#rumour has it the groups aren't reuniting immediately & since the mileses need bonding time it. kind of scans imo

[visions--of--collisions]

For @its-just-a-glitch who asked for 4(T):

There's one spot left on the requests post if anyone wants it :)

EXCERPT: Argey Bargey (Spiderverse, Hobie/Miles, Rated T, Post-BtSV)

The portal spits him out on the waterside, is the only thing Miles can tell for sure, at first. Earth 138 is always a shock to the senses in the first couple minutes, from the colors to the contrasts to the torn paper edges you could see if you focused on your peripheral vision long enough. Pav and he had freaked each other out once by concentrating hard enough on a magazine spread to make out the Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet hidden inside the body of the printed text itself.

The smell and the sound of the water is enough to reassure Miles he’s where he should be, anyway, despite the mist like flecks of paint hanging in the air. He shivers a little in the damp chill and pulls up the messenger on his phone: Hey man, I’m here. Where u at?

Omw mate, stay put, comes the response.

Miles huffs and fires back a kaomoji. Staying put's a solid option, he figures, considering he has basically no idea where he is and can barely see six feet in front of him, even with enhanced senses. He's pretty sure the faint gray gradient up above is the sky, by process of elimination. There's some  over-saturated weeds growing through the paving under his feet, and the jagged outline of tall grasses growing along the edge of it. The rippling breadth of the canal is clearish in front of him, but when Miles peers upstream or downstream it recedes into a vague, dark road behind the fog.

Are we really in New London, here? He’s turning a slow circle, squinting in all directions to try to make out any sign of a high-rise or a smoke stack, when his Spidey Sense comes skittering up the knobs of his spine to set his scalp tingling. The hum of what might be an engine follows, steadily growing closer. Miles pushes back his mask and squints in the pertinent direction. He steps closer to the water’s edge, just as a shape becomes visible through the mist, gaining definition as it approaches.

He blinks and the silhouette becomes the nose of a boat. Miles stares as it drifts toward and then past him. There’s spraypaint and … paint-paint in arcing splotches all over the - hull, Miles wants to call it? Flyers are littered across the walls (and roof) of what he figures is the cabin. Someone’s drawn dumb faces in the holes made by the lifebuoys mounted on the sides of the craft. He’s so occupied with trying to take in the whole … thing, that it takes Miles a minute to notice he’s being watched.

Hobie is at the rear of the craft when Miles finally clocks him, one hand on the tiller, the other stuffed into his back pocket. He's wearing a frayed white battle jacket, and the neutral expression of a guy who has no idea he's the coolest thing his friend has seen in the last week.

And it’s been a Week.

He nods, once, eyeing Miles sideways. 'Alright?'

‘Alright,’ Miles parrots, gawking. ‘Sure.’ He shakes his head and jogs forward to keep pace as the craft trundles onward. 'Wow. Shouldn't you have one of those cable knit sweaters and the little, you know,' Miles mimes the shape of a brim, 'Captain's hat on?'

Hobie only looks at him, seemingly impervious to the baiting. He shrugs, finally. 'Yeah, but I flogged them, innit?'

Miles makes a face, and Hobie cracks a smile, at last. 'D'you need permission to board or something?’ he asks, curiously. ‘Or were you plannin' to walk?'

Miles raises his palms. 'I dunno, man, you're the boat guy! Don't you gotta put down the anchor, or blow your horn or something?'

The neutral look returns to Hobie’s face in response, accented with a judgemental tilt. Miles keeps his smile fixed and his pace steady, even as the barge drifts ahead of him. Hobie turns his head slowly, owl-like, to keep him so pinned.

Miles is just starting to worry about losing him to the fog when Hobie reaches for something, still staring, and he jumps when a hollow noise, like a foghorn sized down, bounces off the water and the paving stones under his feet. Something up ahead makes a high, honking complaint and takes off in a flurry of wings; Miles chuffs at the sight of its pale belly and webbed feet passing overhead, barely visible through the mist, and bends his knees to hop aboard.

[TBC]