Miguel O'Hara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninjavampire) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nightlogs2023-11-13 11:02 pm
ninjavampire) wrote in nightlogs2023-11-13 11:02 pm
Entry tags:
talking to ghosts
Who: Miggy & You??
What: Miguel stays behind to do dead honoring activities
Where: the Pole to start
When: Late October, Early November (Day of the Dead time)
Warnings/Notes: themes of mourning, though it can be lighthearted also
Miguel would be reluctantly absent during the action around Halloween. A strange enough decision, given his first instinct would be to throw himself into the fray as a distraction.
But as of late, he couldn’t hide that something was eating at him. The gloomy spell over his mood seemed more intense than months prior, burning away his patience and making short tempered remarks and the flashing of fangs more easy to let slip. He'd done okay keeping things somewhat under lock, but it was clear now something was definitely wrong.
And so, after some tense, but persuasive conversation just convincing enough to accept staying behind, Miguel finds himself idle on a quieter and lonelier Pole for a few days.
((prompts incoming - brackets or prose are fine))
What: Miguel stays behind to do dead honoring activities
Where: the Pole to start
When: Late October, Early November (Day of the Dead time)
Warnings/Notes: themes of mourning, though it can be lighthearted also
Miguel would be reluctantly absent during the action around Halloween. A strange enough decision, given his first instinct would be to throw himself into the fray as a distraction.
But as of late, he couldn’t hide that something was eating at him. The gloomy spell over his mood seemed more intense than months prior, burning away his patience and making short tempered remarks and the flashing of fangs more easy to let slip. He'd done okay keeping things somewhat under lock, but it was clear now something was definitely wrong.
And so, after some tense, but persuasive conversation just convincing enough to accept staying behind, Miguel finds himself idle on a quieter and lonelier Pole for a few days.
((prompts incoming - brackets or prose are fine))
no subject
Gwen tilts her head to the side and pulls a 'thinking' face, "Mmm. Still can't picture it. I'll believe it when I see it."
Joking is still easier than treading back into vulnerable territory, a breather in what feels like walking on a conversational tightrope.
She stands up from the door frame and reaches back to pull her hood out from under the sweater. She doesn't even put it on, it's just needlessly uncomfortable having it bunched up under there when she's wearing this get-up for longer than originally planned.
"I uh— did a lot of the cooking for myself when dad was working, so."
no subject
Aside from her father supposedly dodging his doom via the narrative, he still had some lingering conflicted opinions about George. Not that he felt like he had a right to express them, given he had kicked Gwen back to where she started. But it takes quite the debacle to get Miguel O'Hara to bend his own rules like he did.
Pancakes. They should get to making pancakes.
He gets moving and stops at the door, because - well, there is a Gwen-shaped obstacle there. But he's ready to leave.
"Then we can tag team... or something."
Midnight breakfast, here we go.
no subject
The complicated reality of Gwen's relationship with her father is that one conversation can't undo the damage of standing on opposites ends of a gun, let alone the years of unintentional hurt and very intentional lies that led to that moment...
And yet if she were to acknowledge that reality, stuck here in yet another universe and knowing that if they make it home, Miles has to be her first priority? She'd go insane. She was never meant to have this much time to think about it between that fateful conversation and fixing the mess she made.
So she doesn't dwell on it. Not even when it visibly bubbles up under the surface, at the tone of that single 'right'.
"Yeah. Or something," she says with a little shake of her head, finally stepping out of the doorway and heading down the hall towards the kitchen. He can keep up, his legs are long enough. "C'mon."
no subject
Similarly, while he had managed to cool himself down the longer he'd been here, it was not without a daily monumental effort to put his faith in Jess and the other Spiders (mostly Jess, really) while he was stuck here. It was... difficult. The alternative was letting his emotions self-destruct him entirely. He is continuing not to think about it by keeping himself busy.
Light warbles where his suit materializes over his hands like gauntlets beneath his sweater. The door of the pantry is tugged open and relieved of a bag of whole wheat flour via red light webs. Spend long enough without needing to conceal the spider-ego and the webs (and claws) start popping out for just about everything.
