Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 9

El Hopper woke up the next morning and sat up from her bed, smelling some good food coming from the kitchen. She put on a floral romper and brushed her hair as fast as she could before rushing out of her room. The smell was even better when she stepped out and entered the kitchen area, making her hopeful for Eggos. Her eagerness quickly changed to disappointment when she realized it wasn't Eggos.

Instead, breakfast that morning would be pancakes made by Hopper. Even though they were similar, El much preferred Eggos to pancakes. The food confused her because when she first heard the name, she thought it was a giant cake made in a pan. But when Hopper had first made them, they were tiny and not at all like a cake. Ever since that day, she was determined to come up with a better name for pancakes.

"Morning, sweetheart," Hopper greeted when he saw his daughter enter the kitchen. "Can you go wake Peter up, please? I'm busy with the pan."

El nodded and walked into Peter's room, seeing him asleep on his desk. She chuckled when she heard his snores, seeing that he didn't go to bed immediately after last night. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something from under Peter's bed. She walked over and kneeled down, grabbing the item and held it up.

It was a familiar looking red mask with large lens. After a few moments of staring at it, El grinned when she realized it was the Spider-Man mask. She looked back over at Peter and realized that it was him under the mask. Why else would he have the mask under his own bed? 

The girl put the mask on over her head and saw a weird looking scanning environment. A feminine voice even greeted her, causing for her to jump. She ignored it and looked over at the pillow on Peter's bed, lifting it up with her mind and hurling it at Peter.

Peter yelped and fell out of his chair when he was hit by the pillow. "What the?!" He yelled as he fell. He looked up to see El wearing his Spider-Man mask over her head, causing for his eyes to widen. "No no no no no no no! How did you find that?!" He whisper yelled.

"Under the bed," El said, casually. "So you're Spider-Man? My friends talk about you a lot and you seem really cool on the news."

"N-No I'm not," Peter lied, shaking his head. "That's just my, uh, Halloween costume."

"It's April," El pointed out.

"Fine, it's my ComicCon cosplay," Peter lied again, but it was obvious that he was lying.

"Peter," El said in a serious tone of voice. "Friends don't lie."

Peter raised an eyebrow at that expression, having never heard it before. Judging by El's voice, she was serious about it, so he sighed and looked at the ground. "Okay, I am Spider-Man. But please, El, you can't tell anyone about this. I'm doing this in order to make a difference, especially since the Avengers are normally busy with other threats. I'm there to look out for the little guy. Just please, you can't tell anyone, especially Hopper since he's part of the police and they normally don't like me."

El took off the mask and smiled at the teen. "I won't tell. I promise," she said with a nod. "But maybe you can help me with something. I feel like the lab is trying to track me down. One of their vans was following me to school yesterday and I'm scared they're coming back. Maybe you can help me with this? I don't want to go back."

Peter nodded at her. "Thanks El. And I'll help you with this. I'm here to look out for the little guy, and you are definitely a little guy," he said.

"Says you, shortie," El countered back with a smirk. "Dad has pancakes being made. But the name makes no sense so I call them pancircles."

"Pancircles?" Peter said with a chuckle. "That's not gonna catch on with everyone on social media."

"What's social media?"