#the second kiss

[s-aint-elmo]

pass it on!

(ID in alt text)

[myimaginesandrp]

Excuse me for a second *SCREAMS*

Issue #11

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: Miguel brings you gifts.

Word count: 3,600

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

[Previous] [TBC]

Stark’s courier service arrives at your hotel the following day, a crew of four brawny looking men dressed in overalls, carrying in some 13 boxes of equipment, which take up the majority of the floor space of your luxury suite. 

It finds residence in the seating area of the hotel room. Fancy looking gadgets of shiny chrome and colorful LED lights that look like they were stolen from the movie set of Back to the Future. 

Miguel sets up shop, turning the pink girly vanity dressing table into an impromptu workbench. It’s where he’s been seated most of the last 36 hours, hunched over the tiny little table tinkering with the watch and various futuristic looking mechanical gears at all hours of the night. 

The laser scalpel he’s using might be soundless, but Miguel sure isn’t. Last night, you’d been constantly woken up by his growling as he trashes another expensive looking tool with an angry growl. Pacing the room for a few minutes, mumbling and complaining about the cheap quality of Stark tech and how primitive this world is. Then he's right back at it, sitting back down on the little pink velvet ottoman to continue tinkering. 

Tonight is no different. You’re in bed, scrolling your phone to unwind before going to sleep, when you hear him grumble again then stab the laser scalpel into the surface of the table. 

Peeling off the fluffy comfortable quilt wrapped around you, you make your way over to him before he destroys any more fancy furniture you can never dream of affording to replace on your modest salary. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, as you stand behind him. 

“Bastard’s tagged the thing with a receptor that feeds information about any modifications made back to him. It’s booby trapped so that if I try to remove it, the whole thing will disintegrate.”

You lean over to peer at the desk over his shoulder, observing the arc reactor that's pulsing like a beating heart with a glow of blue. 

“Does it matter? Let him have your technology.” 

In the reflection of the vanity mirror, you can see the small muscle in his jaw tic with irritation. 

“No,” he says flatly, picking up the scalpel again from where it’s wedged into the table. “We can’t risk him getting a hold of inter-dimensional technology. I don’t want Stark to be able to locate and come after you.”

Oh Jesus, not this again. 

“I already told you, I’m not interested in Tony Stark." You resist the urge to roll your eyes at part two of Miguel's unwarranted jealousy feud with Stark. Didn’t the two of you have a heartfelt conversation about this? 

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

He's grinding down on his jaw with irritated anger at whatever it is he’s thinking but not sharing with you. “We can’t trust him.”

“He’s a superhero, Miguel, just like you. If we can't trust him, then I don't know who we can trust.”

Miguel's mouth pulls into a grim and tight line at your words.  For a brief moment, you think you catch a hint of fear on his face, before he breaks eye contact and turns away, back towards the bench. It takes you by surprise because you didn’t think Miguel was scared of anything. 

“Tony Stark is one of the good guys,” you try again.

You rest a hand on the edge of his shoulder, trying to help placate his unease. “He’s an Avenger, remember? It's their job to protect the world.”

It dawns on you when you hear the words from your own mouth. The reason why he doesn’t want Tony Stark to be able to keep tabs on you and come after you.

The Avengers are meant to protect the world from any threats, and right now one of the greatest threats to this world is… you.

“Oh,” the tiny sound punches out of you as a yawning pit of uncertainty and fear opens up in your stomach.

One in every 40 New Yorkers will have a run-in with Superhero in their time in the city. 

You've just always thought that, if your turn to encounter the Avengers came, it would be as a grateful civilian saved from the clutches of evil. You never thought it would be because you were the danger the world needed saving from.

Miguel must sense the moment the realization hits you, because he sets aside his tools and takes your hand, gently stroking the palm of it with his thumb.

"You have nothing to worry about, it’s just going to take some time," he murmurs, and he looks up at you with such warmth it makes the anxiety in you thaw slightly. "I'll be done with it soon.”

He eyes the arc reactor, not letting go of your hand. "Try to get some sleep."

You fall asleep to the white noise of tinkering metal and Miguel’s frustrated murmured curses. The noises should annoy you, but they don't. You find it oddly comforting, being able to hear Miguel move around in the same room as you when you’re in bed. Know with every fiber of your being that his presence means you're safe and easily drift fast asleep.

You don't know how long you stay asleep for or how much sleep you manage to catch before you feel the bed dip beside you.

"Hey," a voice softly cajoles you. There's a warm palm on your shoulder, gently nudging you awake. But you're not prepared to wake yet. Too comfortable in the haze of sleep to give it up.

You bury your head into the pillow, hoping to shut out any interference that's trying to keep you from your sleep.

"Cielito," the gentle voice tries again. "Wake up."

