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When the children were approximately the size of Scottish terriers, they stopped growing. At least, Peter hoped they had stopped. They were difficult enough to manage as it was and if they got any larger…well, he and Wade would have to find another supplier of Insect Eater Diet, for starters. Every pet shop owner within a fifty-block radius already gave them funny looks every time they came into the store and cleaned out their entire stock of the little jars in one go. He did what he could to supplement it with nice, fresh insects and the occasional small amphibian. In fact, there was much speculation in the newspapers about the sudden increase in large spider webs in certain areas of Central Park. Peter was spending more time catching food for the children than criminals these days.
“We could let them feed on bank robbers and muggers,” Wade had suggested. “I know you’re always tempted to snack on them yourself.”
Peter had put a stop to that idea immediately. He was not about to let their babies get a taste of human blood. The incident with the neighbor’s cat had been bad enough. Besides, he didn’t want to encourage any of them to follow in his footsteps and dedicate their lives to hunting criminals. Veronica, for one, had aspirations in this regard because she had started testing out potential traps on her parents. With his spider-sense, Peter could avoid them, but several times he had come home to find Wade dangling from the ceiling, wrapped in webbing and grinning.
“Isn’t she clever?” he would say as Peter cut him down. “When she grows up, our daughter is going to be joining the Avengers! Just you wait and see!”
Of course Wade would be proud about it. Of course he would see nothing wrong with letting Veronica traipse into dark alleys. Of course he wouldn’t think about the fact that criminals had guns and knives and that their children hadn’t exhibited any sign of superpowers. Except for being spiders the size of a Scottish terrier. And all right, so their webbing was maybe as strong as Peter’s. And yes, they were damn quick, as anyone who had tried to get Trevor to go to bed when he didn’t want to could attest. And perhaps their pincers were capable of shearing straight through hard steel, as proven by the accident that Maggie had with Wade’s katanas.
But still.
Knives.
Guns.
Not to mention crazy shit like the Goblin or Electro.
“I’m not letting our children become crime fighters,” he whispered furiously to Wade as they lay curled up together in his web that night. “They have so much potential! Their whole lives are ahead of them! Look at what we’ve had to sacrifice. Look at the hell we’ve been through.”
“Yeah, but—”
“They could be killed!”
Wade was quiet for a few minutes, an unusual enough occurrence that Peter started to get worried and was just about to poke him when he finally spoke.
“Petey, what exactly do you think the options are here? They’re spiders the size of small dogs whose instinct is to hunt and kill prey.”
“That’s not the only thing they can do! Elizabeth is so artistic—remember that poem she wove into her web last month?”
He had taken about twenty pictures of it on his phone. It had said:
I like flies
but not bad guys
“Right,” Wade said, “but it’s kind of, um, suggestive, don’t you think?”
“And Will is learning to play the keyboard!” Peter continued.
Wade cleared his throat. “But he only wants to play the theme song from COPS.” He sniggered. “Oh, I should totally teach him that one too!”
“Teach him what?”
“Your theme song, baby boy! You know—‘Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a—”
Peter whopped him on the head. “If you dare, there will be no more sex for a month! At least!”
He had learned this was a very effective threat to use against Wade.
“All right, so not that!” Wade agreed hastily. “But you have to admit that his choice of songs indicates that he’s leaning in a certain direction.”
“It does not,” Peter contradicted. “And what about Nancy? You can’t tell me that her interest in weaving actual clothing—with thread and yarn, it’s so amazing!—is in any way related to crime fighting.”
Wade got quiet again.
Peter jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. Wade yelped.
“Well, it’s just—oh, hell, Petey—it was red and black and Veronica wore it as a cape!”
“That was a coincidence! Because you left all your spare costume material lying around!”
Wade did not reply immediately. Peter crossed his arms over his chest and stared up at the ceiling.
At last, Wade wriggled a tentative arm around his shoulders. “I know you’re worried. And I know I’m not such a great dad—”
“Don’t say that. It’s not true.”
