ll go? I, uh, promise I won’t stand you up if you do. We can, uhm. Exchange numbers if you want--” here, Miles starts fumbling around his pockets for his phone, a device that he clung onto like a lifeline moments ago now almost completely forgotten in the excitement of the situation.

Hobie swallows and takes a step back also. “Y-yeah… yeah, sure. Let’s uhm. Let’s link up later, then.”

Miles lets Hobie input his digits into his contact list, and then bids him farewell.

“I’ll text you later, okay? Gotta go now, bye!”

Miles almost wants to throw himself off the roof of the school just to land on the concrete sidewalks below with a splat. A flattened spider. It’s what he deserves, honestly.

But he swallows his embarrassment and rushes down the stairs towards his own dorm room, instead.

He seriously, seriously hopes Hobie didn't recognize his spider suit, goddamn!

Once Miles gets to his room, he sags against the door with a sigh and shrugs off his puffer jacket. Then, he fishes his phone out of the jacket’s pocket and flicks the screen on, which now has Hobie Jones’ digits input into it under the name of “MJ (from Visions)”.

Miles throws himself into his and Ganke’s shared computer chair and twirls over to the window.

It’s Miles. I am not ditching you this time, PROMISE, he sends over to the number.

A few minutes later, he gets a response and his stomach flutters with the chime.

You better not, Hobie playfully teases. I know where you sleep…

A few more knife emojis accompany the texts and Miles laughs out loud. Then he bites his lip.

Fuck… damn. This really is earth-1610’s version of MJ, huh. The name beamed straight into his eyeballs from where it sat right at the top of his messages and it continued to haunt him as he got his laptop out for the night to finally make some more leeway on his English essay.

Miles went to bed that night dreaming of him and a red-headed Hobie Jones holding Mayday.

#spiderverse #hobie brown #miles morales #punkflower #mine #*stadium cheering* miles did it!!! he did it!#with his awkward spider rizz he secured a dat-- i mean a hangout with hobie mfing jones!!#stay tuned to see what happens in part three 👀#and who knows..... there just might also be a part four.....................#<_<#we just might have to see!#also goddamn i know that pic i drew and threw in there is. bad. but ive been playing with markers lately since i bought them #so i figured i'd also use this fic lowkey as practice lmfao #pls excuse the weird mistakes and bad coloring overall. its been years. IM TRYING OK 😭#gonna hopefully add in a much better drawing to the next installment. just gotta practice more is all!#also this is my 1st time writing out hobie brown's dialogue with tha accent n everything #lemme kno how i did 👍 i tried not to make the accent TOO cringey to read!

39 notes · View notes

cdroloisms · 1 year ago

Note

I think Dream in prison was always going to go poorly because it would require Sam to be as infallible as Pandora's Vault itself, and he's not. He has way too much personal stake in what Dream is doing, and in trying to force himself to be an emotionless machine that abides only the protocol he became a hypocritical wreck that only indulged his vindictive emotions and spiraled out of control trying to keep the situation steady. That's not even addressing how keeping someone in the prison would never be ethical because it's a psychological torture box designed by the psychological torture guy

I mean, I can see the argument that it would've been hard to like. Not make Pandora's Vault unethical, considering the size of the server and the fact that he was the only prisoner etc leading to a situation where yeah, he would've been left alone for long stretches of time no matter what, solitary was kinda inevitable, etc. Like I can see an argument for that. But on principle I feel like the influence that protocol had on the prison arc and on c!Sam specifically tends to be heavily overstated...because a significant portion of the prison arc, honestly, is making the point that the protocol was entirely based on what c!Sam determined.

Like, sure, the prison was always going to suck. c!Dream was never going to come out from it entirely unscathed. But there's a huge fucking difference between what he was prepared for (isolation + shitty food for an unspecified amount of time) and what situation he ended up in (his life at the mercy of two people that showed absolutely no damn qualms about literally torturing him). I think it's very fair to say that yeah, c!Sam was far from an unbiased party, and he was very much emotionally affected to his detriment during the prison arc. But...ultimately? I feel like we really don't see c!Sam struggling to maintain protocol over the course of months only to slowly break down. I don't think we see him "snap" and "lose control." necessarily, in the way that people often act is the case. (The strongest argument, in my opinion, in favor of c!Sam being greatly affected by some stressor that then has him turn to extreme cruelty has little to nothing to do with the prison itself and more to do with his brief stint with the Egg, but with so little attention drawn to that as a cause in the story of the prison itself, I feel like this mostly remains in the realm of speculation.)

Like, if we look at the facts, c!Sam's behavior day one was already weirding people out. Day one and c!Dream is already throwing himself in lava and c!Sam does not seem to give a damn. Of course, both of their behaviors had a myriad of reasons behind them, but it's important to note that there's like literally never been a single moment in the prison arc where c!Sam hasn't been, like, off.

