Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 13

As El, Mike, and Max were strategizing a plan to infiltrate Hawkins Lab, they heard a noise coming from Peter's room. El rushed in there and saw that he left his phone and it was ringing. She looked at the caller ID and furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the name. Not ever using her phone, she didn't know how they worked, so she handed it to Mike.

"Who's MJ?" Mike asked, also confused.

"I think she knows Peter," El said with a shrug. "How do you answer?"

Mike presses the pick up button and lifted the phone up to his ear. "Hello?" He said to the person on the other end.

"Peter? Is that you?" A girl's voice said on the other end. "I've been trying to reach you all day, what the hell, dork?"

"Uh, Peter's not here," Mike said. "But he's in danger and we might need your help."

"And Who are you?" The girl asked, sounding confused. "You sound like a dork so I'm gonna guess you're one of Peter's new friends."

"Just try to get the next flight to Hawkins, please?" Mike said before hanging up.

El raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean Peter is in danger? We're talking about Spider-Man being in danger," she asked, trying to play dumb.

"We heard you yelling his name when you were looking for Spider-Man, so we put two and two together," Max explained. "But his secret is safe with us."

El smiled at them gratefully and sat down on the bed. She hoped that this friend of Peter's could make it in time for them to rescue him from Doctor Octopus. Seeing what he could do on the news scared her. It was nothing that she had ever seen before. Killing someone was horrible in itself, but holding people hostage and making them scared that they were going to die was terrible. He was doing the same thing to Peter and El didn't want him to suffer like that. Not after he had seen his aunt get shot in the head.

Two hours passed as the three kids were planning out what to do before the phone rang again. Mike went to answer it and he told the girl where they were and the address. A few minutes later, they heard someone knocking on the door. El went to answer it and saw a girl and a boy standing in front of her.

"Who are you dorks?" The girl asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm El," El introduces herself. "I'm Peter's sister."

"I'm Michelle Jones, but everyone calls me MJ,"the girl introduced.

"And I'm Ned Leeds, but everyone calls me Ned," the boy introduced.

"No shit everyone calls you Ned!" MJ said, rolling her eyes. She then turned back to El. "He's Peter's best friend and I'm Peter's girlfriend who likes making fun of him."

El nodded and let them inside the cabin. "That's my boyfriend Mike and that's my best friend Max," she said, pointing over at them. "Peter's in trouble and we need to save him."

"What do you mean we have to save him?" MJ asked. "Is he okay? What happened?"

"We'll explain on the way, but we need to go find him now," El said. She then went outside with the others following her to the shed. She tossed some guns over to Max, Mike, MJ, and Ned. "You guys will need those. My dad won't notice, hopefully."

"Why does your dad have so many guns?" Ned asked her.

"He's the Chief Of police," El said.

"Then why not call him about this? He did adopt Peter after all," MJ asked, confused.

"Like I said, I'll explain on the way. There's just a lot happening right now," El said. "But I promise that this is nothing but the truth."

Before they could say anything else, the group heard footsteps near the woods. They listened carefully and they could tell that the footsteps were coming closer to them. El glared at the direction of the steps, preparing her powers, while the others stood behind her. Three figures appeared in front of them, causing for the three kids to raise their eyebrows and for Ned and MJ to exchanged confused looks.

"What are you guys doing here?!" Mike yelled, getting mad because of what happened earlier.

"We came here to apologize," Will said, with Lucas and Dustin nodding next to him. "What are you guys doing anyway?"

El rolled her eyes as Mike and Max exchanged looks. "We're going on a rescue mission to save Spider-Man," Max explained, earning a look of protest from El. "We probably could use more backup so we're now going to drag you idiots along with us."

"Wait what?!" Will exclaimed with a grin on his face. "You guys know Spider-Man?!"

"We'll explain on the way," Mike said. "But he's in trouble, so we need to rescue him at Hawkins Lab."

"Hold on," Lucas said, pointing at MJ and Ned. "Who the hell are they?"

"Friends of Peter," El said in an emotionless tone. "Let's go," she added, brushing past the three boys with everyone following suit.

"El!" Mike called to his girlfriend, who turned back to him. "We need a plan here. We can't just go barging in without a plan to save Spider-Man."

El sighed and looked over at everyone. "Any ideas?" She asked.

Everyone remained silent, thinking of ideas, encore Dustin snapped his fingers. As everyone turned to him, he began to speak. "I have a communications device I built called Cerebro. It can reach to anywhere. I can keep in contact with you guys as you go in. Plus, I can find a map of Hawkins Lab and tell you where to go," he suggested.

"You sure you want to go alone though?" Max asked. "You might need someone else in case they find you."

"I'll go," Ned said, raising his hand. "I'm Spider-Man's Guy in the Chair. I help him when he's on secret missions and all that."

Mike raised an eyebrow and gave him a confused look. "The hell is a Guy in the Chair?" He asked.

"Don't ask," MJ said, shaking her head. "So while these two dorks go to your device, the rest of us go into a lab to save Spider-Man? I can deal with that."

El nodded and smiled at her. "Let's go," she said. She led her group to the lab while Dustin led Ned to where Cerebro was.

MJ and El were walking next to each other while on their way to the lab. No words were spoken between the two because of them just meeting. MJ was curious about her though because she didn't seem to know a lot of vocabulary and she noticed a tattoo on her arm. She loved the fact that she was very observant and could notice these things about people. It's what made her closer to Peter anyway.

"What's with that tattoo?" MJ blurted out. El looked up at her with wide eyes and covered her arm. "Hey I ain't judging, I'm just curious where you got it."

"The lab," El answered quietly, thinking back to her traumatic past. "I was tested on my whole life before I escaped and met my friends. It still hurts when thinking back."

MJ gave her a look of sympathy. "I'm sorry about that, kid. You seem cool though, so it's good that you escaped," she replied. "You know, how is Peter doing now that he's away from New York?"

El shrugged in response. "He misses it. I can tell. He's also upset about his aunt and Tony Stark. I feel bad, but he always seems to push back on it and try to be happy. I don't think he's well," she explained. "I want him to be okay, but I still like making fun of him."

MJ chuckled at the last sentence. "That's exactly how I feel about him," she said. "I really like him, but I love making fun of him. He's a loser, but he's my loser."

El snickered at her and smiled. "You seem cool," she complimented. "And you're pretty. Friends?" She held out her hand, waiting for an answer.

MJ nodded at her. "Sure, dork. We can be friends," she answered, shaking her hand. "Now let's go save my loser boyfriend."