Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 3

"How would you feel if you had a brother or sister come into the family?"

El Hopper furrowed her eyebrows at the question. She immediately thought about Kali at the mention of a sister, but knew that it wasn't about her. Hopper didn't even know about Kali because El never had the chance to tell him about her Chicago trip. As she thought about it more, an idea popped into her head.

"Are you pregnant?" The naive girl asked.

Hopper chuckled. "No I'm not. Only girls can get pregnant. I thought Joyce explained this to you?" He said.

El nodded in response. Then her eyes widened as she thought about it more. "Am I pregnant?!" She asked, sounding terrified.

Hopper's eyes widened along with her. "I hope not! You're too young for that! No one is pregnant, that I know of," he responded. "What I mean is that I'm looking to adopt someone, like how I did with you a few months ago. Give someone a new home who needs one. That's what I mean when I say that you might get a new brother or sister."

"Oh," El said, understanding what her dad was saying. Someone new could be joining the family and she couldn't help but feel a little excited for it. Sometimes it got lonely at the cabin whenever Hopper was at work and she wasn't able to hang out with the party. The only things she could do was watch TV, eat food, and play games on her phone. It got boring most of the time and having company with her can make it better.

Hopper seemed to have read her mind when he spoke up again. "I want someone to keep you safe while I'm gone and the others can't hang out with you. But this means that they might have to know about your powers, if that's okay with you," he explained to her.

El bit her lip at the mention of her powers, but she nodded. "It's fine if they know. They'd have to understand in order to hang out with me. Also so they know they don't have to grab the remote to watch TV," she answered, chuckling at her last comment.

Her dad smiled at her. "Alright then. I'll look into the adoption place and find someone who needs a new home," he said as he stood up from his chair. El stood up as well and went to the kitchen area to grab a quick snack before heading into her room. 

The girl then pulled out her supercom from her nightstand drawer. Normally she would be using her phone to call people, but Hopper said that it was off limits for calling. That way her voice wouldn't be tracked by any government agents that worked for Brenner. So he got her a supercom to help her talk to the boys and Max outside of school and she used her powers to get a better signal.

El changed channels on the supercom and started to use her powers. "Hey Mike? Mike, are you there?" She asked.

A few seconds later, Mike answered his supercom. "I'm here, El. What's up?" He said.

"I'm getting a new brother or sister," El told him.

Mike's eyes widened at the other end. "What, is Hopper dating someone and he got her pregnant?" He asked.

El chuckled. "No and I already asked him if he was pregnant," she responded. "He's looking into adopting someone like he did for me a few months ago, but not someone with powers like me."

"That's cool!" Mike said, sounding happy for her. "But what about your powers? They're going to discover them no matter what, so what are you going to do about it?"

El shrugged even though he couldn't see her. "I'm probably just gonna tell them. They could understand, hopefully," she answered.

"Alright," Mike said, not sounding so sure of the idea. Ever since she came back to him that night, he was always protective over El and didn't want anything bad happening to her. He was scared that if he did something bad or something bad would happen, El would sacrifice her life again. He couldn't go through that pain anymore, so he was always careful whenever it came to big situations. Adoption might not be the biggest situation, but it was best to be careful just in case.