Astoria, Queens
Three days after the Roosevelt Event
7:42 a.m.
Peter Parker landed on the Rowan family's fire escape with the grace of someone who had done it approximately four hundred times before (usually to borrow Eli's notes on electromagnetic theory or to drop off leftover empanadas).
He was not prepared for the scene inside the living room.
Eli was asleep on the couch, curled into a comma under a purple Avengers blanket. One of his arms was flung over a very green Jennifer Walters, who had shrunk to her human form sometime in the night and was using Eli's stomach as a pillow. Carol Danvers—still in full Captain Marvel suit minus the helmet—was sprawled across the floor like a starfish, one hand resting protectively on Eli's ankle. Jean Grey sat cross-legged on the coffee table (the actual coffee table), meditating, with the Phoenix Force manifested as a sleepy flaming cat draped across her shoulders.
And Gwen Stacy—Gwen, who had once told Peter she "wasn't looking for anything serious right now"—was curled up in the armchair, holding Eli's other hand like she was afraid he'd vanish if she let go.
MJ Watson was in the kitchen making pancakes and humming "Sunflower" under her breath, wearing one of Eli's Midtown High hoodies that hung to her knees.
Peter's spider-sense did not tingle. It bluescreened.
He knocked on the window frame out of sheer muscle memory.
Every single woman in the room snapped awake and leveled him with the kind of synchronized death-glare usually reserved for Thanos-level threats.
Jean's eyes flared white.
Carol's hands lit up binary.
Jen sat up so fast her hair did that comic-book whoosh thing.
Gwen's fingers twitched toward the web-shooters she wasn't even wearing.
MJ flipped a pancake without looking and somehow made it menacing.
Eli slept through all of it, mouth open, drooling a little on Jen's shoulder.
Peter raised both hands. "Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?" he tried weakly.
Carol was on her feet in a heartbeat, blocking the window with her body. "State your business, bug-boy."
Peter's voice cracked. "I—I just came to check on Eli! I'm his friend! We have AP Physics together!"
MJ poked her head out of the kitchen. "Peter Parker?"
The tension dropped a measurable ten percent.
Jean tilted her head, reading his mind with all the subtlety of a freight train. After three seconds she relaxed. "He's clear. He's been worried sick."
Gwen stood up, careful not to let go of Eli's hand. "Peter. Hi. Sorry. We're all a little… on edge."
Peter looked at the pile of superheroes using his autistic best friend as a communal teddy bear.
"…I can see that."
Jen yawned, stretched, and turned emerald again just because she could. "You want coffee, Spidey? We've got like six hours before Eli's mom gets back from her night shift and we have to do the whole 'yes ma'am we're all very responsible adults who definitely did not let your son stay up until 4 a.m. watching Planet Earth with the Phoenix Force' conversation."
Peter climbed through the window because it felt less dangerous than arguing with She-Hulk about caffeine.
Carol finally stood down, but only after Gwen gave her a tiny nod. Peter noticed that Carol's hand never actually left Eli's ankle.
MJ handed Peter a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST CONDUCTOR (it had been Eli's dad's). "Two sugars, no milk, right?"
Peter took it like it might explode. "How did you—"
"Eli keeps a spreadsheet," MJ said cheerfully. "It's color-coded."
Of course it was.
Peter sipped the coffee and tried to find a safe place to look. His gaze kept sliding back to Eli, who had somehow migrated in his sleep so that his head was now in Gwen's lap and his feet were across Carol's thighs.
Peter's brain produced a single coherent thought:
I have fought alien armadas and I have never felt this out of my depth.
Gwen noticed. Gwen always noticed.
She brushed Eli's curls back from his forehead and gave Peter a soft, almost apologetic smile. "He's okay, Peter. Really. He just… needed us close last night. The Song stuff is a lot. And the Choir ship messed with his sensory stuff more than he let on."
Jean opened one eye. "He had a meltdown at 2 a.m. because the blanket seam was scratching his neck. Carol flew to Target at Mach 3 for a seamless weighted blanket. Jen carried him around the block until he stopped crying. MJ sang to him in Spanish. I just… projected calm until the Phoenix stopped trying to incinerate the concept of polyester."
Peter looked at Carol. "You flew to Long Island at three times the speed of sound… for a blanket."
Carol shrugged, cheeks pink. "He asked for the one with the little constellations on it."