We never see any of c!Ranboo's actual prison visits, but we know these happened very very early in c!Dream's imprisonment and that they were terminated quite early as well, once c!Sam discovered c!Ranboo writing in ender in the prison contracts. However, considering how the inside of the prison was the same between his dream and the real world, it is reasonable to say that c!Sam's behavior in the dream could've also been taken from reality, and "he knows what happens [when he disobeys]" is a hell of a statement to make.

c!Bad's prison visit is when things seem to be seriously off. Even if you consider c!Dream's behavior in this stream as entirely an act, c!Sam is noticeably tense after the prison visit and very demanding about what c!Dream said once c!Bad leaves the cell. c!Dream commenting on food being withheld is consistent with what we know happened in the prison arc later on. c!Sam says that c!Dream has been tossing himself in lava for attention. Several comments are made about "behaving" and "behavior," c!Sam is looking into the installation of an automatic feeder, and visitation is facing restrictions.

Pretty crucially, we see that c!Sam is very comfortable with making changes to the prison. Major changes to the prison, even. Installing an automatic feeder isn't exactly an easy process? And it obviously wasn't outlined in any kind of preexisting protocol. But c!Sam is perfectly willing to change this, just as he's perfectly willing to make all kinds of rules on visitation and limiting visitation because of c!Dream's behavior, etc, (which can reasonably be inferred as not being preexisting rules because that would mean that c!Dream, who allegedly helped with the creation of all of these rules, would be intentionally sabotaging his chances of visitation...when he very evidently wanted people to visit? like sorry but that doesn't make any sense) because he's the Warden and therefore the sole authority of Pandora's Vault and allowed to do literally anything he damn well pleases.

Further, sure, c!Dream might be acting in all the prison visits. Sure, he might be acting In General during this time, etc. But despite disobedience (disobedience with the explicit expressed purpose of trying to get c!Sam to spend more time with him...?) I would hardly characterize almost anything he does during these early days as being anything for c!Sam to be reasonably vindictive over. Even if you consider hopping into the lava (something c!Sam could've solved literally as easily as just raising the netherite barrier), tossing the clock into the lava (also preventable if c!Dream can't access the fucking lava????), and a couple alleged escape attempts (the only one that we know of being him trying to use the lectern to create a nether portal, something hardly easy to do and an attempt that c!Sam very evidently put down quite easily)--like. I can understand him being angry because of what c!Dream had done in the past, and obviously being angry because of c!Dream telling him about exile, but c!Dream early on in the prison arc hardly behaves badly. (Not that bad behavior would justify abuse, but you know.)

By the time of c!Sapnap's prison visit, c!Dream isn't the only one acting weird. c!Sam is strange in ways that are never fully explained and uh heavily imply shady shit??? He's not abiding by protocol when he suddenly interrupts the process of helping a visitor out of the prison by forcing c!Sapnap to respawn in order to check on c!Dream for Some Reason. He's once again very persistent about the question of whether or not c!Dream "said anything" and then reacts strangely when c!Sapnap was able to get him to say a word. He's replaced like a quarter of the obsidian in the cell with crying obsidian, which again, is an instance of c!Sam making BIG changes to the prison without protocol or anything dictating his actions. At most you can maybe make the argument that he's being moved by the spirit of the protocol, that being security should be prioritized over everything (hence potatoes instead of steak, hence no courtyard, hence--in this case--crying obsidian to make the escape attempt ineffective) but it's clearly nothing that they explicitly wrote down.

Also, around this time (I forget the exact date) he explicitly bans c!Ranboo from visiting. Also something we can reasonably assume isn't something that was included in any protocol that c!Dream wrote considering his uh, vested interests in continuing to have an informant.

c!Tommy's visit and that ensuing debacle, of course, is one of the first times we see c!Sam clearly, explicitly acting AGAINST the protocol that was established. The protocol outlines that c!Tommy should have stayed in there for at most a week, and c!Sam explicitly denies him from leaving when the time comes??? Even if you argue that he's doing it "for security", he's doing it in a manner that is going directly against the letter of the law of the protocol that he created with c!Dream. This is a clear demonstration that c!Sam sees himself, and acts as if he is above the law of Pandora's Vault, because, of course, he is the law. He is the Sole Authority. He is the Warden, and he answers to no one but himself. c!Tommy's death obviously ensues in quite the emotional fallout for him, and wanting revenge on c!Dream for this matter motivates his actions later on in the arc...but it's important to consider that mistreatment beyond the scope of what c!Dream expected long preceded this point. c!Sam, immediately after c!Tommy dies, describes himself as thinking that c!Dream's will was too broken to do anything like that. Describes himself as having punished c!Dream in every manner that he could think of. He doesn't go in to feed c!Dream for WEEKS after c!Tommy's death, directly leading to c!Tommy himself being isolated and starved post-revival. He bans visitation. All of these matters hardly seem like matters that c!Dream would have included in the prison protocol that he created when he was planning to be put in that prison, where he specifically had a vested interest in keeping himself (and the book) safe + having, like, FOOD + being able to have visitors in a safe manner + NOT being abused?

