It was a beautiful morning.
The kind that usually reminded Peter of Saturday mornings in his childhood, with the kind of weather that basically screamed "Hey, you! come outside —its beach day, baby!"
Witch meant —of course— that Peter was inside, quietly working on his home lab… "Yaaay…"
But it's alright. Because, just like all great Scientific minds of old, Peter knew that greatness was built upon the dead carcass of free time.
"Peter!"
Peter quiet work was rudely interrupted by a green big monster.
"Monster" that is to say his wife. "Big" as in voluptuously big. And green as… well… she was green…
"Yes, dear?"
And there she was. The sensational Jennifer Walters— she Hulk herself. His lovely, lovely wife. Dressed in black formal blazer over white tight blouse and black dress slacks that hugged her figure.
Peter blinked at Jennifer, who stood framed in the doorway like an emerald storm cloud. "You didn't forget, did you?" she asked, tapping one foot—the stiletto heel making a dangerous little *tink* against the lab's tile floor.
"Of course not!" Peter lied, spinning in his chair so fast he nearly toppled into a rack of bubbling beakers. "It's...uh..." His eyes darted to the calendar pinned under a half-disassembled plasma coil. Blank except for a coffee ring from three weeks ago.
Jennifer sighed, her enormous hands settling on her hips in a way that made Peter acutely aware of how many bones he had that could be easily crushed. "Elaine's school has Career Day," she said, enunciating each word like she was explaining quantum physics to a goldfish. "Which starts in forty minutes. And you promised—*promised*—you'd take her to Horizon's lab afterward so she could see 'Daddy making the science stuff'"
Peter opened his mouth, then closed it. The mental image of Elaine—tiny, perpetually sticky, and alarmingly clever—loose in his lab sent a cold sweat down his spine. Last week, she'd dismantled the toaster to 'try and figure where bread goes and where the toasts come from'
Peter still mourned the loss of that brave little toaster…
"Uh…"
Jennifer arched an eyebrow, her lips twitching. "Don't 'uh' me, mister." She reached behind her—somehow producing their five-year-old from thin air like a stage magician. "Ta-da!"
Elaine dangled upside down from Jennifer's grip, skin green like her mothers, wearing a ketchup-stained light green blouse and purple shorts, her black curls brushing the floor, grinning like a possum caught in a cookie jar.
"Mommy!" Little Elaine pouted and looked up (or down from her upside-down perspective) "how did you find me?! — I was Invincible!"
Peter stared at his daughter—currently inverted like a bat and looking far too pleased with herself—and felt the familiar cocktail of panic and pride bubble up in his chest. "Elly…" He reached out to poke one of Elaine's round little cheek. "How many times have we told you that Aunt Natasha's cloaking belt is not a toy"
"But I like being sneaky and invincible! —Like uncle Miles!"
Jenifer just gave her an exasperate yet amused look and snorted "Invisible. Honey, you were invisible" then Jenifer flexed her free arm —straining her formal blazer, and proudly stated "I'm the invincible one. See?"
Peter watched Jennifer effortlessly flip Elaine right-side-up with one hand, the little girl's curls bouncing wildly. "And *I*," Jennifer continued, deftly removing the cloaking belt and plopping Elaine onto Peter's lap with terrifying precision, "am also the one who remembers appointments. Unlike certain scientist who apparently thinks calendars are decorative."
Elaine immediately scrambled up Peter's torso like a hyperactive spider monkey, her tiny fingers digging into his shirt collar. "Daddy! Daddy! Can I see the explode-y bits? And the glowy tubes? And—" she gasped dramatically, "*the robot arms?*" Her eyes were wide enough that Peter could see his own panicked reflection in them.
Peter's hands instinctively shot up to stabilize Elaine as she wriggled on his lap like an excited octopus. "Whoa there, Elly—" It could be considered normal parent paranoia, or it could be because of all his encounters with Doc Ock. Whatever the case. Peter did not want Elaine anywhere near the robotic arms. "— how about I let you play with the computer instead" the unhappy pout that settled on little Elaine's face was a clear tell of her opinion in the matter.
