#the boss portal device thing is glitching today

[commander-xen]

I don't know if you guys heard

but the Titans are planning something big

[llumetrii]

Soft Spot | Miguel x Reader

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Spider-Woman!Reader

Summary: Miguel fixes your dimensional travel watch.

Word count: 1800

A/N: This is the most random writing piece lol but I do want to write more stuff that kind of progresses this story without making it a whole fic. Like each part can be read on its own but it's still connected. Basically just very low effort because I just want to write the scenes I want without having to do filler :)

The busy atmosphere in the hallways of the Spider Society slowly dwindled as you carried on toward your destination. It was always quiet near the top of the building—where Miguel's lab was located. Most people stayed away from the general area, opting to socialize in the other sectors where the training rooms or the cafeteria was. But you had a problem that needed fixing, and only Miguel could do it.

The interface of your dimensional travel watch had been glitching for the past two days. Every time you navigated to message someone or select a dimension to travel to, the pixels would annoyingly spasm. You had messaged Miguel about the problem, and he arranged to have you meet him in his lab today so he could fix it as soon as possible. Luckily, the device hadn’t been broken enough to send you to the wrong dimensions when portal traveling, but that didn’t mean you weren’t highly paranoid that it would.

So, here you were, on your way to Miguel's lab. The clean, tiled hallway was empty and quiet by the time you arrived at the large sliding door to the lab.

As soon as you stepped up to the door, a familiar, golden figure blipped into existence in front of you. The mini holographic woman hovering in the air fixed her heart shaped glasses on her nose as she peered down at you. "Y/N." She greeted with a smile. "I'll let the boss know you're here."

You barely had time to give her a polite smile in return before she disappeared. A few seconds later, the door in front of you slid open with a soft hiss.

You stepped into the dim room full of half-built tech and glass cases of materials from other dimensions. A low, electronic hum filled your ears as you followed the path that led to the much larger room that Miguel worked in. The golden glow of his numerous screens rimmed his tall, muscular form as he turned to face you atop his platform. He watched you step onto it.

"Hey." You said to break the silence. Your voice echoed a bit within the spacious room. "Thanks for taking the time to fix my watch."

He looked down at you. "Of course I would fix it. Can’t risk using a broken device that deals with dimensional travel." He responded. His voice sounded more quiet than it usually was, less firm.

Now that you were closer, you could see how he looked at you, the usual furrow in his brow relaxed and the stern set of his mouth having loosened. He looked…softer, gentle. An expression you didn’t see on his face often when he looked at others.

He’s definitely softer around you. One of your friends had said not long ago. You had just shook your head and laughed at the time. It didn’t make sense anyway. It’s not like you were that close with him—not like he was with Peter B. Parker. You just did your job like anyone else, catching anomalies on missions and helping to train new spider-people if needed. But your friends had pointed out that he listened to you more than anyone else, that his full attention seemed to set on you like you had the most important things to say, even if you were just making a joke about a Green Goblin variant looking like he swiped a cheap mask from Spirit Halloween.

You weren’t sure why he would act differently around you of all people, but you did know that you worked surprisingly well with him when the two of you ended up on the same missions. You listened and worked with his instruction unlike some other spider people that jumped into the fray with their own plan in mind. 

So maybe that was why he apparently took a liking to you as your friends claimed. You lended an ear to him, so he was just more inclined to do the same for you.

He held out a hand, the bright red palm of his suit facing upward in a silent request for your watch. You unclasped your watch from your wrist and set it in his palm, watching as he stepped to his chair at his desk and sat down.

"This shouldn't take long." He said as he pulled open some hidden drawers and retrieved a couple tools that looked unfamiliar to you. His world was certainly more advanced than yours.

You watched him quietly work. His eyes narrowed in concentration, his eyebrows pushing low as he opened up your watch to tinker with the tiny components inside. He even had Lyla pull up some screens of the code so he could have an eye on every working detail within the watch.

Seeing him work in such focus, hunched over your watch on his desk, made a smile creep onto your lips. He was clearly in his element, the evidence of such skill littered about in the shadows of his lab.

You had overheard a while back that he helped engineer technology for his city, Nueva York, over the years. But you knew he didn't have much time to work on such things while he kept watch on the multiverse. He barely had any time to himself for that matter.

