“They’re your new family,” Jordan quipped. “Correction, they’reournew family.”
“But what about everything we do here? Are we just going to abandon our…project?”
“We’ll start a new project,” Jordan said like it was nothing. “When someone hands you a deal like this, you take it.”
“Yeah, and you end up paying with your soul,” Matty countered.
Jordan made a dismissive sound. “According to my parents, we’re both going to hell anyway. Might as well get there in style? No?”
“Are we really considering this?” Matty asked.
“Considering? Considered. I’m in. I wonder if they’ll take me if you bail?” he pondered.
Matty smacked his arm. “Asshole. I wasn’t going to go without you.”
“Yeah, but you come from money,” Jordan pointed out.
Matty rolled his eyes. “So do you, dumbass.”
“No, my parents are new money. We could be poor again from just one bad investment. Your dad’s family is loaded,” Jordan said. “Even if they hate you.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“What? My family hates me, too. That’s why we’re friends. Let's go kick it with the Mulvaneys for a while. You can go to your fancy school. I can pick up a few gigs or maybe even try to join a music program. No matter how scandalous the Mulvaneys are, they can’t be worse than our parents. Can they?”
“Don’t forget Project Watchtower only exists because my father and Thomas Mulvaney had something to do with it. So, yeah. They might just be worse than our parents.”
“But we’re still gonna go, right?” Jordan pushed. “Like, just to be sure?”
Matty closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
Matty leaned against the wall that supported the grand staircase, shoulders hunched like he might disappear into the wallpaper if he concentrated hard enough. He wore a black Spider-Man bodysuit under black basketball shorts and a gray-and-red hoodie. He’d chosen this AU version of Spidey specifically because he could cover the suit enough to not feel completely exposed. He wasn’t ashamed of his body or anything; he just didn’t know these people. Sure, he could’ve picked a different costume, but he’d only decided to attend at the last minute.
This was a lot of people for Matty. Not college kids like at school. Not a bunch of people who didn’t matter. These were people who’d been hand-picked by his brother-in-law to attend this party, his brother-in-law who was one of the most powerful men alive. It was such a strange configuration of people. All ages, all races, all genders, just seamlessly blending together like family. The whole house already buzzed with noise and laughter, the kind of chaotic energy that made his skin prickle.
Truthfully, Jordan had all but insisted they attend. He was way more into their new family than Matty was. That wasn’t to say Matty didn’t like the Mulvaneys, he did. But he didn’treally know them. It wasn’t like bonding with psychopaths was easy. They’d invited him and fifty other people to a party that, according to Jordan, was going to devolve into some kind of murder.
He said he’d overheard his brother, Aiden and Aiden’s husband, Thomas discussing it when they were all upstairs getting ready.
His brother. The thought was so weird. His brother was dead. At least that’s what his father, Marshall Kendrick, had told him anyway. That Aiden had died in an accident when he was seventeen. The weird part was that Matty had seen Aiden’s name in the project Watchtower files more than once but had never made any kind of connection. It wasn’t like Aiden was a rare name. But his brother was alive and now they were there. In this weird limbo of being family but also strangers.
Aiden was cool. Thomas was cooler. So far, they’d made good on every promise they’d made him. They’d gotten him into Ellory College with little fanfare. Jordan, too. While Matty was currently an econ major, Jordan had entered the music program. Matty had thought for sure Jordan’s music would be “too much” for a stuffy college full of geniuses, but they actually seemed to enjoy Jordan’s rock music. They’d even clapped for him during orientation week, which Matty still couldn’t entirely process.
There was only one real problem: the cliques. It hadn’t taken long for people to find out that Matty’s last name might be Kendrick, but he was somehow tied to the Mulvaneys. After that, they’d started asking him to join group activities—study groups, acapella groups, poker nights, some weird fantasy-themed running club. The Ivy League was the Ivy League, even when the students were handpicked.
He shook the thought away. He didn’t have to worry about school again until Monday. Tonight, he just had to survivewithout dying of boredom or embarrassment. Jordan, social butterfly that he was, had abandoned him almost immediately upon arrival to flirt with the large, brooding guy with long dark hair dressed as a very believable version of Brandon Lee’s Crow. Matty didn’t mind. He was already contemplating sneaking off to his assigned room and calling it a night before things got bloody.
He brought his glass to his lips, took a sip of the sickeningly sweet liquor, grimaced, and abandoned it on one of the trays. His tongue felt coated in sugar and fake cherry. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, wishing the drink had at least come with a burn.
“Hey.”
Matty turned to find another Spider-Man staring at him. This one was dressed as Spider-Man 2099, and he filled out the suit in a way Matty never could. The mask hiding his eyes made it disturbingly easy for Matty to look his fill. Tall. Broad shouldered. Spandex clinging to muscles in a way that made Matty’s mouth water. He found himself wondering what his face looked like under there. What color his eyes were, what shape his mouth was, whether he had the kind of jawline that made Matty make bad decisions.
“Hi,” Matty murmured, crossing his arms and leaning his shoulder against the wall, giving the stranger his full attention. Or as full as he could manage without looking like he was about to chew through his own restraints.
“What’s your name?”
“Miles,” Matty lied smoothly. “Miles Morales.”