Jennifer leaned against the doorframe, her smirk widening as Peter's Adam's apple bobbed. "Don't worry," she purred, adjusting her blazer sleeves with a faint *rip* of straining fabric. "I childproofed the place last month. Remember the 'incident' with the shrink ray and the gerbil?" Elaine immediately perked up at the memory, clapping her hands. "Mr. Fluffington got BIGGER!"
Mr. Fluffington, who destroyed half the lab. Mr. Fluffington who "assaulted" a few of the cars parked outside.
"Any word from Reed?" Peter nervously asked still trying to contain the little bundle of gamma energy that was his daughter.
Mr. Fluffington. who is still out and at large…
"no…" Jennifer adopted a more serious posture "who would have thought that a 10 foot gerbil could be this sneaky…"
Peter swallowed hard as Elaine bounced in his lap, her tiny fists gripping the neck of his shirt. "Daddy, can I *please* see the robot arms? Uncle Tony says they can do *backflips*!"
Jennifer snorted, crossing her arms in a way that made her sleeves tighten around her strong arms. "Tony's banned from giving her ideas," she muttered. "Anyways—" Jennifer looked at her wrist watch "—I should be going now"
Peter watched Jennifer turned to leave. "Wait—you're *leaving* me alone with her?" His voice cracked slightly as Elaine began vibrating with enough energy to power a small city. "In the *lab*?"
Jennifer paused in the doorway, casting a glance over her shoulder that was equal parts amusement and warning. "You *did* promise," she reminded him, tapping her watch. "And I've got that appellate court hearing in twenty minutes." The way she said 'appellate court' made it sound distinctly like 'if I'm late, I will turn you into an animal balloon figure.'
Peter opened his mouth to protest—maybe to say something about containment protocols or OSHA violations or even the Geneva conventions, but Jennifer had already left.
Peter let out a defeated sigh and then looked helplessly at the little gamma bomb on his lap "OK, Elly. You should go get ready. We have—" he looked at the time on his cellphone "— about 25 minutes to get you ready for school"
"I'm already, super ready!" Elaine jumped off his lap and stood with her fist on her hips trying to mimic one of her mother's powers poses "I'm even wearing my favorite shirt! — See?!" the little girl motioned at her bright green, ketchup-stained, blouse with the manic glee that should've already be made into her trademark.
Peter gave her a deadpan look "what I can *SEE* is that 'somebody' already had breakfast" he shook his head then stood up from his chair and pointed at the door "go, get something clean on you Elly" stopping to think for a moment, Peter then smiled at her "how about something red?" he took a knee, lowering himself to be eyelevel with her "it would be nice if you wore daddy's colors for a change"
Elaine gasped dramatically, her little hands flying to her mouth. "Red like *spider* red?" She bounced on her toes, her curls vibrating with barely-contained energy. "I can be *Spider-Elly*?"
'Uh-oh' suddenly echoes on Peters head.
Before he could answer—or possibly warn her about the dangers of sticking to ceilings—she'd already rocketed out of the lab with the approximate velocity of a sugar-caffeinated missile.
Peter didn't need super-hearing to recognize the sound of Natasha's cloaking belt reactivating. "Elaine Marie Parker-Walters!" he called. A giggle echoed from the empty hallway.
Peter stood in the sudden silence of his lab, listening to the faint *thump* of Elaine's footsteps—now suspiciously silent—fading down the hallway. He should've been panicking. He *should've* been sprinting after her before she ended up tripping and going through a wall —again— But for a moment, he just stood there, grinning like an idiot.
The lab felt strangely hollow without her whirlwind energy, though the lingering scent of grape juice and toast clung stubbornly to his shirt where she'd been perched moments ago. He exhaled, running a hand through his hair, and for the first time that morning, allowed himself to just *breathe*.
Peter stared at the empty doorway, still feeling the phantom weight of Elaine's tiny body clinging to him like a koala. He reached up absently to adjust his glasses—only to find them slightly askew, no doubt from Elaine's enthusiastic climb up his torso.