Grumpily and with great resistance, you strain to turn your head, squinting your eyes awake to see Miguel's face filling your vision.

It’s dark in here save for a small lamp left on in the far off corner. In this muted light, his scarlet eyes are illuminated with an otherworldly brilliance. If you had been more awake, you would have wanted to take a second or two to marvel at how beautiful they are.

"I got something for you," he says. 

There’s a barely contained eagerness in his voice as he speaks, and sleepy as you are, it peaks your interest. You blink your eyes properly open, adjusting to the dim dark to see two small boxes set next to your pillow.

"Miguel, it's..." you flick your wrist towards you, when you remember the watch is no longer there. It’s odd how naked you feel without Lyla as your constant companion on your wrist.  

You awkwardly prop yourself up on an elbow with great effort to figure out time the old fashioned way, glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 

In a bright glaring LED, the digits announce: 01:00. 

Past midnight?! Has he lost his mind?

"It's one in the morning! Why are you waking me up after midnight!?"

Unbothered by your outrage, he continues to lean across you to drag one of the boxes closer.

 "I'm finally done modifying the parallel universe traversal device, so I got you something to celebrate." 

You blink up at him in surprise. When he said he’d be done soon, you didn’t think he meant tonight. 

“It’s from that place you wanted Stark to take you," he says, opening the box one-handed to reveal a gaudy looking golden donut waiting for you.

Then he drags the second box over, setting it next to the first and flips the lid open. Inside are half a dozen cinnamon-sugared donuts.

"And these are regular old donuts, from the Lower East Side for fifty cents each. We can do a comparison test. If that ugly golden donut is tastier, I’ll chop off my arm.”

You snort out a laugh. His one-sided feud with Tony Stark is alive and well you see. You don’t understand why this has become such a point of contention for him. Stark had never actually suggested he was going to get you golden donuts. 

Before you have the chance to dig in, Miguel puts out his hand, palm up, on the mattress in invitation. "Give me your hand first," he instructs.

You oblige him, placing your hand in the middle of his, and he wraps the familiar watch around your wrist. Except it’s not as familiar as you remember it to be. It’s considerably chunkier now to accommodate Stark's arc reactor that sits in the middle and if anything it looks more like a cuff bracelet than a watch.   

But you don’t mind, you’re glad to have the comforting weight of it back on your arm, wrist no longer feeling quite so naked.

“It’s bulkier than I would’ve liked. But there’s no helping how primitive Stark’s tech is,” Miguel snarks, clearly pleased with himself even though the man he’s bitching about isn’t even in the room to hear his clever insults. 

In the gloomy light, the bright blue gem of the arc reactor shines back at you like a precious jewel. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were wearing jewelry fit for royalty. 

"I like this upgrade on the watch. It’s pretty.”

"Not a watch," Miguel corrects, but he's not scolding you. The fondness in his voice is plainly there. 

Looking up you meet his eyes to see the open affection that's there for you. Your face warms under his unwavering attention, until you have to duck your head down, unable to hold his gaze anymore. 

You reach over the bed, to busy yourself, bypassing the golden donut to pick up one of the plain cinnamon ones. In the corner of your eye, you catch his lips curve into a smile as you take a large bite of the regular-non-golden donut. 

He would gloat about that, wouldn’t he, the overgrown childish brat. You grin around the mouthful, as the sugar melts onto the tip of your tongue and you moan loudly at the perfect warm cinnamon that floods your senses. 

Miguel is still smiling at you warmly, face up propped in his broad hand as he watches you eat, and the heat in your face reaches an almost feverish pitch under his gaze. 

"So what's next?" you force yourself to ask him over a muffled mouthful to distract yourself. 

"Get some rest, sleep in. We'll take this for a few test drives in the morning to make sure it works the way it's supposed to, and then I'll take you to my home world."

There's a jittery sensation. A mix of exhilaration, excitement and anxiety blending with the sugar in your stomach at the unknown that waits before you. Even though you knew this day was coming since your visit at Wong, now that the time has come you're nervous. 

The only world you’ve ever known is your own. You’re hardly an intrepid traveler. During your gap year in Europe, the use of the metric system was a culture shock for you. You can't even begin to imagine what it'll be like to travel to another alternate reality.

But you’re going to have to do it—and keep doing it, if Wong is correct.

Will you need to get a whole new wardrobe to fit in with the fashion trends of each universe? Will you have to learn new languages? Will there be a thousand sets of unfamiliar customs and quirks you’ll have to learn to adapt to? 

…Will Miguel be there for any of it?

Biting down on your lip, you try to stave off the tight knot in your stomach. 

One thing that's become clear is that even if Miguel takes you to his world, you won’t be able to stay there for very long. You aren’t going to be able to stay anywhere for very long. 

