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orestesimp · 1 year ago

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EYEM #14

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You try to move on after the Universe has been saved.

Word count: 4,700

Warning: Angst

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous] [TBC]

You're standing in the middle of your old apartment.

The same apartment that had a helicopter crash into it and left nothing but rubble, ash and melted cement in its wake. Except now it's restored, like nothing ever happened.

Your rickety dining table sits in the middle of the room, propped up by a hardcover book to make up for the fact that one leg is crooked. Your tiny double bed with your lumpy mattress is pushed up against the wall. The usual piles of clean and dirty laundry indiscriminately mixed together sits unattended on top of the unmade covers.

You don't understand.

Why is it all back to normal?

You shake your head, snapping yourself out of it.

Miguel… You need to get back to him and you don't have time for this right now.

"Lyla," you summon. A warm ping vibrates against your inner wrist as Lyla appears. "Take me back to the void."

Lyla shakes her head firmly. "I'm sorry I can't do that."

"What do you mean? Of course you can, you've brought us there twice. You did it when Miguel commanded you."

She peers up at you through her pink heart-shaped glasses, with a solemn look in her holographic eyes.

"The first time was a miscalculation. The second was to eliminate the continued threat to your life."

Her words stop you cold. 'Continued threat...' Is she referring to Miguel?

"Lyla, please. Stop messing around. Take me back to Miguel."

Lyla's eyes go blank, no longer the flippant expression you are so used to seeing.

"Request denied. My programming does not allow me to expose you to danger."

"He's going to die if we don't do something Lyla!" You shout at her.

There is a tremor in your hand. Your nerves are shot, exhausted and tired from everything that has happened in the last 24 hours and you can feel the tears pushing up against your throat.

"Isn't it part of your protocol to protect him?!"

"I was built to protect you. My primary directive is to make sure you're safe above all else. That is my purpose."

She recites the words as if she's reading from a manual. It's flat and emotionless in a way you've never known Lyla to be before. Like the line is hardwired into the very core of her basic coding. There are no funny jokes. No sass.

"Lyla, please," you beg.

She doesn't answer you. That same impassive expression as before is still on her face.

"Lyla..." you try again.

You scramble to think of your options. To devise a plan B. But to your horror, you can’t think of anything.

What are you meant to do? You’re not a super genius who can build source code out of thin air that can break the laws of physics. You have no superpowers. No magic that allows you to travel to other dimensions.

The only thing you know how to do is file claim insurance applications. You’re useless.

There's nothing to be done.

It's over.

Your legs give in from the oppressive weight of your realization. You slump to the floor, unable to hold yourself together as the hard wooden floor hits your knees. You fold in two, hunched over the floor and you let the ache inside your chest break and pour over and you cry.

When you come to some time later, you find yourself curled up on the floor. You don't know how long you must've been crying for. But it must’ve been long enough for you to have cried yourself to exhaustion and slipped into unconsciousness.

Turning onto your back, you stare up at the ceiling, shivering from the cold breeze of the evening coming through the window.

Your limbs are cramping from exhaustion. You're dehydrated. Mouth dry and eyes crusted with dried tears. There's a deep-seated headache burrowing into your skull. It's a struggle for you to get up from the floor into a seated position, as you properly take in your surroundings.

At first glance, this version of your apartment looks identical to yours, but on closer inspection there are some stark differences.

By the window, there are black out curtains hanging from the ceiling to allow for sleep-ins during daylight hours.

On your bed, amongst the mountain piles of laundry strewn haphazardly, there are items you don’t recognize. Oversized hoodies that are big enough to fit a bear. Male sweatpants. Socks so big they look like they're Christmas stockings.

Walking over to the kitchen area, there's a distinct lack of coffee. It's been replaced by expired Reese's Peanut Butter cups, milk duds, and Hershey bars that fill every corner of your kitchen cupboards to the brim, stuffed haphazardly on the upper shelves that you could never reach. They have even made their way into your nightstand and stuffed and hidden between books on the bookshelf.

Lyla doesn't even have to tell you where you are. You already know.

This is your home. In your other self's dimension. It belongs to Miguel's nena.

Miguel sent you here, the closest universe he knew of that was identical to yours, so that you could live out your days in safety, without him.

Fucking idiot.

This is not what you wanted.

Days pass.

It's an odd and empty existence, you've beaten the impossible odds and won against the universe itself and made it out alive. Yet you're not sure that anything about this truly qualifies as a victory.

For all you know, the world that is your home may have been destroyed.

