Disclaimer: This part of the fic kicks in the crossover aspects! May contain major Season 1 Spoilers of the 2017 Marvel Spiderman series. Ye have been warned!
Although it had been a few years since Hiro had been to New York City, it was still in the same state of his last visit. However as Cass drove the rental car through the city, he saw a few damaged buildings here and there, as if the city had been turned into a battlefield and the wounds were still healing.
Even Ari had noticed the destruction. "Huh, does New York always look like this?" She turned to her brother and aunt.
"Nope." He replied. "At least I think."
"You think?"
"We haven't had much of a chance to visit as often as May visits us." Cass explained. "Last time we visited besides holidays was about a year ago, and the last time they visited us was Tadashi's funeral."
Ari frowned. That must've been an awful visit. Having to show up at another relative's funeral. At least they both had family to comfort them during that time.
"I video chat them a lot though." Hiro told her. "Peni and I have a lot in common, we both major in robotics, we're teen geniuses-"
"You both have disaster hairstyles." Cass chipped in.
"Hey!" He patted his messy black hair down. "But yeah, you're right, one time Peter couldn't tell the difference between us, that was a funny prank." He chuckled at the memory. To pass the time of her inevitable doom, Hiro and Cass had started talking about her aunt's older sister May, and her kids.
"What about Peter?" She asked. "Do you both have messy hair too?"
"Peter has somehow escaped the family tradition of having messy hairstyles." Cass turned her attention back on the road. "But the boy works himself too hard."
"Just like Hiro." Ari noted. "So they're both May's kids?"
Hiro gave her an awkward smile, upon seeing Cass glare at him for not explaining things sooner! "Well, it's complicated."
"Oh boy." She rolled her eyes.
"Peni is our cousin on our side of the family," Hiro explained. "Peter is our cousin from Uncle Ben's side of the family."
"So even though Peni is related to you and Aunt Cass, Peter isn't?" Ari raised an eyebrow.
"Yep."
"What happened to Ben? This is the first I'm hearing of him." Hiro and Cass flinched.
"He died." Cass was the one who broke the silence.
"Oh. Ohh..." Ari's head dropped.
"Try not to bring it up sweetheart, it's still a sore subject." Cass was driving through a neighborhood and parked the car. "Happened a long time ago."
"Sorry if my questioning was-" But he interrupted her.
"No Ari, don't apologize, I should say sorry for not informing you until the last-minute." He turned to Cass. "We probably should've given you a rundown."
His aunt nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we should've. But we're here!"
They were in front of a green roofed house with cream tiles. The bushes in front of the house had budding flowers despite it being the fall, making it different from the other similarly built houses. Ari shivered, clutching her blue striped sweater.
"You cold?" Hiro asked her. "Want my jacket?"
"No, just nervous." She stared up at the sky, it was turning a dark blue and faint stars were beginning to show. The clouds were looming over them, and it was as if they were casting a shadow over Ari. "I don't want to mess things up again."
"What did you mess up?" Hiro frowned, he hated how she had that self-loathing mindset. A part of him blamed her parents. Where else did she get that from? "Nothing, that's what. You'll be fine Ari."
"Okay." But her tone said she didn't believe him.
Cass knocked on the door, and a woman opened it. She had brown hair tied in a bun similar to Cass's but overwhelmed in gray streaks. She was wearing a dark red long-sleeved shirt with a pink shawl, brown jeans and loafers. Her green eyes lit up with excitement when recognizing the group.
"Cass! I didn't expect you to visit, how have you been?" She smiled at them.
"We've been fine, May." Cass replied. "It's Hiro's first semester break so we thought we'd pop a visit."
"And there's someone who wants to meet you." Hiro added, he nudged Ari up to the door. She felt her heart pound with fear as May looked at her. But to her surprise the woman just grinned at her.
"You must be Ari!" She shook her hand. "It's so nice to meet you, I'm May."
"It's-it's nice to meet you ma'am." Ari stuttered out.
"Oh none of that ma'am stuff dear, you're part of the family now." May gently ruffled her hair. "Just call me Aunt May."
"Aunt May, can we go inside now?" Hiro asked her. "It's kind of cold."