He remembered the first time he'd held her—how his hands shook worse than when he'd faced Thanos. Five pounds eleven ounces of wriggling, screaming green impossibility wrapped in a hospital blanket. Jen had been exhausted but grinning like she'd split the atom with her bare hands. "Look at what we made, Pete," she'd whispered, and Peter Parker—who'd dodged bullets and outsmarted gods—had burst into tears.
Life with Jen was great…but, then with Elaine… Life was Amazing.
…
Witch meant of course…
that something had to happen…
A sudden *crash* echoed from upstairs. A moment of silence and then and her scream.
"DADDY!!!"
Peter's heart stopped mid-beat. The sound of Elaine's scream sliced through the home lab's silence like a vibranium blade. He moved before he thought—spider-reflexes launching him toward the stairs in a blur of motion that would've left Olympic sprinters weeping. His enhanced hearing caught the sickening *crunch* of drywall upstairs, followed by a voice that turned his blood to ice.
"Ahhh...there's my favorite little snack."
Morlun.
Peter's blood turned to liquid nitrogen as he rounded the corner into Elaine's bedroom. Morlun stood silhouetted against the shattered window, his pale fingers wrapped around Elaine's throat like a fleshy noose. She dangled from his grip, her tiny legs kicking wildly—not in fear, Peter realized with a jolt, but in fury. Elaine's green cheeks were flushed darker emerald, her teeth bared in a snarl that was pure Jennifer.
"Oh good," Morlun purred, his black eyes glinting like oil slicks. "Daddy's home. Just in time to watch—" Peter got ready to act
Morlun's fingers flexed with a grotesque crackle of tendons, squeezing just enough to make Elaine's breath hitch—not enough to kill, not yet. Peter saw the exact moment his daughter's windpipe compressed under those porcelain-pale fingers, the way her emerald skin darkened at the edges like a bruising leaf. Her tiny fists scrabbled at Morlun's wrist, Panic starting to settle in on her expression.
Peter's voice cracked like dry wood when he spoke, his hands raised in surrender even as his spider-sense screamed at him to act. "Morlun—please." The words tasted like battery acid. "She... she is just a kid... Take me instead. You want me"
Peter took a careful and slow step forward "just let her go—" peters voice hitched
the lack of air was starting to affect little Elaine. Peters vision started to get misty. Eyes almost welling in tears at the sight of his baby girl struggling.
Peter took a deep breath and tried to center himself. "There is radiation in her body—" Taking a stronger posture he kept trying reason with the energy vampire "—You can't consume her"
Morlun's lips peeled back in a smile that showed too many teeth—each one needle-sharp and gleaming wet. "spider" he crooned, tilting his head like a curious bird of prey. "You think I don't know what she is?" His thumb stroked Elaine's throat almost tenderly as she gasped, her tiny fingers clawing at his wrist. "A little green lamb... delicious."
Peter's knees nearly buckled. The scent of Elaine's terror—grape juice and baby shampoo turned acrid with fear—flooded his nostrils. He forced his voice steady even as his hands trembled. "Her blood will burn you from the inside out. Jennifer's DNA rewrites everything it touches—" Peter's breath hitched as Elaine's face darkened further, her lips starting to tinge blue around the edges.
"Let her go. Take me. It's me you want" His mind raced—calculating distances, angles, the exact tensile strength of Morlun's fingers versus Elaine's windpipe. Too risky. One twitch and her neck would snap like a glowstick.
Morlun's grip tightened fractionally around Elaine's throat—just enough to make her gasp, her tiny legs kicking harder. "Oh spider," he crooned again, his voice like oil dripping onto hot pavement. "You always did have a gift for...creative truths." His black tongue flicked out, tracing Elaine's trembling jawline.
"you're right" the vampire continued, now looking at him "she is not the dish I'm interested in…"
Morlun actually loosened his deathly grip… Elaine was actually able to take a breath. Her little chubby face was actually getting back to its normal green shade.
And Peter believed.
He believed that Morlun would let her go. She would run and hide and they would fight.
He believed that Jennifer would arrive mid-fight to help defeat Morlun.
