{2nd Spider; video}

[scansorial]

So. Hey? I'm Miles. Met some of you already around. I only recently got here with the whole desert thing and all. I just was busy figuring all this out. Initially. Was kinda in the middle of stuff back home. But I'm trying to help out where I can at least. While I am here. However long that's gonna be.

Mostly I'm still -- I guess, processing everything. Here and back home the last few days before I ended up here. Now we kinda have some breathing room after.....all that. Those guys with the blades and whatever. I know most everyone have their secrets. Probably mostly smaller ones that don't really mean anything, that they'd just be embarrassed about if others knew or whatever. But what if it is something bigger? Something you're even hiding from your parents? I've messed around trying to hide my graffiti or stickers from my dad but that's.....not like this. But I was told I have to keep this secret, that nobody else can know.

[Maybe. Talking about it might help? Or just make him feel worse about hiding things from his parents. Miles isn't sure yet. It varies, in him feeling guilty about it and in being relieved his parents don't know about the last few days. Or he might just get everyone here wondering what he is on about, possibly getting completely the wrong idea or something. Miles is just. Still so new with this, wondering how he will handle the whole double life thing. There are other superheroes around. Maybe they have more experience. But he isn't sure on how to ask. If he should, really. Is he too obvious? Miles isn't sure. It's hard to say, unless anyone has literally seen him to know, like the other Spiders, like Aunt May.]

Comments

[konman]

[It is...pretty likely that Miles is spider mask kid. It's such a small group and so few of them are that slight. And he's not as good at masking his voice as some people Kon's known.]

[Even years ago when he was newer at heroing, Tim's voice went all grim and serious and commander-like in a way that truly masked it.]

[Not everyone is trained in the art of disguise by the world's greatest detective, though.]

I suck at secrets, so I'm a bad person to ask.

My mentor wanted me to have like a more normal-ish life so he convinced me to develop a secret ID. It makes it so I can live with the family I have now. But I didn't have one in the beginning. Everyone knew I was Superboy. I didn't even have a name besides my superhero name, just nicknames people gave me. Not until I was two anyway.

So all I can say is it only doesn't suck when the people you care about know the truth.

[scansorial]

A secret ID? Oh, right. Superhero stuff. I guess I know about that. In theory. Some heroes are care about that. Others are more public and open about who they are.

[He hadn't specifically -- hadn't mentioned superheroes at all in this though? But it's probably just a coincidence Kon went to that. It does relate to secrets, right? It's Fine. He's totally got this. Sort of. Maybe.

Miles does consider it though. 'it only doesn't suck when the people you care about know the truth'. Would it be better? If his dad knew? He isn't exactly Spider-Man's biggest fan. And he already worried about Miles anyway. Hanging around with Uncle Aaron, let alone the way he's probably going to fret in the aftermath of losing him. In how Miles will take that. Let alone his mother. And how he was going to deal with his roommate at school with the dorms.]

I guess that's good advice in general though.

[konman]

[Right, Miles, superhero stuff. You don't know anything about that at all, do you.]

On the other hand, I didn't have anyone who was, like...super invested in my life in a parental way until I wound up with the family I mentioned. I didn't have parents. Superman cared, but it's not like he was raising me. He'd just breeze in for a pep talk or a team up now and again and offer advice. Which was good but not...you know.

[Kon scratches the back of his neck.]

And most of the people who tried to do parental stuff sort of...left. For different reasons.

[Nobody who took over being his immediate guardian stuck it out to make sure he was even taken care of by someone else. Not really. Not even, well...Guardian.]

I bounced around for a little while. Uh, wound up technically homeless? I guess? Until I wound up where I am now.

[By "Technically" he actually means "actually" but has no concept of how messed up it is to be 17 and sleeping in the bath-tub of your team's superbase.]

So it's probably different for people who have parents from the start. They're all invested. Secrets getting revealed can be harder for them to accept at first. It's sometimes a little messy.

[He thinks of how Tim's dad had initially reacted.]

But from what I know of other people who also had secret ID stuff to deal with - naturally a big source of secrets in the crowd I run with, of course [Just something to use as an example, right?] it still seemed like things ran smoother when their parents were in the loop. Even if it was messy when they first got roped in.

Even when they were terrified, their parents were proud of them, too.

[Cassie's mom was a huge support to her daughter. Bart's life had its rough edges smoothed out by being parented by Max Mercury, also a speedster himself. Tim and his dad had hit a rough patch but it sounded like it got better after Jack accepted Tim did good as Robin.]

[And knowing Tim was Robin wasn't what killed him. He was just someone else's collateral damage.]

[the_hit_list]

[ Tim is listening to this conversation - how could he avoid it? Once he heard where it was going, he had to listen.

It’s not that he thinks Kon will say “too much”, but Tim needs to know what he’s putting out there so their stories match.

