Chapter Text
January, 1 month since Peter’s disappearance
MILES:
It started snowing around sunset. Not the fun kind either, the sky just cracked open and dumped a gray sheet over Brooklyn like it was trying to smother the city quiet.
Miles sat perched on the corner of a fire escape five stories up, hood up, mask pulled halfway off, steam rising off his breath. He watched people shuffle below, heads down, not looking up. They never looked up.
His ribs still hurt from last night. Some idiot with shock gauntlets tried knocking over a bodega in Flatbush, and Miles had gotten there too late to stop the windows from shattering or the clerk from catching a punch. He still stopped the guy. Tied him up with webbing that didn’t hold half as well as Peter’s used to. He told the cops his name was Spider-Man.
The look they gave him said otherwise.
He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t really eaten. But the city didn’t care about that, the sirens kept wailing, and the streets kept needing him. So he kept moving. Even if it felt like he was chasing a ghost.
A flash of red and blue in a cracked window made him flinch. For a second, he thought it was Peter. Just for a second.
He hated that second.
He checked his phone for the fourth time in an hour. Nothing. No text. No signal. No “Hey, kid” from a number that never sent emojis.
That first week, Miles stayed up every night waiting for the tracker in Peter’s suit to ping. He tried to retrace his last patrol. He even swung by the Bugle, just in case someone there knew something, but all he got was Jameson on a podcast rant calling Spider-Man a coward for vanishing.
Coward.
Miles wanted to punch something. Instead, he just sat there, fingers twitching against cold metal, listening to the wind knock loose a broken Christmas banner from a lamppost.
He didn’t tell his parents the truth. They still thought he was “staying late at art school” or “volunteering with that science program.” If they knew he was out here, they’d ground him until graduation. If they knew Peter was gone, they might actually worry for real.
But someone had to do this.
Someone had to try.
He tugged his mask back on, stood up on the railing, and launched himself into the night. His webs caught, most of the time. His landings were still clumsy. His swing had rhythm but no flow.
He didn’t feel like Spider-Man. Even if Peter had told him he was the last time he saw him.
But he was all the city had.
And if Peter was still out there somewhere, Miles was going to be the kind of Spider-Man he could be proud of.
Even if it hurt.
The decorations felt wrong this year.
Brooklyn lit itself up like always, candy-cane lights strung across intersections, inflatable Santas slouched on brownstone stoops, fake snow sprayed on store windows. People smiled, but it felt thinner, like they were all going through the motions. Miles tried to feel it too. Tried to pretend December didn’t feel broken.
Peter had disappeared the week after Halloween. One day he was swinging alongside Miles, teasing him about web angles and backflips. The next day? Nothing. Not a sound. Not a body. Just silence.
The city had gotten real quiet about it, too. No official statements. No funerals. No masked vigils. It was like people were afraid to admit he was gone. Like saying it out loud might make it real.
So they didn’t say anything. They just hung wreaths and played “Jingle Bell Rock” like Spider-Man hadn’t vanished into thin air.
Miles crouched on the edge of a rooftop, watching kids play on a sidewalk below. One of them had a plastic Spider-Man mask on. Red and black, his colors. Not Peter’s. The kid spun around, shooting imaginary webs at his friends, giggling like he wasn’t pretending to be someone missing.
That made Miles feel sick. Or maybe just tired. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
He remembered something Peter once said, during one of their rooftop crash-courses back when Miles first got his powers.
“When I started, there was no one. No one like me. I had to figure it all out by messing up, getting hurt, and doing it again anyway. You got this.”
Peter’s hand on his shoulder felt grounding. His smile was sincere and heartfelt.
“Thank you, Peter.” Miles had told him.
At the time, it sounded cool. Brave. Heroic. Now it just sounded… lonely. Miles never wanted to do it alone.
Peter had nobody when he was 15. And still, he showed up every day. Still swung into burning buildings and took punches that should’ve killed him. Still cracked dumb jokes while bleeding out because the city needed him to be okay.
Miles wasn’t sure he was that strong.
He didn’t want to be alone in this.
But he was.
He dropped down into an alley, peeled off his mask, and leaned against a wall. The cold bit into his skin. Lights from a menorah display blinked across the street. A couple walked by laughing, wrapped in one scarf. A store speaker played “All I Want for Christmas” on loop like it was trying to break him.
He hated feeling weak. He hated feeling like the whole city was staring at him, waiting for him to fail.
He hated that he needed Peter. And that Peter was gone. And that maybe he was never coming back.
Miles clenched the mask in his fist. It still smelled like Peter’s old suit, whatever fabric spray he used that always reminded Miles of sweat and peppermint gum.
He wanted to scream. Or cry. Or swing until his arms gave out.
But Spider-Man didn’t do that.
At least, not where anyone could see.
The police scanner buzzed in his ear. Armed robbery, Upper East Side. He sighed. Pulled the mask back on.
His voice came out quieter than usual when he whispered to himself,
“Okay, okay. One more time.”
And he leapt into the air, the weight of a city, and a missing mentor, clinging to his back like a cape he’d never worn.