He believed that on that night at the dinner table they would joke and laugh about the whole thing.
He believed that Jennifer would brag to the rest of the avengers on their next meet up, about how their little gamma bomb faced danger without fear.
He believed…
And Morlun smiled almost kindly "she is not a dish"
*snap*.
Peter's world narrowed to that sound—clean, crisp, like breaking a celery stalk. Elaine's head lolled to one side at an impossible angle, her bright eyes suddenly dull marbles. Morlun opened his fingers and let her drop like a discarded toy. Her body hit the carpet with a soft thump, curls splayed around her face almost artistically, as if she were simply napping.
"she is seasoning" the vampire declared "after all—"
"Despair adds an unique flavor to things"
The snapping sound echoed like a gunshot in Peter's skull—sharp, final, reverberating through the hollow spaces where her laughter used to live. For one endless second, his body refused to comprehend. The smell of grape juice and ketchup still clung to his shirt. Her tiny fingerprints smeared the lenses of his glasses. But Elaine—Elaine was—
Peter's knees hit the hardwood with a crack His hands hovered over her small form—not touching, not yet, because if he didn't touch her she couldn't be dead, this couldn't be real, this had to be one of Mysterio's illusions.
Morlun's shadow hovered over Peter, he kept talking, but Peter did not care to listen. Peter's fingers brushed Elaine's cheek—still warm, still soft. The ketchup smudge from breakfast still dotted her chin. His mind scrabbled for purchase like claws on glass, counting the impossible details.
Peter's fingers twitched against Elaine's still-warm cheek—one heartbeat suspended between denial and horror. Then something inside him *broke*. Not like glass. Not like bone. Like a dam holding back a black ocean.
Morlun was still talking—something about legacy and hunger—when Peter moved. Not Spider-Man. Not even Peter Parker. Just *father*. His fist connected with Morlun's jaw so hard the vampire's teeth sheared through his own lip. Black blood splattered the wallpaper—Elaine's favorite, dotted with cartoon spiders she'd insisted on.
He was on Morlun like a starving wolf—no quips, no strategy, just fists and teeth and the raw, animal sound tearing from his throat. They crashed through Elaine's dresser, her tiny clothes fluttering around them like green leaves. A stray punch sent Morlun through the drywall—Peter followed before the dust settled.
Somewhere in the back of his shattered mind, Peter knew this was wrong. but that didn't stop Peter's knuckles from cracking against the vampire's orbital bone. Didn't stop him from slamming Morlun's head through floor after floor until they hit the basement in a shower of splinters and plaster.
Peter's fist connected with Morlun's jaw again—except suddenly it wasn't Morlun's face crumbling under his knuckles. It was cold steel. The basement walls melted like wet paint, the concrete floor liquefying into sterile white tiles.
He quickly reached for Elaine. her tiny green body slipping from his grasp dissolved into nothing "Subject's adrenaline levels spiking again," said a muffled voice through an intercom. Peter blinked against the sudden assault of fluorescent lights, his breathing ragged. The scent of grape juice and ketchup morphed into antiseptic and stale sweat.
He was not wearing his glasses anymore nor the casual clothing he was wearing on this *beautiful morning* instead he found himself wearing his spider suit.
His hands where bloodied and so where the very dented metal walls and a few equally dented spots on the ground. He could also see his Spider mask discarded in the wrecked floor.
"Spidey" said a new voice, distorted through the speakers of the intercom. "You're in the Avengers Compound" this time Peter was able to identify the voice "I don't know what is it that you are seeing kid, but you are safe"
"Tony?"
"That's right!" the now identified Tony replied "now Spidey. I'm going to ask you something. And I want you to think really hard on it…" tony took a brief almost dramatic pause "how did you get here?"
Peter stared blankly at nothing for a moment.
Tony's voice buzzed through the speakers again, softer now. "Come on, kid. Work with me here… Where were you before this?"
Fragments collided in Peter's skull—green curls and blackened fingernails, the scent of gamma radiation and grape juice. Then, sharper: Black Cat's laughter echoing throughout New York City rooftops as she made off with a black box. The frowning face of Strange as he argued with Mordo over the same box. The way time itself had *rippled* when the box was opened.