Ari snickered with amusement. "And you were gonna offer me your jacket."
"I was being nice!"
They entered the house, and Ari felt relief as she warmed up. "Peter, Peni!" May called out. "Aunt Cass and Cousin Hiro are visiting!"
There was the sound of feet running down the stairs at her words. A girl with messy black hair that matched Hiro's poked her head from a corner. "Hey." She greeted them.
"Hey Peni." Hiro smiled and waved to her. "Long day?"
"Yep." She stepped out, and Ari saw her eyes were the same shape and color as Hiro's. She had a yellow hair clip in her bang. Her black shirt had a pink stripe across the chest, the sleeves were white. She had a plaid skirt, knee-high black stockings and black sneakers with red laces. Peni then noticed Ari who was shyly standing behind Hiro. "So you're Ari."
"Yep." Ari held her hands behind her back. "That's me, Hiro told me that you two are practically twins." Then she facepalmed. Why did I say that?!
But Peni just flashed a small smile. "That's a new one. I'm a few months older than Hiro, but I guess you're now the baby of the family then."
She heard her brother go "yes!" and pump up his fist behind her. But she was shocked at how easily Peni and May just accepted her in. "Really? You just met me. Yo-you think of me as family that easily?"
Peni nodded, and Ari felt her eyes beginning to water.
"Oh no, I think this was too much for her." Cass had a look of concern.
"Ari?" Hiro began shaking her shoulder. "C'mon don't cry."
She just laughed. "These are happy tears guys. I-I'm just happy that I have cousins now. My parents were both only childs so I didn't have any cousins and I'm just-" Hiro started hugging her.
"Darn It now you're making me cry Ari." He chuckled, wiping away a few tears from his eyes.
"Me too." Peni added, she had walked up to the two and placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's nice finally having a girl cousin, I was tired of being the only girl in the family."
"Hey!" Both Cass and May cried out in a humorous tone. "Glad you kids are getting along swell." The latter added. "Where's Peter? I called him down."
"He's too busy working for school." Peni replied. "Again."
"You don't say?" Ari raised an eyebrow, staring at Hiro with a knowing look. "Does workaholism run in the family or something?"
"Ha ha, very funny." Hiro rolled his eyes. "We'll just come upstairs then."
"No need, I'll get him." Peni offered, and she ran up the stairs to fetch her cousin.
"Does he do this all the time?" Ari whispered to Hiro.
"Yep." He whispered back. "He started diving into his work more in the past few years."
"Well, you guys have fun!" Cass told the teens. "May and I are going to catch up in the living room."
"Okay." They nodded, and watched as the two adults walked to another room.
"Do you wanna head upstairs to check on our cousins?" Hiro offered, Ari felt a little weird about "our cousins" but she nodded.
"Yep!"
Hiro led her up the stairs with a glimmer in his eyes. They stopped at a door and he knocked on it. "Hey! Anyone home?!"
Ari swore she heard a faint crash and whooshing sound in the room, and Peni's voice mumbling about hiding something. Eventually she opened the door.
"Oh hey guys." Peni had a sheepish smile on her face. "Come in." As Ari entered the room she saw a lot of sciency stuff, just like Hiro's room except it was kept tidier.
There was a boy sitting at the desk. He had short curly brown hair with a tuft of it sticking up and warm lime-green eyes. He was wearing a red hoodie zipped up and navy blue pants.
"Peter, as you can tell our cousin Hiro is visiting." Peni introduced her. "And this sad child over here is Ari." Sad?! She narrowed her eyes.
"I might've talked about you a lot." Hiro explained. "And when the whole thing with your parents happened I might've vented to my cousins. While crying. Because it was sad."
"It was really sad." Peni added.
"Yeah..." He chuckled. "Sorry Ari."
She just rolled her eyes, and walked up to Peter. "Uh hi, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too." He smiled, his hand nervously adjusted his zipper. "I would've tidied up if I knew you guys were visiting."
"May called you down five minutes ago." Peni pointed out.
"I was busy!" He protested, but she just walked over and playfully ruffled his hair.
"You're a dork, Peter."