Even if he intends to give you Lyla for good or build you another device that allows you to jump from world to world... what then?

Will he come with you? 

Or will you be left to travel by yourself from one unknown world to another?

The loneliness of that fate makes your stomach hurt. You’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t admit that you want him to come with you more than anything, but you have no right to ask that of him. Not after everything he’s already done for you. 

Like he can read your mind, Miguel gives you an appraising look.

"Once we're in Nueva York, we'll stay there for as long as it's safe," Miguel says, leaning across your lap to snag a donut from the box next to you for himself, and you try to ignore the heat that goes skittering through your leg when his arm brushes past your knee. "Then we'll jump to the next location."

You watch him scarf the cinnamony treat down in two mouthfuls, barely chewing. Your heart leaps excitedly until it jumps all the way to your throat. 

"We?"

He grins, crumbs of caramelized sugar dotted on the curve of his lips. "I can't leave you by yourself, can I?"

Your mouth opens and closes, then opens again and you leave it there, hanging in the air, probably looking incredibly dumb and speechless. 

You don’t know what to say to him. Don’t think there are adequate words in the English dictionary capable of expressing how happy it makes you to know that you’ll have him by your side. Thank you seems incredibly lacking.

Somehow despite that you are both sitting down, he still dwarfs you and from your seated position you barely come up to his shoulders. You don’t quite know why you do it, but you move before you think, getting to your knees to lean up and place a small kiss on his cheek. 

A faint pink tinges his cheeks at the small contact. Then it’s his turn to duck down. He scoots over, bringing the smaller donut box closer to you. 

"Eat your golden donut," he says.

You peer up at him. The way his mouth pulls into a tiny and almost shy smile, and happiness buzzes in your chest at the sight.

A dopey smile spreads across your cheeks as you watch him. The way he rubs one broad hand over his jaw to hide his reddening face from you.

Taking the box from him, you look down at the shiny pastry. If your words are failing you, maybe food can speak for you instead. You pick up the golden donut in your hand and hold it out to him.

“You go first,” you offer.

There’s not a second of hesitation from Miguel. He leans down and takes a large bite of the gilded pastry, fangs first, puncturing the soft, squishy dough. 

The whole thing bursts, and you squeal with laughter as the champagne flavored jelly filling squirts across his bottom lip, onto your fingers and drips onto the sheets below. 

“Miguel, you’re making a complete mess!”

You lick up the sticky jam from your fingers as you watch him. There’s dust of gold smudging against his cheeks and even on his nose as he takes another bite. You’re tittering with amusement at the sight of him. 

“Here you got some–” you bring your thumb to help him wipe at the corner of his mouth.

For a man who doesn’t like casual touches, sneering even at the idea of handshakes as a greeting at work, he doesn’t seem to mind yours.

Miguel lets you rub off the flecks of gold from his cheek, eyes dropping half-closed in contentment. His jaw moves under your hand as his mouth drops open, then he presses his lips to the inside of your palm. 

It’s a barely there touch, but it has warmth furl from the middle of your stomach and blooms outward, spreading to the rest of you. 

In this gigantic Wyoming king-sized bed, Miguel is seated close enough to you that your knees touch. He’s close. So close that you can feel the heat rolling off of his big body.

Somehow that's not close enough, because you close the remaining distance between you, until your knee is pressed against the firm inside of his thigh, his broad shoulders brush against yours. 

It wouldn’t take much now. If you leaned up at this moment. If you tilted your head upwards even slightly. Your lips would be on his.  

You shouldn’t, the small voice in your head warns. Kissing him is probably not a good idea.

He might not feel the same. Kissing him might change something irreparably between you, and then who will you travel the outer limits of the universe with? 

But... if you're going to die tomorrow or the next day or next week, then what does it all matter anyhow? What’s a little bit of rejection when the end of the world is hiding right behind the next corner. 

You tilt up and press your lips to his top lip, then the full lower one. It’s chaste and brief, and only lasts for a second. But for a first time it’s familiar and intimate in a way that it can only be with you and Miguel. 

His lips are warm and dry and slightly open under the press of yours and it sends a fluttering warmth from the tip of your nose to the end of your fingertips. 

You pull back with the tiniest movement, nose still brushing against his, as you gather the courage to look up at his face and try to find out if you just made a terrible mistake. 

Those scarlet eyes are staring down at you in that familiar way you catch him doing sometimes. When he thinks you're not paying attention to him and his eyes lingers on your face.

His thumb catches behind your ear, face inching closer, and then he’s kissing you back. It’s sweet and electric, the sensation surges through you with a giddiness that makes your toes curl. 