Peter's breath hitched. "Black Cat... she stole something from Strange" His fingers twitched against the containment cell floor, phantom sensations of cold metal beneath them. "A box" he concentrated in trying to remember "She gave it to Mordo and then…—And then she left…" that last part left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Mordo said—" he struggles to continue "—he said something about Time lines and needing to destroy the stone"
Memories flickered like damaged film—Mordo's gaunt face contorted in fanatic determination, Strange's hands weaving spells between them, the acrid scent of burning parchment as the Time Stone's container cracked open. Peter remembered lunging, the sickening green glow enveloping them all.
And then Peter remembered Mordo's panicked words "I can see them all. Every timeline. Every choice. Every moment where I made a different decision, and they all led here. They all led to this moment, and I can't—I can't—" the fear and despair a huge contrast to the previous fanatical attitude of the evil Wizard.
He remembers having somehow been able to lock the stone back into the box. He remembers having made an important decision.
A very important choice had been made.
Everything had been fine.
Fine until— until it wasn't.
Tony exhaled sharply through the comms. "Kid, listen very careful. I believe that you are experiencing some sort temporal mind bleed thing" there was an intentional pause to let the situation think in before he continued "those things you are seeing. Well… they're not real —not *really* real at least— You need to concentrate on the here and now buddy. Just keep your mind on—"
A sudden sharp pain lanced through Peter's skull—parallel memories colliding. Another Peter, older, standing over a fallen Strange in a ruined New York. Another Peter, younger, weeping over Uncle Ben's body in a rainy alley. Another Peter—so many Peters—each carrying their own failures like stones in their pockets.
An then he was holding her.
His little gamma bomb.
The scent of grape juice hit Peter first—real enough to make his eyes water. Then the weight. Her weight. Elaine's limp body slumped against his chest, her curls brushing his chin, still warm. Peter's fingers spasmed against the back of her tiny blouse. Her shoelace grazed his wrist, still untied.
the way her left shoelace was untied (she never let him tie it, insisted on doing it herself), the purple dinosaur Band-Aid on her knee (from when she'd tried to climb over the roof of their house Spider-Man), the faint rise and fall of—no. No movement. Only stillness where there should've been breath.
"No," Peter whispered—not to Morlun, not to Tony buzzing in his ear, but to the universe itself. His thumb traced the dinosaur Band-Aid on Elaine's knee, the edges peeling from her last bath. "Not again. Please, not—"
The intercom static turned into singing birds. Sunlight slanted through Elaine's bedroom window. Peter's breath came in jagged gulps. He pressed his forehead to Elaine's, his glasses digging into both their faces. If he held her tight enough, maybe his heartbeat could jumpstart hers.
"Elly…" Peter choked, shaking her gently like he used to when she overslept. "C'mon, bug. Open your eyes." His voice cracked.
Her eyelids didn't flutter. No dramatic gasp. No squealing "I tricked you!" as she leapt up to tackle him. Just stillness. The kind of stillness that didn't belong on a child who'd been vibrating with life twenty minutes ago.
And so Peter wept…
He wept for the early, laud and chaotic breakfasts.
He wept for her always clever, inquisitive and mischievous energetic nature.
He wept for the first time he held her little wiggly form in his arms.
He wept for the little green
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Extra Notes:
-Angsty? -
For the first few chapters Peter will be a bit out of it due to the strain of the whole thing.
But pls be patient!
He will bounce back eventually!
-Romance? -
So far there is a few candidates in my mind. none of the usual suspects tho(MJ, Gwen, Black Cat…. Well felicia is still kind of in the air for me… we will see…). And the nominees are:
*Laura Kinney (X-23)
*Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk)
*kwannon (Psylocke)
* Wanda Maximoff (Scarlett witch)
* Silver Sablinova (Silver Sable)
*Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow)
…
*Felicia Hardy (Black Cat)\ I just really like her character… she will also get a bit of a bashing later in the history cause I want her to grow a bit.