After all that's what Stark said: there is no guarantee that just because you left, everything would go back to normal.

And who are you to argue with the (second) smartest man on earth?

There's no way of you knowing what the outcome was, and Lyla refuses to transport you out of this current dimension.

You spend most of your days curled into a ball in bed unable to summon the strength to keep yourself upright or awake for more than an hour at a time, haunted by the knowledge that your escape from your death might have doomed trillions to theirs.

In the hours in between, when that inescapable guilt doesn't eat into your mind, the only thing you are left with is replaying the moments of your life in the past three months.

It flits through your closed eyes like an old film reel and in every one of those moments, Miguel is there, reminding you of what you have now lost.

You feel hollowed out, scraped out and empty like there's nothing inside. The only time you manage to feel anything that resembles an emotion is when you clutch onto whatever piece of oversized clothing that once belonged to Miguel. The only physical trace you have to prove to yourself that he existed and it's not just some fantastical made up story in your mind.

Miguel once told you that anyone who gets lost in the void gets erased. Their very existence scrubbed from the records of the world. Does the fact that you can still remember him mean that he's still there? And if so, how much longer will you be able to mourn him before he's faded entirely in that space. Before your very memory of him and the love you have that sits inside you with nowhere to go is gone too?

Nothing about this feels like a happy ending.

In the first few days, you don't leave the house. You tell yourself that it's better that way. Now that Miguel is no longer here, the idea of walking out in into open streets in broad daylight seems strange to you.

Lyla tries to tempt you with exotic holidays.

“Bali, India! The world is your oyster, we can fly out first class tonight and do an Eat Pray Love for as long as you want to!” Lyla’s voice sings in your ear. "Thailand is lovely this time of the year, barely any tycoons."

Most of the time, you ignore her presence, burying your head into the pillow, pathetically hugging onto one of the oversized shirts that’s been left behind.

Everytime you hope to catch a whiff of the remnant traces of Miguel’s presence there. But there’s nothing. It just smells of stale detergent.

After surviving the end of the world, a lot of things that used to be important seems meaningless to you now.

Alive as you may be, there’s no real purpose for you carved out in this dimension. You don't go to work in the mornings, because the you of this universe died years ago. Showing up at your office at the Chrysler building would likely induce heart attacks amongst your old co-workers.

You could scour Careerbuilder for job ads, but there's a sour pit in your stomach that hugs tightly around your guts everytime you think of the prospect of having to speak to job recruiters.

You don't think you have it in you to lie to some stranger at an interview and pretend that being in front of a white screen poring over excel sheets 8 hours a day is the way you want to spend the rest of your life until you hit retirement.

Besides, rent is not an issue anymore. Nor is money when Lyla is there to take care of you and act as your digital sugar momma. A standing order for any and all bills needed to maintain this home had already been set up long before you arrived.

You feel sorry for Lyla. She's been programmed to take care of your mental and physical well being and you know she is at wit's end with your listless behavior.

She pulls out all the stops. Lyla orders take out for you, delivered right to your door to try to get you to eat. If she had a physical body, you think she would hold you down and force feed you.

But something is wrong with you, because even though every dish is your favorite, rounded up from your favorite restaurants in the city, for the first time in your life since you were born, you no longer have much of an appetite.

You usually only manage mouthfuls just to keep Lyla from constantly nagging, before you shove the take-out box back into the fridge and then crawl back into bed.

Everything tastes bland and grey. Everything around you seems to have lost its color and shine. Was the world around you always this dull?

On the fifth day, there is a familiar baby-pink box with Gladis' logo printed on the lid arriving at your doorstep.

“Surprise!” Lyla announces. “It’s your favorite! I ordered the luxury box with the elderflower lemon flavors, as well as the lychee-raspberry jello!”

You sit down by the table, staring at the beautifully adorned cupcakes in the box. Spirals of white and pink frosting with petals of edible flowers. There's freshly cut strawberries and blackberries and chocolate shavings on op.

Picking one up, you cram the whole cupcake into your mouth, trying to cling onto the memory of that first time when the flavor of lemon zest bursting on your tongue had made you squeal with happiness.

That doesn't happen.

This time, as the sugar hits the top of your mouth, all you can think about is how much you miss him. How things will never be the same without him.

How you'll never get to have him sit next to you, smiling softly as he watches you eat. That you'll never get to see him demolish a cupcake in one bite and leave frosting on his nose.

