The Eyes of New York

Yearn

Miles couldn't bring himself to detangle from the mess of warm arms cocooning him, even as May finished recounting their week. A stray tear slipped down his cheek and Mamá wiped it away, her hand stilling on his cheek.

Meeting her eyes was hard. It shouldn't be, but it was. He didn't want her to see how scared he was, how vengeful he was, and how his cowardice led to their near deaths. But he met them anyway.

They were welcoming, and sad. He resisted the urge to pick apart why they were so sad, knowing that rabbit hole would only bring pain.

"I really thought you were dead," he finally said, voice hushed and strained. He cleared his throat before he could spill how he could hardly live with himself, how he almost let himself fade away in a watery grave. Instead, he looked up at May. "Thank you," he said, trying to spill every ounce of gratitude he felt into it.

May only gave him a kind smile. "Least I could do."

Mamá gently ran her thumb down the scar on his forehead, eyebrows furrowed. "Does it hurt, mijo?"

"No," he assured, "No, it's all healed. I'm okay."

"That malparido."

Miles couldn't help his startled laugh. "Mamá, woah, you really hate him, huh?"

Dad finally piped up, his hand still resting on Miles's shoulder. "We both really do."

Miles tried to hold the grin, but it wavered so much that he gave up. "Yeah, me too," he whispered. His eyes strayed down to his hands, absently wringing them. All his injuries from fighting Kravinoff had scarred over, but he would forever go down as the villain who had revealed his identity. That felt... insulting, somehow.

Dad gently squeezed his shoulder, and Miles looked back up at him. His eyes searched Miles's - what he found he didn't know. "How did you survive? We thought," he visibly watched him swallow, seemingly burying his own emotions. "May got a picture after we escaped. You looked..."

Miles's eyes stung. He didn't want to picture himself in that moment. He didn't want to dwell on how he got from a heap of limbs on the floor of Fisk's office to drowning in the Hudson River. How they had thought him dead, opting to toss him in the salty water with only rope to immobilize him. Even though they knew he had super strength.

The mere fact that he was sitting in his home again, wrapped in their arms, was nothing short of a miracle. It all felt like a dream, something his dying brain had gifted him to guide him into a more peaceful death.

He didn't need to look down to know his hands were shaking, on the verge of camouflaging. Was this what shock felt like? It felt like he was in shock.

"Bad, I know," Miles finally settled on, staring down at the ground like that would give him clarity. As he opened his mouth again, there was a short sharp knock at the door.

May had a baseball bat in her arms nearly instantaneously. Dad reached for his belt - clearly forgetting that his gun was currently wrapped in spider webs on the wall. Mamá held him tighter, and he swallowed the noise of discomfort from her accidentally pressing into his barely healed wounds.

"It's ok," Miles quickly reassured, having assessed his spider-sense. "It's probably just Matt."

"Quién?" Mamá asked.

"He- he helped me. He's a friend of Spider-Man. He can come in," Miles explained. But he made no move to detangle himself from the hug, a vain attempt to stay in the moment.

May raised an eyebrow at him, clearly recognizing that he wasn't going to open the door, and went to the door herself. Miles peered past her to spot the familiar dress pants Matt wore.