Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 20

The party sat in the food court area of the mall, waiting for everyone else to come back. Hopper, Joyce, Murray, and the Avengers had gone to the lab to shut down the gate while Dustin, Erica, Ned, Steve, and Robin had gone to Cerebro to help with directions. The rest had nothing to do except wait for the others to come back and be ready for any kind of attack.

Peter sat with El, who was looking at the bite on her leg. He bit his lip as he looked over at her wound, remembering the terror that he felt when the monster lifted her up. Ever since he was adopted into the Hopper family, he had taken a liking to the young girl. He felt that it was his responsibility to take care of her and make sure she was okay. Seeing her in a situation where she was so close to dying scared him. After losing his parents, Uncle Ben, Tony Stark, and Aunt May, he couldn't lose her either.

El looked over at Peter, seeing the look of worry on his face. She smiled at him reassuringly. "I'm fine, Peter," she said to him. "We're going to make it out of this. Same with all the others."

"I know," Peter replied, smiling back at her. "I just can't help but feel worried. Last time I was in this kind of situation, my aunt got shot in the head right in front of me."

"I'm sorry about that," El said sympathetically. "But you're not going to lose me. I can fight."

"Better you than any of us," Peter said with a chuckle. "But I need you safe. We all need you safe and alive. That thing nearly killed you and I can't lose another person I care about."

"You won't lose me," El replied with a determined look on her face. "I may not be able to walk properly right now, but I can still fight with my powers. And you can fight with your webs."

Peter nodded at her. "Very true," he said. He wrapped an arm around his sister and held her close to him. "Just don't go killing yourself, alright? And save up that energy. We can't have you losing your powers or something bad like that."

El giggled and leaned her head on her brother's shoulder. That was when Lucas and Max came back from the Scoops Ahoy shop with a lot of ice cream for everyone. They all grabbed their ice cream and started eating it all.

"Why do we just have to sit here and do nothing?" Max asked everyone. "Just because we're kids, doesn't mean that we can't do anything to help save the town."

"That's why I got the fireworks as backup," Lucas responded. "If that monster comes here, then he's gonna have a lot of hell to pay with these things."

Max rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. "Worst idea ever, Lucas," she said. "You do realize that we have El's powers and Peter's powers, right? We don't need stupid fireworks to fight a monster."

"I think the fireworks are a good idea," Will spoke up.

"Me too. Better than a gun on that thing," MJ added.

"Thank you!" Lucas said, giving his girlfriend a snarky look.

"I have to agree too," Nancy said. "When we fought the Demogorgon, guns barely even worked on that thing. And this monster is twice as large as that son of a bitch. The only thing that can affect it is closing the gate. Fireworks can hold it off."

"Exactly, thank you Nancy!" Lucas said.

Max rolled her eyes again. "I dare you to say that again when we're all dead on the floor, bleeding out and our guts on the outside because we got stabbed by that fucking monster."

"Nice description of murder," MJ said with a smirk. "I knew I liked you."

Peter and El exchanged looks with one another and laughed.

...

Hopper, Joyce, Murray, and the Avengers arrived at the lab. They found a vent on the side of the building to sneak into, but it was sealed shut. Carol stepped forward and blasted it open with her powers. Murray then crawled through the vent, Scott and Hope behind him as they shrunk down in their suits.