Miguel presses his lips to yours and holds you there. Long consecutive kisses that don't let you pull up for air. Then his other hand gently cups your face, thumb stroking the apple of your cheeks like you’re the most precious thing his big hands has ever held. 

You want this to last, that it could always be like this. You want it to be you and him. 

This man who brings you cupcakes when you’re crying. Who saves you the best portion of the food that he likes even though he’s a glutton. Who folds you paper flowers and leaves them on your desk to make you smile when you’re having a bad day at work. A man who stays by your side through the end of the world and never asks you for anything in return.

You love him. 

One large hand covers the back of your neck. He tilts you back, like he’s trying to shield and protect you as he holds you. Holds you like he’s never going to let go. 

Then he stops. 

Why is he stopping? 

He stiffens above you, the whole of his back tensing. You chase his lips but he is already pulling back and away from you. 

Your eyes open to the muted darkness of the room. 

In front of you, Miguel is looking at you with an expression you can't pin down. Eyes wide, and distracted. For a terrifying moment, you think that the look on his face is one of regret. 

Maybe he realized he doesn’t feel that way about you after all. Maybe he's trying to find a way to let you down gently.

You pull back and study his face.

No… it’s not that. 

His expression is the same distant look he had two seconds before a helicopter crashed into your apartment. The same tension in his eyes that will have him hauling you into his arms to protect you from a rogue vehicle. The same pinch in his brow when he’ll stop a conversation with you mid-sentence because the ceiling is about to cave in and he needs to push you out of harm’s way. 

Something is wrong. 

A cold sliver of fear crawls up your spine as Miguel’s face turns, and he stares into the empty space of the room beyond the bed. 

There’s speck of pink spilling onto the sheets on your lap like the color of the sun on stained glass from the outside. 

You follow his gaze in the direction of the radiant dusk pouring in from the window. 

It’s too bright for one A.M, enough to be blinding. 

Pulling away the quilt from your body, you slide out of bed and walk towards the brightness pouring in from the outside until you’re standing in front of the wide glass panes of the balcony.

You look up at the sky, and it’s not the familiar calm midnight-blue. There are vivid streaks of fluorescent pink and glowing purple staining the sky. There are fractures in the sky like someone took a sledge hammer to it and cracked it wide open.

The cityscape looks like it is folding onto itself. Skyscrapers, bridges, and streets are contorted and warped like badly-folded origami. The impossible architecture reminds you of a M.C Escher painting you saw on a school trip at MoMA as a child.

Outside, the pavements of New York is mirrored where the sky is supposed to be. Silhouettes of skyscrapers spring out from below and above and the vast sky is wedged between. Up is down and down is up and nothing makes sense anymore. 

You've seen this scene take place before, when you were under Wong's multidimensional spell.

Your universe is starting to collapse. 

The end of the world is here. You’ve officially run out of time. 

Dedications & Credits:

To @guruan for her endless kindness and incredibly talented. I cannot thank her enough for the art she gifts me with that constantly inspires my little squirrel brain and drives me to write like I am possessed.

And @thirstworldproblemss my babe, my bestie, my moose! Thank you for always being there with your pretty face!! I adore and love you, our friendship and time together brings me endless joy. Thank you for going on this ride with me.

[core-cosmos]

homies is it gay for you (half naked) to bring your boyfriend (also half naked) back from the dead and offer to give up everything so you two can do science together like you used to and despite the fact he’s all fucked up now you still love him and are just glad he’s alive?

[becasbelt]

caitlyn: sorry to say, you've grown a bit predictable

vi: *kisses her with SO much tongue*

caitlyn:

[friedri-ce]

ultrakiss

[apostaterevolutionary]

Happy new year, everybody! I rang it in the funniest way I could think of

[kevindavidday]

thinking about neil straight up tossing his phone aside mid-makeout session 'cause he could nooot be bothered about his death sentence countdown. horny brain neil is so important to me

[khickuwa]

the mark you leave behind.

[sugabun-arts]

Kissin the homies gnight

[coffebits]

“I’ll always come back to you.”

(Tap the image to see it in better quality)

Zelda sci-fi AU~ Thank you so much for the love shown to this AU! I’m really enjoying creating stuff for it~

[catsoupki]

bakugou (pro hero, mid 30s, 2nd on the ranks) who even with two entire teams of medical staff members dedicated to him and red riot, he will still genuinely believe that your kisses are more effective than whatever pain relievers the paramedics try to shove down his throat

[elena-illustration]

Long time no see! I made another picrew for my friends, please enjoy :)

[mclennon-amv]

beetles

[maines]

AGATHARIO 1.04 | behind the scenes | 1.08

[rasoyas]

brandi broke when she's reincarnated in 2025 only to live in the same damn trailer with the same dead husband and the same three kids

[skeletood]

imagine being in love with your best friend looool imagine