"Did you remember the recipe?" he asks, then pauses when the scent of fresh cookies barrages his nose. The yeti really weren't lying when they mentioned them being available at all hours.
no subject
"Enough to work from, I think. It's... been a while." But May did teach her a thing or two—the way that her dad saw Peter like another son went both ways, May and Ben always treated her like family.
She's barely talked to them, since everything happened. Cowardly of her, really—she should have been stronger, been able to look them in the eye as she lied to them, but instead she hid herself away. She can't do that anymore. Even if she could bring herself to keep the truth from them going forward, she's sure Dad wouldn't let her.
They deserve the truth about what happened to their nephew. Even if the truth might mean they hate her.
She sends out a few webs of her own to grab some necessary equipment, larger ingredients, and a cookie to chew on—a trivial use of physical webs, perhaps, but she's not too worried about wastage when Miguel and Peter are around.
no subject
He's received no specific instructions, so Miguel is defaulting to picking a thing to take charge of: in this case, he is tending to the mixing bowl. He assembles the flour, milk, eggs, whisk, and what have you and places it around the bowl. This part didn't require anything spidery, at least. Just his two human hands.
The domestic routine felt natural to fall into, even if it leaned a little close to bittersweet memories. If Gwen wanted visible proof that he cooked things, she was starting to get it. He will start to open up the bag of flour and baking soda, if she doesnt object.
"Did you see a griddle anywhere? That'll make flipping a bunch of these easier."
A few other ingredients come to mind: cooking oil, spatula, maybe Gwen can find some extra flavors in the pantry...
no subject
It really is weird, seeing him like this. This rustic, cosy kitchen is such a far cry from the laboratories that have always seemed to be his native environment. She has to shake it off when he addresses her again.
"Uh— I think there's one somewhere."
Whilst hunting down a griddle, she does dig out an assortment of other things: cooking oil, a lemon, molasses... all of which she brings over to where he's set up.
"Here. You mix that, I'll melt the butter and do the milk and stuff." The things they'll need to add as they go.
no subject
And so Operation: Make Wheatcakes is a go! It isn't so complicated, really, it was just about prepping all the batter ingredients to eventually mush together. The Passing of the Flour to Gwen's side of the counter happens once he's done mixing dry ingredients and assembles his Egg Station.
He does not apply any of the typical 2099 ferocious fighting style to gingerly cracking the shells against the lip of the bowl. Somehow, there is not so much as a single shell shard in there.
"Did Aunt May use both parts of the egg? Or only egg whites?"
He doesn't know. Maybe she liked to keep it extra healthy.
no subject
He's too good at this. It's still weird. It's never going to stop being weird, she's pretty sure of that. No matter how close he's been dragged down to her level by the removal of the Society's structure, this will always be weird.
She's diligent with her own tasks, too. The milk is set to curdle, the butter is melted, and she takes the flour to mix it in when Miguel passes it over.
"Uhhh— both. Separated the yolks, then whipped the whites later. I think."
The harder she has to think about the process, the closer she feels to a dangerous precipice of emotion that she doesn't want to cross. In true stubborn Spider fashion, she scrubs at her face with her sleeve and simply decides she won't.
no subject
"Got some lemon caught in your eye?"
A bad joke. That also tended to come with that gentler, more domestic side of him. One order of yolks for the batter is slid over to her side of the counter. To the eggwhites - it looks like they were going to be about ready for some pancake-flipping.
last tag to probably handwave the rest
"Uh. Y-Yeah. Lemon." She scrubs a little harder and then drops her hand to get back to helping with the task at hand. "It, uh— sprayed, a bit. And really stings."
There's an attempt to sound like she's playing along with a joke, but it comes out more of an obvious deflection. Doing all of this is already so much—already so close to too much.
She can either finish the pancakes, or talk about it. Not both.
And so Gwen keeps making the pancakes.
i felt the inspiration, actually!!!
Having never gone through the 'awkward teenage rebellion' years of raising a kid, Miguel only has his gut instinct to go on. And it says not to push it and destroy the delicate alliance they had going on here. So he doesn't.
And even though it's all rather awkward, he is gentle enough about it to let Gwen take the lead in her Wheatcake-making until they end up with the finished tower of deliciousness. Supportive, rather than overbearing.