Peter looked at Jen. "You gamma-radiated a fifteen-year-old around Queens at 2 a.m.?"
Jen grinned, unrepentant. "He likes the heartbeat sound when I'm green. Says it's steady."
Peter looked at Gwen and MJ.
Gwen's fingers were carding through Eli's hair in slow, rhythmic patterns. "He asked me to keep holding his hand so he'd know where the edge of the dream was," she said quietly.
MJ leaned in the kitchen doorway. "And I make the best pancakes. It's science."
Peter sat down hard on the ottoman.
"So when you said 'joint custody' the other day…" he started.
Jean finished for him, voice gentle. "We meant it. All of us. He's… he's ours now. In the least creepy, most protective way possible."
Carol added, "Anyone hurts him, we orbitally bombard them. That's not hyperbole."
Jen cracked her knuckles. "I will yeet them into the sun."
Gwen's voice was soft steel. "I will web their mouth shut and let MJ take the photos."
MJ saluted with a spatula. "Blackmail is a love language."
Peter stared at the ceiling. "I just wanted to make sure he was eating vegetables."
Eli chose that moment to stir. He blinked awake, confused by the sudden silence, and zeroed in on Peter like a heat-seeking missile made of pure relief.
"Peter," he croaked, and then he was up—blanket tangling, limbs flailing—barreling across the room to crash into Peter's arms.
Peter caught him on reflex. Eli's whole body was shaking with the kind of full-system reboot only autistic kids know after too much everything.
"Hey, hey, buddy, I've got you," Peter murmured, rubbing circles between Eli's shoulder blades the way he'd learned years ago. "You're okay. You're home."
Eli buried his face in Peter's neck and made the small hiccupping sound that meant he was trying not to cry.
The women watched with identical soft expressions that somehow still promised murder to anyone who interrupted this moment.
After a minute Eli pulled back just far enough to sign, rapid and shaky:
too many people loud sorry
Peter translated without thinking. "He says it's too many people and loud and he's sorry."
Carol immediately dimmed the glow she hadn't realized she was giving off. Jen shrank back to human size. Jean muted the Phoenix until it was barely embers. Gwen and MJ both took instinctive steps back to give space.
Eli looked at them all, eyes wide, and then did something that made Peter's heart actually stop.
He reached out with both hands—one toward Gwen, one toward Carol—and made the tiny grabby motion that meant come here please I need you.
Gwen and Carol moved at the same time, folding around him and Peter in a cocoon of blonde hair and starlight-scented warmth.
Peter found himself in the middle of a superhero sandwich with his autistic best friend vibrating happily between Captain Marvel and Spider-Gwen like this was the safest place in the universe.
Which, to be fair, it probably was.
MJ snapped a picture. "For the group chat," she said innocently.
Peter squeaked. "There's a group chat?"
"Name's 'Eli Protection Squad,'" Jen supplied. "Icon is him asleep on my boobs from the first night. It's very wholesome."
Peter looked down at Eli, who had gone boneless again, eyes half-closed, thumb creeping toward his mouth like he was five instead of fifteen.
"Dude," Peter whispered, "how do you have more game than me and you don't even talk half the time?"
Eli's answer was to nuzzle closer to Carol's neck and mumble, perfectly audible, "They're warm."
Carol made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh and hugged him tighter.
Gwen kissed the top of Eli's head, then—because she was Gwen and had no chill—kissed Peter's cheek too. "Thanks for sharing him, Pete."
Peter's brain officially gave up and went to live in a cabin in the woods.
From the kitchen, MJ called, "Pancakes are ready! Eli gets the first Mickey Mouse one because he's baby."
Eli perked up so fast he nearly headbutted Carol.
Peter watched the five most powerful women he'd ever met trip over themselves to get Eli to the table first, arguing in fond voices about who got to cut his pancakes and whether syrup went on the side (Eli's rule: always on the side, never touching until he decided).
He followed slowly, hands in his pockets, and decided some mysteries of the universe weren't meant to be solved.
Like how his quiet, headphone-wearing, autistic lab partner had accidentally collected a harem of the most dangerous women alive.
Or why every single one of them looked at Eli like he was the only star left in their sky.
Peter grabbed a pancake and decided to just be grateful.
After all, someone had to keep the group chat from declaring war on high school.
End of Chapter 3
(Chapter 4: "The One Where Flash Thompson Says The Wrong Thing And Learns About Orbital Mechanics")