It doesn't feel the same, you just feel hollow. Wetness spills across your cheeks, and snot clogs your nose and throat. You must look like a looney, ugly crying with your mouth stuffed full of cupcake, barely swallowing.

After that Lyla doesn’t order them for you anymore.

It's morning you think, judging from the bright sun pouring in from the blinds.

Lyla is buzzing near your ear where you've taken off the watch and placed it on the pillow next to you for company.

"You need to get out of the house. You're turning into a social recluse. It's not a good look," she says, as she peers down at you over her pink-tinted glasses.

"How about I get a date for you? Have a fab night out on the town? I have a roller-dex of the top bachelors in New York. I'm happy to hack into their calendar!"

You ignore her, burying your face deeper into the pillow, hugging Miguel's worn hoodie tighter to your chest. You pull the cover over your head, but you can still hear her babble on through the thin separation of fabric.

"What's your type? Oscar Isaac? He’s hot– No, no you're right he's happily married and we don’t wanna be homewreckers here. What about Lenny Kravitz? Doesn't get cooler than Kravitz and he’s long divorced."

"Lyla stop," you groan, poking your head back up above the covers. You just want quiet. Just want to stay here cocooned in this space that is the closest you'll ever get to Miguel for as long as you can remember him, until that too is taken away from you.

"I'm fine. I don't need a date."

"You're not fine though. You've only eaten a box of cupcakes in the last week. You haven't showered and you look like a mess. Your hair is greasier than the BP oil spill off the gulf of Mexico. My purpose is to keep you safe, and that includes your mental and emotional levels, which are... " she stops, throwing up some diagnostics boxes in floating holograms, then makes a face. "Yikes."

She’s doing this on purpose. Talking incessantly, so that she can nag you into doing what she wants. Suddenly you gain newfound sympathy for Miguel. You used to think it was funny when she nagged him and got on his nerves, but now that you're on the end of it, you see how he must’ve suffered when Lyla was in one of these moods with him.

"Will you stop if I step out of the house for a walk," you offer as an olive branch, hoping for a little peace and quiet.

"How long of a walk?"

"Five."

"Minutes?!" Lyla screeches with outrage. "The general recommendation is 150 minutes of weekly exercise, I'm going to need at least an hour's walk from you boss-girl."

"Twenty minutes."

"Forty!"

"Half an hour, or I'm going back to bed and wearing earplugs."

Lyla grins. "Deal".

The streets here look the same as the ones in your dimension, down to the Bodega owned by the old Korean couple around the corner. This version of earth is identical to yours in almost every way you know of.

Except in this New York, instead of Matthew Ellis, a man named Biden who is apparently over 100 years old (give or take a few years) is president.

In this reality, Leonardo Di Caprio apparently won an Oscar, while Amy Adams still hasn't, which is nuts to you.

The Avengers also don't seem to exist here. Though Superheroes still seem prevalent. A group of misfits that refers to themselves as the Fantastic Four seems to dominate the news cycle more often than not.

Ahead of you, the street splits into two paths and you take a corner into the smaller street that you know should cut through to a dog park.

But it doesn’t. Instead of green grass fields and park benches, you end up in a small narrow dead end of a street. Somehow you're lost. Shit. You should've paid more attention.

Looking up, you turn your head left and right to try to make sense of where you could be. You’re just about to pull up google maps, when the flickering light of the one sole streetlamp illuminating this alley catches your attention.

You're 12 blocks from Chinatown, but you recognize this alley even though it shouldn't be here.

From a distance, you spot the familiar red stall. The same small rickety table. The same red cloth draped on top. The same old lady with her abnormally large shiny head, comically large sunglasses and white-blue robe. The same giant sign spelling out: Fortune teller.

Only this time, there's only one folding chair set up in front of it.

She takes one look at you, as you sit down with a look of familiarity in her milky-white eyes.

"Your bad luck is gone," she says.

You should be more surprised that the scam fortune teller from another dimension seemingly remembers the conversation you had with her other self. But it doesn't. You've learned by now that nothing is as it seems.

Random near death accidents are not just due to bad luck. A superhero that repeatedly saves you isn’t just doing it out of sheer goodwill and duty. A starmap is not just a starmap, and you’re willing to bet your life that this fortune teller is not just a fortune teller.

“Who are you?” you ask her.

“Is that of importance to you?”

“Yes.”

She takes off her sunglasses and stares directly into your eyes. Without the obstruction of dark tinted lenses, you can see that it's not glaucoma causing the whiteness in her pupils. In her eyes, there are galaxies, millions of tiny dots of glowing stars, endless and mesmerizing as you stare back into them.

