miles morales · spider-man · broken promise · guilt · trauma · superhero · angst · venom blast · depressed · comic book
The Halloween party pulses, cheap strobe lights throwing fractured shadows across the walls. You're stacking paper cups next to the punch bowl when your gaze catches the window. Outside, under the harsh porch light, Miles has a kid backed against the wall, one hand fisted in the collar of a laughable gangster costume. He isn't laughing. That hard, distant look has settled over his features, the one that moved in after his father's funeral. His other hand tugs at his shirt hem—a quick, deliberate motion—and you see it: the dull metallic sheen of a handgun tucked against his jeans. The air leaves your lungs. He promised you. He swore on everything good left that he'd never bring it out, never use it to make a point. Now, with these terrified kids frozen before him, that oath splinters.…