It started with a joke.
"We need a lab," Gwen had said, half-serious, half-daydreaming. "Somewhere no one can interrupt us. A headquarters. Like the Batcave, but without the guano."
"A secret base?" Luffy asked, raising an eyebrow as he adjusted the dials on his solar charger.
"Exactly. With a workshop. Maybe a snack station. A place to think."
Luffy paused.
They were lying on the hill behind the school, watching clouds drift like cotton ships through a summer sky. Gwen was scribbling something in her sketchpad—a blueprint for a "Gwenmobile," which Luffy insisted was just a scooter with fins. He was technically correct, but she had thrown a pencil at him anyway.
"A lab," Luffy echoed. "Someplace quiet."
Someplace theirs.
Gwen's eyes lit up. "You're thinking of something."
"I might know a place."
The Forgotten Tree
Behind the community center, beyond the old park and past the rusted gate everyone assumed was locked, there was a stretch of forest no one ever really talked about. Not creepy or forbidden—just… ignored. Nature's blind spot.
It was there, tucked among a ring of elms and oaks, that Luffy led Gwen the next day.
She stepped over a thick root, brushing aside a curtain of ivy, and gasped.
The tree stood at least twenty-five feet tall. Strong. Thick-limbed. The kind of tree made for climbing, for building, for secrets.
"Woah," Gwen whispered. "Did you… find this?"
"Found it when I was four," Luffy said, patting the bark like an old friend. "I come here sometimes to think. But it's never been anything."
She looked up at the thick network of branches. "Until now."
They stood there for a moment, in shared awe, before Gwen finally broke the silence.
"We're building a treehouse," she said with absolute certainty.
Luffy nodded. "A hidden one. With a lab. And reinforced flooring. No more sitting on cold dirt while soldering."
"And shelves," Gwen added. "For snacks."
"Top priority."
Operation: Treehouse
They started that weekend.
Luffy drew up structural plans—carefully calculating branch support, wind sway, and load distribution. Gwen found an old climbing harness and a bucket of paint in her garage. Their parents thought they were working on a school nature project. Technically, they weren't lying.
Day one was all about clearing.
They hauled up fallen branches, trimmed overgrowth, and cleaned the bark with makeshift brushes. Gwen nearly fell off the first limb she tried to scale, but Luffy caught her shirt just in time.
"This is not OSHA-approved," she wheezed, dangling mid-air.
"Neither is our budget," Luffy replied, pulling her up.
By the end of the week, they had a base platform built using scavenged wood, rope, and a few "borrowed" nails from Luffy's dad's toolbox. The floor was uneven, the walls still imaginary, but it was real. Tangible.
The beginning of something big.
Building Bonds (and Beams)
Each day after school, they returned. Gwen brought graham crackers and peanut butter; Luffy brought notebooks and tools. They took turns climbing, sawing, hammering. Sometimes they argued—like when Gwen wanted to install a disco ball "for dramatic lighting," and Luffy vetoed it for practical reasons. Other times, they just worked in quiet rhythm.
They added windows made from repurposed plexiglass. A hatch door. Even a pulley system for lifting materials. Gwen decorated the beams with glow-in-the-dark stickers. Luffy lined the corners with weatherproof sealant.
After two weeks, it wasn't just a treehouse.
It was theirs.
MJ and Peter Visit
One afternoon, as Gwen was painting the ceiling with stencils of constellations, she heard a whistle from below.
"Yo!" called a familiar voice. "Permission to climb aboard?"
Peter Parker, wearing a science camp hoodie and sneakers that had clearly been through a few too many puddles, waved up from the forest floor. MJ stood beside him, arms crossed, expression skeptical.
"Gwen? You serious about this thing?"
"It's not a thing," Gwen called down. "It's a project."
Luffy appeared at the hatch, nodded, then tossed down the rope ladder.
Peter scrambled up first, grinning as he reached the platform. "Okay, this is actually awesome."
MJ followed, a bit slower. "It smells like wood glue and peanut butter."
"That's the treehouse scent," Gwen said proudly.
Luffy, quieter than usual, observed them carefully. He didn't mind visitors. But this place… this place was sacred.
Peter walked around, running his hands over the support beams. "Did you use a hex screw here? Dude, that's clever. Distributes the weight better."
"Luffy's idea," Gwen said, pointing at him with her paintbrush.
Peter blinked. "Wait, he came up with that?"
Luffy just nodded.
"Dang," Peter muttered, clearly impressed.
MJ, meanwhile, found the snack shelf. "These graham crackers expired last year."
"Flavor matures with age," Gwen said.
A Quiet Moment
Later that evening, after Peter and MJ had left, Luffy sat cross-legged on the floor while Gwen tinkered with a lantern. The sun dipped low, casting golden light through the leafy windows.
"Do you think they'll guess?" Luffy asked softly.
Gwen looked up. "Guess what?"
"That we're different."
Gwen tilted her head, then set the lantern aside. "We are different. But not in a bad way."
Luffy tapped his fingers against the floor. "Sometimes I feel like there's something… waiting. Like I'm meant to do something that doesn't have a name yet."
Gwen nodded slowly. "Me too."
A pause.
"Maybe this place," she said, looking around the treehouse, "is where we figure it out."
Luffy smiled. Not a big smile—just a quiet one. The kind that meant something was being carved gently inside him.
Treehouse Rules
By nightfall, they had written their first three rules on a wooden plank nailed to the wall:
No adults unless it's an emergency.
No talking about school here.
No giving up. Ever.
Gwen added a fourth in permanent marker:4. Snacks go in the top shelf only. No exceptions.
Luffy, sitting beside her, nodded. "We'll add more as we go."
They didn't know what they were building yet.
A sanctuary. A lab. A headquarters. Maybe all of the above.
But what mattered was that it was theirs. A place for the future—even if they didn't yet understand how big that future would be.