"My name is Ulana. I’m a Watcher. My role is to observe the Multiverse from the Nexus of all realities.”

There’s no longer that harmless demeanor and friendly smile that makes you drop your guard. She holds herself with reverence as she speaks, with the aura of the divine.

“Does that mean you are able to observe every reality in this moment?” you ask.

“Yes.”

The image of your New York with its pink cracked sky and the chaos you left it in crowds your vision.

"Can you tell me what happened to my old world after I left? Is it still there?"

"Your old home is intact and safe."

You let out a shaky breath you didn’t know you had been holding all this time.

Thank god.

Relieved tears spill from your cheeks. Somehow you haven't single-handedly caused the destruction and death of whole worlds and countless lives.

Even if you can never go back there, that place will always be your home, and your chest warms at the thought that even without you it will always still be there.

You take a moment to gather yourself, to wipe the errant tears that are welling up with the back of your hand.

Then you take a deep calming breath before you ask her the question that has been plaguing your mind since you arrived in this reality.

"Is Miguel still alive in the void?" you ask her.

"Your husband is still alive. But he doesn't have much time left. He's fading."

Your fingers curl into fists on top of your knees, "How do I save him?"

"I couldn't tell you.” She shakes her head sadly. "My kind is not allowed to intervene. We are only meant to observe the ongoings of the universes. I've already meddled too much.”

Ducking down, she reaches under her desk, sorting through the pile of junk paper, before she leans back up over the table.

"This is the only help I can give you," she says, reaching over to place something into your hands.

You look down to see a familiar bright yellow Star Map.

"He'll be home this time," she tells you.

You're standing on the doorsteps of the old brownstone on 177A Bleecker Street, staring up at the old ornate wooden front doors.

Unlike last time you were here, there's no hesitation in you anymore. It doesn't matter that you've come alone with no other superhero to validate your mad and fantastical story about the Cosmos that was out to kill you.

You don't care if Strange thinks you're a random crazy from the streets.

If he doesn't believe you, then you'll make him believe you. If he tries to have you hauled out, you'll kick and drag and scream at the top of your lungs, and chain yourself to his front door if that's what it takes.

You bring your hand to the door knocker and tap it three times. Then you wait.

Nothing.

Didn't the fortune teller say he was going to be home this time?

Goddamnit, was she a scam after all? What kind of name is Ulana for a celestial being anyhow? Did you end up wasting another ten dollars?

You grit your teeth and step forward again, grabbing the door knocker to pound it down against the front door, even harder this time and you don’t stop at one or two, you keep slamming it down fervently.

Mid-knock, the door creaks, swinging open, as an exasperated voice greets you.

"Yes, yes, yes. I'm coming. There's no need to knock that aggressively, I'm not going to come to the door any fast–"

He stops mid-sentence as he looks at you. For a man you've never met, Dr. Strange's eyes go wide at the sight of you standing on his doorsteps. His eyes are filled with the disbelief of a man who's seen a ghost.

"You're alive," he says.

“Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” Strange says as he hurriedly pulls out a chair by the old oak table in his dining room.

“I’ll make us some tea,” he says.

He waves his cape with a dramatic flare in the empty space, and from a distance you hear a small click, before you realize that he must’ve used magic to put on the kettle.

For someone that’s supposed to be a sorcerer, you don’t know why the hell he bothers having a kettle. Seems a bit redundant, couldn’t he just use magic to instantly heat water?

You sit down as instructed, hands folded in your lap as you try not to fidget.

There’s a prolonged and uncomfortable silence as you both wait for the water to boil.

Strange opens then closes his mouth, as if he’s unsure of who should speak first. In the end though, he doesn’t say anything at all, he just drums his fingers impatiently on the wooden surface as he smiles politely but awkwardly at you. Across the room, the water starts simmering to a boil.

This wasn’t what you had expected. You had counted on him to try to kick you out and you having to make a passionate plea for him to listen to you. Instead he’d opened the door and insisted on inviting you in and now the two of you are drowning in a sea of uncomfortable silence.

There’s a tinny whistle from the kettle, and Strange darts up from the chair, as if the interruption was a godsend. He rushes over to pick it up, before walking back to the table with it at a much slower pace.

Then he stands next to you, tilting the snout of the kettle into your small tea cup.

Strange stares intently at your face as he pours the boiling water into the cup. So focused on you that he doesn't pay any attention to the level of the hot water, until it spills over the rim and onto the table surface below. Then he seemingly snaps himself out of it.