Ari leaned over to Hiro. "Is this what people see whenever we interact?" She whispered.
"Probably." He whispered back, then cleared his throat. "So, introductions are done. We're all accepting as family, how have you guys been?"
"We've been fine." Peter told him. "How about you?"
"Fine."
"I've been great!" Ari chipped in. "I got to meet Hiro and his friends and they're awesome and I'm just really happy to be part of the family now, and I hope we can be friends too."
The two Parkers had smiles at her enthusiasm. "I'd like to be your friend Ari." Peni told her. "You're nicer in person than I thought."
"Yeah, same." Peter added. "More friends the merrier!"
Hiro smiled at how his sister lit up with happiness and the feeling of being accepted. "Thanks." Ari giggled. "Can I ask what happened here?"
"We drove by and the city was still beat up." Hiro explained.
Peni just pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered curses at a jackal, so Peter explained. "Well, there was this… incident, where a guy tried taking over New York." He flashed an awkward smile. "And turned everyone into spider monsters."
Her jaw dropped. "What?"
"Yeah, luckily all our spider superheroes saved the day." Peni chuckled. "With some help."
"Are you guys okay?!" Ari asked.
"Yeah, we're fine. We don't remember much of it." Peter added. "Aunt May doesn't remember much either."
"I wasn't even around for most of it." Peni mumbled under her breath, loud enough for Hiro to hear.
"Let's talk about something cheerier." Hiro coughed. "So, anything exciting going on?"
Peter looked relieved to change the subject. "Well I saw this funny thing at the cafe I frequent-" as the story continued and they continued to talk, Hiro was glad to just relax and be surrounded by family.
He missed that feeling of warmth, something the fire had taken away, so he was glad to feel the full warmth of being surrounded by loved ones once more.
AN: *Laughs in nervous crossover energy* Anyways the crossover picks in :D
Not only do we have one Parker... but TWO! I also added Peni bc I love her, she needs more love, and you can pry the hc that she and Hiro are teen genius cousins from my cold dead paws. If you're having trouble wrapping around the family ties, me too. But let's just say Peni is a first or second cousin once removed in terms of the technicalities (and so is Peter on his uncle's side of the family). There is a lot of family tragedies on both sides smh u.u
The events of the Spiderverse still happened w/ Peni, and it'll explain more next chapter along with some sibling bonding! But it was fun trying to write the Parkers, I hope I did them justice.
Hope you guys enjoyed! Don't forget to review (it feeds my motivation), and remember you can still ask the cast a question in the comments until the fic is over!
SPEAKING of said questions, AgentOfAngst has sent some to the characters. So here's their responses
To Karmi: What are your siblings like?
Answer: "Chaotic. More-so with Haley, she's like a storm of energy, it's why Ari reminds me of her so much, they're both so bubbly! Ryan's less chatty but he can be blunt, he really likes it when I play with him and Haley. I hope they're both doing well in school more than I did before SFIT."
To Gogo: Favorite and least favorite thing about Honey Lemon?
Answer: "Her lack of boundaries can be really annoying, but also her concern for others is really sweet. Don't tell her I said that"
To Wasabi: If you could have a dog what kind would you like?
Answer: "Terriers are cute, one of my classmates had a toy fox terrier mix that was really well-behaved, I wouldn't mind having one in a magical world where I wasn't allergic to dogs. I used to want a dalmatian when I was a kid, only because of that story they made a movie about."
And finally to Hiro: Best part of attending SFIT?
Answer: "All the cool stuff they have there and learning how to use it. And I'm able to make stuff for superheroing in my lab at times. It's also nice seeing my friends more often, they've been helping me with my classes a lot".
And there's another question from smooch119, it technically doesn't count but screw it I am the author and I'm having my kids answer questions this fic.
Question: Don't Rachel and Katie live in New York?
Answer: "We used to! But Mom and Dad moved us to San Fransokyo when Dad got a position there around a year ago, Dad still has to visit New York for paperwork reasons, and it's a great excuse to see my mom's family!" -Rachel
"Yeah except the one time I couldn't go and I got catnapped. At least I got to bond with Mochi, he's cool." -Katie