He wasn’t expecting to actually learn anything new. ]

“Technically” homeless?

[konman]

[Whoops.]

[It's awfully easy to forgot this isn't a phone call and is more of a public forum.]

Only technically!

Did I have it fully together? No. But it wasn't as bad as it could've been and I got it together later.

[The way he sees the situation is it was a lightly comical stumble he made in becoming a proper adult. It was one of his many moments of being a low grade walking disaster. The moments he sometimes used to try to hide from Tim because Tim always was so collected and with it.]

[It was just a moment where he wasn't cool.]

It was only a brief detour into being lame.

[scansorial]

Homeless? Jeez. And here I get mortified when dad drops me off at school in his cop car and makes me say I love him too before he goes to work.

[It isn't that Miles isn't aware there are some that are homeless, that are struggling more. It's just he's been mostly insulated from it, with his parents and all, aside perhaps from the odd thing he hears from his father's job and all.]

But yeah. I uh. Know my dad wasn't a fan of -- of the last person back home who had a secret like mine is all.

[diedforyoursins]

[Oh, he can actually relate to this one.]

That's the benefit of being here, isn't it? There's a sort of freedom in having nothing left to lose. If you strip away all the trappings of life that made a secret so critical, then keeping it becomes less important.

[scansorial]

I mean. He probably had reasons? For telling me to keep it a secret. I dunno if anyone else from home might show up here. I did.

[He would. Rather not deal with Kingpin. Or his associate, Octavius.]

[diedforyoursins]

It's your choice, of course. But the fact that you're asking at all suggests it weighs heavily on you.

[scansorial]

I guess. It does. I've never really had anything this big? This....serious? To try hide from my parents.

[It's his parents. His first instinct when freaking out initially about his newfound abilities was to try call his father. He's just a kid. Thrust into all this. At the least, the other Spiders know it's him, but. That won't mean much once he hopefully gets them back home to their own dimensions. Even if knowing there were others out there, that might help a little at least. That he isn't alone.]

[takenalive]

[Alloran struggles somewhat telling humans apart, partly because they're such a very different species, partly because he's just plain got a degree of faceblindness. This one's voice sounds familiar, though.]

There were a group of young human guerilla agents concealing their identities during the invasion of Earth. They encouraged the Yeerk forces to believe they were all Andalites, like myself. One of them definitively kept this from his family, and I know this because his brother was a Controller. I couldn't say whether the others did.

[scansorial]

No idea what a Yeerk is. Or a Controller. But. Sometimes there are reasons for something being a secret. Like, with someone like a guerilla agent, they probably want to protect their friends, their family from being targeted to get to them or something, right?

[Same idea with superheroes, really.]

[takenalive]

Yeerks are small aliens which resemble slugs. They have no hands or eyes and covet ours - their single physical advantage is that if they can crawl into the ear of a member of a coveted species they can entirely control their bodies and fully access their minds. The host remains aware but powerless. This Yeerk-host unit is called a Controller.

[This is all delivered in a rigid monotone.]

So, yes. If Tom Berensen had had knowledge of his brother's activities then any of the Yeerks who owned him would have also known and enslaved him and his allies.

[scansorial]

They crawl into the ear and -- wait, what? That's.....I don't even want to think on that.

[The idea of that was just. Creepy. Terrifying if one didn't even necessarily know who to trust. Miles isn't sure he would deal well. At all. The whole mess with his uncle was bad enough and he was still processing and dealing with that revelation and guilt.]

Sounds like a lot....

[the_hit_list]

Secrets should depend on what makes you feel comfortable and safe. If it’s not your idea to keep the secret and you’re not sure about keeping it anymore, what’s the rationale to keep the secret?

[ Tim would probably have Secrets 4 Lyfe tattooed somewhere if he didn’t know someone who’d used Secret for a name. ]

If you can tell me. I understand it’s hard to speak around things.

[scansorial]

It's -- the other guy that had a similar secret told me to. I guess he had his reasons. Maybe he got in trouble sometimes because of it or something. Didn't want that happening to me?

[Miles definitely has his own reasons too. Namely, him being aware it would likely put a target on his friends, his family if anyone found out about him. His dad not exactly being the biggest fan of Spider-Man.]

It's just.....complicated. Especially with regards to my dad.

[the_hit_list]

Everyone has to come up with their own reasons, though. If you think his make sense and you want to adopt them, great. But you don’t owe him your silence just because he got in trouble. If it’s what YOU say is best for you, then it’s the right call.

[ Tim’s been at this a long time, and he has called out his fair share of secret identities on first meeting. There are only a few candidates for that mask, so he has an inkling, but professional courtesy applies. ]

Fathers are… very complicated.

[ Very, very complicated. And occasionally hard to talk about. ]

And occasionally hard to please.