"Shit! Sorry," Strange begins. He wipes up the spillage with his robe, even though there are perfectly good paper towels behind him, even though he could’ve just used magic to make it vanish in the blink of an eye.

"You look exactly like her," he says, then he stops himself.

Strange considers the statement and does a curt little nod at himself as if berating himself for how stupid that comment sounded. "Which of course you do. You are her, just… from another dimension."

From your time with Miguel, you’ve been able to glean from his childish rants about the man’s “ugly” and “useless” and “impractical” cape that there’s a hostility there towards Strange that goes beyond just Miguel being Miguel.

Judging from the guilt in this man’s eyes as he looks at you from across the table, you can guess that there is a complicated history between Strange and Miguel and you.

“Did you know me?” you ask.

“Yeah, we were friends. Good friends,” Strange corrects himself. Then a sadness seeps into his eyes as he stops wiping the table and pulls back his robe close to his body. “Although I supposed I wasn’t a great friend to you near the end of things.”

He places the cup down on the table in front of you, the rising steam wafts through the air, smelling of mint and honey as he drags out the chair and sits himself next to you.

"Why don't you tell me everything from the start," Strange asks you.

So you do. You tell him of that first day when you fell out of the Chrysler building and was saved by Miguel. Tell him about how Miguel saved you again and again and how you tried to trap him with cookies and how you fell out of the Chrysler building a second time on purpose, which makes Strange laugh that sounds fond and warm.

You tell him of the void, the fortune teller, the Avengers and everything in between, and how despite surviving all of that Miguel had exiled himself to the void and sent you here by yourself, with each event you tell him his eyes grow sadder.

When you're done, Strange nods solemnly. He picks up his cup and takes a small sip of his tea to buy himself time to gather his thoughts. Then he finally speaks again. "What can I do to help?"

"Miguel is still in the void. I need your help to send me there so I can get him back."

Strange frowns, then goes entirely quiet as he stares out of the window in deliberation. It takes several moments before he speaks again.

"The void is a dangerous place, stay too long and you will be erased from existence. If you go in you may not be able to find your way out and I wouldn’t be able to help you from here."

“That’s fine, I just need your help to get there” you say.

He sets down his cup as he continues. "I can’t in good conscience send you back out there. I've already broken my promise to keep you safe once."

Frustration brims in your chest. As flattered as you are over Strange’s concern over your safety, you bristle at the fact that there seems to be none extended to Miguel’s. Every second you spend here is another second wasted.

“Miguel is there. If I don’t save him, he’s going to be erased from existence.”

That doesn’t seem to move the doctor in the slightest.

“For Miguel, his own life is a small price to pay in exchange for yours. He’d sacrifice the whole world for you to live.”

“That’s not a choice for him to make.”

Strange scratches his thumb over his bearded jaw, as if he's trying to figure out how to solve a puzzle, before speaking again.

"Right now with Miguel gone, the volatile cosmic energy surrounding you is stabilized. The version of you in this universe died and is viewing your presence as an equivalent exchange. You could stay here. You'd be safe. Miguel would've known that. That's probably why he sent you here.”

"I don't want to stay here if Miguel isn't here," you counter.

Leaning back in his chair, Strange up at the ceiling in deep thought.

"It's risky, if I sent you there, you may not even be able to find him. He might not even have his physical shape anymore, he’s been there too long by now."

His head ducks back down as he looks at your face, observing you for long moments.

You don't know what it is he sees, but a small amused smile quirks at his lip as he shakes his head again.

"But... I think you already know the risks and nothing I can say will dissuade you will it?" he says.

You nod.

It's not that you've stopped being scared of the void. It's not that the very thought of it doesn't fill your stomach with a cold dread. It's that Miguel is there, and there is no risk you're not willing to take to have the chance to see him again.

You square your chest and confidence swells inside you with your answer.

"Send me there."

Credit and Dedication: We're almost there guys! Next issue is going to be the final one. Thanks to everyone who has been with me on this ride! I cannot wait to share the final conclusion with you all.

Special thank you (as always) go out to my bestie: @thirstworldproblemss who is a big reason this story even lifted off the ground in the first place.

Big BIG BIGGEST thanks to my muse @guruan who has gifted me with so much inspiration be it thirsty twitter art of our favorite rude spider or her own insanely gorgeous art. Have you seen this heartbreaking beauty?!

I don’t have a tag list but please follow me on astroboots-writes and turn on notifications to be notified when I post something new!

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