And even if we dismiss all of this as c!Sam acting in the best interests of security because c!Dream told him that the security of the prison is more important than anything else (which, even though we know that c!Dream did have this perspective to some degree, still doesn't eliminate c!Sam's responsibility as the one carrying out the existing protocol and making all of these Big Decisions and Big Changes etc to the prison) -- the decision to let c!Quackity into the prison stomps on all of that. That decision completely goes against not only the letter of the damn law that they established together, but the spirit of what the prison was ever meant to be in the first place. He compromises the security of the prisoner and the prison on the DAILY by letting in someone in full gear! With items! And plays a game with chance with c!Dream's life (and the revive book) every damn day. He hardly had enough of a system in place to keep c!Quackity from taking c!Dream's life, and he was certainly unable to stop c!Quackity from landing what would've been a killing blow on c!Techno before he got tp-ed out, like. He completely fucks over EVERYTHING that Pandora's Vault was meant to be, and that was...entirely his decision. Sure, c!Quackity manipulated him, true, but he was not beholden by any protocol or any element of his duty when he made this choice.

This isn't to say that c!Sam wasn't very much emotionally affected and making clouded judgements--he was! Especially if you factor in the stress of other events such as the Egg, etc. But I hesitate to ascribe any element of c!Sam's...c!Samness in the prison arc as him "cracking under the pressure," so to speak. The implications of mistreatment just start too early and are too calculated for me to say that he was simply reacting badly to stressors. I think he was absolutely trying his best to keep the situation "steady," in a sense, but keeping it steady never meant simply being an emotionless guardian to an impenetrable prison who couldn't cope as everything began piling up--keeping things steady, as early as that first month, meant breaking c!Dream into something docile. That was intentional. That was something he was making an active effort to do. Nor do I think that the claim that c!Sam was simply abiding by protocol holds any water, as I outline above: c!Sam has always acted above the protocol established in the prison to the point where even from the first time we see him acting as Warden during that first damn questionaire a specific point is made that he is the ultimate authority on the grounds of the Vault and his word is law. He acted within protocol when convenient to him and trampled over it when convenient to him, and I feel that people can overemphasize the role that protocol played in the decisions he made the same way that he himself did when he was shifting the blame of his own abusive actions onto c!Dream when he had the power, and always had the power, to amend the protocol established in any way he damn well pleased.

Of course, this isn't to say that the protocol was good. It, uh, wasn't--and plenty of people have criticized c!Dream for them even though the prison, as it ended up being used for his plans, was never anything more than a place for him to put himself because of the danger that the rest of the server presented, a base for him to hide in after the prison arc because of its security measures, and a "just-in-case" measure for them to hold their enemies if need be (which he never actually does, even when given golden opportunities to do so: inconsolable differences and the finale come to mind. Even if we're talking about his saw trap in the finale, the plan was to kill one and let the other go free (????????) while also giving them the exact items that could've easily been the keys to their escapes. after c!Tommy and c!Tubbo kill him. but I digress). But c!Sam goes so damn far beyond the protocol established by the "psychological torture guy" that he literally wasn't even beholden to when he was the Warden of the Vault on account of said guy being his prisoner. I don't really see any arguments about c!Sam's behavior having to do with him being too fallible of a man for the job he was given--he does exactly what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, using the job that gives him the power to do so. It's just that "what he wants to do" is not exactly what c!Dream had in mind when he and c!Sam were coming up with the plans for the prison and the protocol that they worked together to create because what he wants to do is, apparently, own a guy and keep him in his hell box. You know?

(i hope this didn't read too aggressively!)

#my asks !!#c!sam critical #long post #apologies on the essay i just have very strong opinions on the use of protocol to justify what c!Sam does #if c!Sam gave a single damn about protocol we would've seen him actually abide by protocol #and meanwhile this guy won't even use the literal built in security measure of the netherite barrier #to solve the problem of c!dream's 'misbehavior' early in the prison arc #when it literally could've solved ALL OF THEM #(jumping into the lava. throwing the clocks into the lava. trying to use the lava to start a fire to start a nether portal)#but then goes BEYOND protocol to install a goddamn glass wall later on just. because #like ??????????#at the end of the day c!sam's actions aren't in line with what pandora's vault was supposed to be mostly just bc he had a different vision #for the prison and the prisoner #and he's c!sam so he's able to justify any amount of human rights abuses in order to do what he thinks is 'right'#including of course killing and murdering his own romantic partner

93 notes · View notes