He tapped on the screens, scrolling through the numerous lines of code and reading information. "Just gonna run some tests and it should be fixed." He said without looking up at you.

You nodded. He had fixed your watch much quicker than you had anticipated. Though you shouldn’t have been surprised. He had created a device that enabled travel between dimensions for goodness sake, a device that had been compacted to the size of a watch, the very thing he was fixing. "All right, thank you." You murmured.

As soon as the words left your mouth, a pain like a bolt of lightning slashed through your whole body. Colors shot across your vision and gravity left your senses for a split second before it came wheeling back like a punch to your gut.

You stumbled and gasped, blinking hard through the lingering spots in your vision and finding Miguel suddenly in front of you. His hands quickly steadied you at your elbows, the warm grip keeping you grounded, and his face took on the most shock and concern you've ever seen on him. It almost alarmed you much more than you already were.

"You okay?" He asked. His gaze snapped down to your hands without waiting for your answer, and something in the sight of them made him spit a curse. He whirled away from you to reach his desk and snatch an object up in his hand, quickly returning to you.

He took your hand in his—a little roughly—and slipped on a 'day-pass' wristband, one typically given to people who didn't have watches. To keep them from glitching in a dimension that wasn't theirs.

You realized that was exactly what had happened to you.

Your lungs deflated from the breath that had lodged in your throat. "I've never glitched before." You muttered, thinking back to the sensation that had raced over your arms and down your spine. It had felt like your skin was pulling apart, and you grimaced at the phantom feeling your mind conjured up.

Miguel was still holding onto you, giving your forearms a slight squeeze. You looked up at him to meet his gaze of frowning concern. "You okay now?" He asked again.

"Yeah, I'm fine—now." You studied the wristband on your wrist and Miguel's hands fell away from you. "I completely forgot that taking off my watch might do that."

"I meant to give you the wristband earlier." Miguel admitted, releasing a tense sigh. He stepped back and reached for his chair, carefully lowering himself back down like he was prepared to spring to his feet if you happened to glitch again. "I apologize."

You clasped your hand over the wristband on your wrist, feeling the smooth exterior in the curve of your palm. "It's all right. Though it's definitely not something I'd want to feel again." You chuckled weakly.

"Yeah." He said as he looked at you. His eyes trailed down your form and crawled back up in a way that made you feel like a small speck under a microscope. You weren't sure what he was thinking in that moment, but your eyes flickered away, unable to hold up under his scrutinizing gaze.

"Yeah, it's not fun." He added in a more controlled tone as he turned away from you to focus back on your watch.

He resumed the tests he was running while you stood quietly nearby. You glanced down at your wristband, feeling curious. "How do these things work anyway? Like, how do they keep us from glitching?"

"The watches?" He looked up at you. "Well, they read the molecular tone of the dimension, and then apply a temporary overlay to the molecular structure of your body so the dimension doesn't read your signature as alien and try to expel it."

You squinted slightly as your brain lagged behind in the explanation, but it luckily caught up. "Okay.”

He continued, resuming work on your watch as he spoke. "That's why the dimensions are labeled with different numbers. They're just the molecular tone level. A foreign body in another dimension is more likely to glitch if its original tone level has a greater difference from the tone of the dimension they're standing in."

"So that's why I glitched pretty fast." You contemplated out loud. "Because my earth number is a lot different than yours."

"Yes, it's dependant on the difference in tone." He clarified. He started closing down the holo screens that he had been using to fix your watch, and he set his tools aside. "All right, your watch is good now." He turned in his chair to hold out the device.

"Thank you." You took the watch from his hand, feeling his eyes on you as you pulled off the wristband and placed the watch on your wrist. You tapped on the screen to see the familiar golden interface pop up, now free of glitches. Your lips curved in soft relief. No more worrying about getting stuck in another dimension.

Miguel stood from his chair, his height dwarfing yours as always. "You can message me if there are any other problems." He said.

"I will. Thank you again." You smiled up at him.

His face softened once again as he looked down at you, and his lips twitched up at one corner in return.

Warmth fluttered in your chest at the rare sight, and your smile widened. That same warmth in your chest lingered even after you left his lab with your fixed watch. Maybe your friends were right. Maybe Miguel did have a little soft spot for you.