FIREWEAVER | A Spiderverse Fanfic

Chapter Five

Nueva York glimmered outside the sheen window pane of the large executive office of Alchemax. Hums of hovercars wafted up to the window despite being dozens of feet below.

Sunlight filtered in, falling gently onto the sleeping face tucked between his arms, his cheek resting against the cool metal of his desk. His eye peaked open at the light, immediately reeling back and shielding himself with his arm.

"Lyla, tint windows sixty percent." He groaned.

"On it Miguel." The light disappeared, the window darkening to a transparent dark grey.

"Anything else, mister vampire?" A sweet voice chimed in his ear, a faint yellow glow washing over his face.

He moved his arm, looking up at the hologram of a miniature woman with long blonde hair and a white dress.

"Yeah, power down." He buried his face against the desk again.

"You have two scheduled meetings today. One is in fifteen minutes. I assume you intend to go looking like that? I guess goth is back in fashion now a days" she flickered to his shoulder, waving at his dark messy hair, ignoring his previous command.

He looked up, dark circles beneath his eyes and stubble across his jaw. "No. Just make the preparations while I get ready, okay?"

"Well, okay." Lyla flickered back to his desk as he sat up. "Also, you have two new messages from miss D'Angelo."

He stiffened and Lyla quickly corrected herself. "Father D'Angelo, I mean."

His shoulders slumped, his head nodding slightly. "Go ahead and play the first one."

The yellow hologram flickered out, replaced with a video recording of a woman with brown hair, and painfully familiar blue eyes.

"Miguel, I know it's been a few months, but I just wanted to check in on you. The last time I saw you, you didn't look so good... I don't know you very well, but I know it's what... she, would have wanted. Anyway, contact me when you have a chance." The woman flickered away.

Miguel leaned back with a shaky breath. Another screen popped up again, the same woman.

"Miguel, it's me again. I forgot to say on my last message that we're having- well, I'm having, a small get together of the family this weekend. You're welcome to come. You were almost apart of the family- don't think that's changed. That's all, talk to you soon."

The hologram disappeared for good this time and Miguel stared past the empty space it once filled. Father D'Angelo, also known as Jennifer D'Angelo, was a priest who worked at Saint Patrick's cathedral. But she was better known to him as Dana D'angelo's sister.

Dana. The name alone made his chest tighten.

He got up slowly, making his way across the office space. It was dark, but he walked with ease to a door that slid open with a hiss at his approach, then moving inside into a large bathroom.

He stood before a mirror, the reflection of a masked man looking back at him. He blinked and  it was replaced with his face, his eyes swollen and red. He wiped his eyes. He didn't remember what he had dreamt last night, but he knew what it must have involved.

He tapped a button on the counter, initiating the usual clean up routine, standing still as a robotic arm lowered from the ceiling, scanning his jaw and around his lips before shaving. Another bot fixing his suit and tidying up his appearance.

It was the kind of mundane things that Miguel tended to blur out. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept at his own home- no, his apartment. He couldn't call it home anymore.