Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 17

The Quinjet landed in front of the cabin in the woods. El looked out from the vehicle and saw her father on the front porch, smoking a cigarette and he had a worried look on his face. The girl put Peter's arm over her shoulders as MJ did the same. Everyone exited the Quinjet and El and MJ walked Peter to Hopper.

"El, where the hell were you?!" Hopper asked in an angry tone. "Where is Peter?! And why are the Avengers at my front door step?!"

El bit her lip anxiously. "It's a long story," she said. She almost said that Peter was right there, but then realized he was wearing his mask again. Since she didn't know if Peter wanted Hopper to know yet, she remained silent about it. "We'll explain when we get inside, but first we need to lay Spider-Man down. He's really injured."

"We also need to make a few calls to people," MJ added. "Also, hi, I'm MJ. Peter's girlfriend."

"And I'm Ned, Peter's best friend," Ned said. "There's a lot to explain and you look pretty scary so hopefully this is easy?"

"Let's just get inside," El said, rolling her eyes. She and MJ laid Peter on the couch as Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will went on their phones to call everyone else to meet up. Once they finished, they all sat in the main room and Hopper waited impatiently for an explanation from the kids.

"I'll ask this again," the chief said. "Explain to me where you kids were, where Peter is, and why the Avengers are sitting in my living room in my cabin. I'm not mad, but your families are probably mad because it's late and we all know the shit that happens in this town. And explain to me why two of Peter's friends from New York are here."

El looked over at Peter, who gave her a nod in response. She gave him a small smile and looked back at her father. "Peter isn't missing. He's Spider-Man, the superhero right here," she explained as Peter removed his mask. "He told me to keep it a secret, I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"The reason why we're here is because we called Peter to check in on him, but Mike over there answered," MJ explained. "He told us that Peter was in trouble, so we immediately rushed to get here to help him. Luckily we got a very quick flight to get here."

"And we were out helping Peter with something on superhero business," El added. "A van was following me from the lab. I didn't want to tell you because I wanted to handle it. Mike, Max, and I teamed up with Peter to find out what was going on. Peter got captured and we went to rescue him with the others at the lab. There were supervillains and they opened up the gate again. Then I found something Peter had and it called the Avengers."

"We got the signal from the pager that Carol had," Natasha explained. "So we rushed over here as fast as we could on the Quinjet outside. These kids wouldn't have survived if we didn't come in time, especially Peter."

Hopper blinked a few times as he processed this information. He looked over at Peter, who looked scared at what he was going to say. He knew that the kid wanted to be a great hero and he could tell that he was a person who wanted to do good in the world. The chief could see it in the boy's eyes when he was adopting him. Instead of what he saw before, he saw instead the eyes of a vulnerable boy who has been through too much in his life.

"Peter, I'm not mad at you," Hopper finally said. Peter sighed in relief before he continued. "I just wish that you told me before. I wouldn't have been mad either. El has saved the world several times and not once have I been mad at her. All I care about is that you're safe. And that goes for all of you kids. You should've told someone."

"We were in a rush when we learned Peter was in trouble," Max explained. "We didn't have time to call anyone, except for MJ and Ned, who called us."

The group was interrupted when they heard knocks on the door. El went up to answer and she saw Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, Steve, Erica, and Joyce at the door. She smiled when she saw them and hugged them all. Mike went to his older sister and hugged her, Dustin went over to Steve and did his handshake with him while Robin stared at them, Lucas rolled his eyes when he saw Erica, and Will hugged his mother and brother.