[millenyal_pink]

[Elle doesn't mean to respond, but when Tim says "Fathers are very complicated and occasionally hard to please" she lets out a snort loud enough that it gets broadcasted on the mirrors without her noticing.]

[scansorial]

I mean. I didn't get to go over the reasons with him but he's probably -- probably was trying to protect me. Since he dealt with the same thing? But. I dunno. I'm new in dealing with this. He was an old hand about it.

[The super hero thing. Not that Miles is being specific on that. Yet. He groans, giving a nod.]

No kidding. It's. Definitely complicated. Kinda lately more complicated than usual.

[Even without the loss of his uncle being thrown in the mix of everything between him and his dad. Miles wishes he could have said something, when Jefferson had been right there on the other side of the door to tell him about Aaron.]

[cspd]

[ Detective senses tingling...but Lloyd is also not going to speak up about his immediate suspicions re: Miles and "Spider-Man," because that's not how Lloyd rolls.

But...well. Here's a parent who's been on the wrong side of some big secrets, so...lol. ]

I don't know who told you that you have to keep it secret, but did they tell you why they think you should?

[ He takes a breath. How to go about making his long story short... ]

My daughter had some pretty big things she was trying to keep from everyone. The one person who knew, and encouraged that, had...ulterior motives. It got to the point where she was convinced the only thing she could do was take off alone and try to protect our whole city on her own.

[ Lloyd also does not look old enough to have a daughter who is old enough to be making this kind of decision, but apparently his world is also running on a heavy level of comic book weirdness. ]

We still found out, and of course I still went in after her. I know she was trying to keep everyone else safe, but that shouldn't all be on her. And keeping her safe, and helping her sort through her problems, is still on me.

[scansorial]

Tell me why? No. I just figured, they or someone else they knew got hurt, so they were trying to protect me?

[He isn't going into detail, being specific. But. Even so. There's a limited number of them here, with the Green and all. Let alone the smaller number of kids to narrow it down further. Miles is still just. Figuring this out. Where he himself stands on all this. This isn't home, at least, that is true.]

So you're saying my parents can't keep me safe if I don't talk to them. I mean. They aren't here either. Was she okay?

[cspd]

Mm, sort of, but that's not really what I'm trying to get at.

It sounds to me like your big concern with keeping this secret is what it might mean for other people, if they know, but I don't think you should forget to consider what it means for you.

You're probably more emotionally prepared for this than KeA--she's a little younger. But it was a lot, for her, emotionally. Probably too much. And I have to think if I'd known all along, it wouldn't have gotten as bad as it did.

Your parents' job is to support you. It may be that you've got enough support to keep this secret without them knowing. But you should be sure of that, and consider what might go down if you don't. Because if you wind up needing someone at the eleventh hour, they're going to plow through anything in their way to get to you when they think you might need them. [ If they're anything like him, at least. ]

[ Sigh. ] Sorry if I'm getting preachy about that. It sounds like most of the people answering here are coming at it from the other side, though, so I feel like someone ought to say it. Being here gives you time to think about it, at least, right? [ He shakes his head. ] KeA got through it okay, when everything was said and done. She bounces back hard.

[scansorial]

I mean. Yeah. I don't want other people getting hurt because of my secret? As far as support, I mean......I have some now, but. I'm hoping -- I need to keep this promise. Get them back home. So they won't be around for long.

[After which, yeah, it would be just Miles. The other Spiders can't hang around. It'd kill them, literally being in the wrong dimension. Unless he meets more local supers along the way, once more people are aware of the new Spider-Man taking over the role, nobody is there to look out for him, exactly.]

I just. I dunno how my parents would respond. But yeah. Being here gives me some breathing room I guess? Kinda. That's good that she was alright though.

[millenyal_pink]

[Oh! The Spider-Kid has finally unmasked himself. Not that he's identifying himself as such. But he felt comfortable enough to introduce himself and that's progress.]

I mean, it depends. In general it's pretty normal and healthy to have stuff you keep from your family, even your friends. As long as you're not putting anyone at risk by keeping it to yourself you should be fine.

On the other hand... it's good to find people you trust. If you need a support network, whether it's made up of friends or family, that's okay. You're a kid, you shouldn't have to figure everything out yourself. If you're not sure you can tell your parents, finding an adult you can trust could be a good first step.

[Elle's a giant hypocrite, but that's not what this is about.]

[scansorial]

That's the thing. I don't want them getting hurt because of this secret. I don't know if it would be safer not to tell them, or to at least warn them? It's....complicated. Right now, I have some people. New....friends? Allies? However you want to put it. But they can't stick around.

[And he can't tell Uncle Aaron. Not anymore. Finding out was what had gotten him killed. Being shot because he wasn't dropping Miles off that roof to kill him, once Miles unmasked to show who he was.]

The other adult I trusted.....back home. They're dead, so.