Wade sighed. “Anyway, the point is—they have to make their own decisions, right? If they want to help us, the most important thing we can do is teach them how to protect themselves.”
He held out for a few moments and then curled into Wade’s chest. “I thought you were supposed to be the crazy one,” he muttered. “It makes me want to throw up, I get so scared, thinking of what could happen to them.”
Wade petted his hair and kissed him. “They’ll be okay. I mean, they’ve got Spiderman and Deadpool as parents! What idiot would dare mess with them?”
The Orkin Man? Peter thought gloomily. If the city freaked out over Spiderman, he hated to think how people would react to actual crime-fighting spiders.
*
The thing was, keeping eight spiders who had grown to the size of Scottish terriers secret was pretty much impossible. Especially when those spiders had learned how to open the bathroom window and sneak out, even when they had been told in no uncertain terms that they were to spend the night at home and not follow Wade and Peter on their patrols.
It was equally impossible to find a babysitter for their children.
This was how the Avengers learned not only that Wade and Peter were a couple but that they had eight children. (“Sixty-four legs total!” Wade liked to exclaim).
They were standing in an alley with Tony, Steve, and Thor after the excitement had died down following the latest attack on the city, quibbling about who had thrown the most badass punches (Wade and Tony), debating the relative leadership merits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt versus Odin (Steve and Thor), and contemplating whether the energy could be summoned to go catch a few fireflies tonight (Peter, because the children did love playing with them—in a sort of macabre way, admittedly, given that the game always ended with the fireflies’ violent demise) when one of the children in question suddenly dropped down onto a pair of garbage cans, sending the lids flying with a loud clatter.
“Holy shit!” Tony yelled.
Steve jumped about a foot into the air. “What the—”
Peter found himself standing in front of Tony, facing down his whirring arm that was powering up to fire, with no memory of how he had gotten there. Wade was pressed against him, katanas leveled at the other Avengers.
“You don’t fucking point that thing at my daughter!” Wade yelled at Tony.
After that…well, the jig was fucking up, as Wade would say.
Tony and Steve had nearly identical expressions of fascinated horror on their faces when Peter and Wade finished explaining.
Thor just nodded his head. “You are blessed to have so many fine sons and daughters!” he boomed, clapping Peter on the shoulder.
"You're sleeping with Deadpool,” Tony groaned.
“They had spider babies,” Steve mumbled, slumping against the wall.
“My brother birthed an eight-legged horse,” Thor said.
“So TMI,” Tony muttered in a dazed tone while Wade whooped, “Awesome, dude!” and Peter felt an unwilling stab of sympathy for Loki because the labor must have been hell.
Leaving Wade to his current occupation of prodding Steve and holding a conversation with the boxes about smelling salts, Peter walked over to Veronica, who was trying to make herself inconspicuous behind one of the garbage cans. “Just what are you doing here?” he demanded. “We told you to stay at home.”
“And a word of advice, honey,” Wade put in. “Never drop unannounced into the middle of a group of trigger-happy lunatics.” He gave Tony another glare.
Veronica shuffled her legs and then lifted one to point up towards the wall of the building next to them.
Peter heaved a sigh. “Trevor’s on that fire escape, isn’t he? And he pushed you off?”
Veronica crossed her two front legs, embarrassed.
“Trevor!” Peter yelled. “Get down here!” He pointed a firm finger at the ground.
A few seconds later, Trevor descended, followed by Elizabeth for good measure.
Steve whimpered.
Thor laughed heartily. “Ah, I recall the days of my boyhood, when Loki and I snuck after the All Father on one of his many campaigns! Do not begrudge your offspring their youthful enthusiasm!” He crouched down, grinning at Veronica, Trevor, and Elizabeth. “Have you ever heard the tale of how I battled a one-eyed giant on Vanaheim when I wasn’t much older than you little ones?”
On the upside, they now had a potential babysitter for his and Wade’s taco date nights.
*
Child Protective Services would have a field day if they could see the scene currently playing out on the rooftops above 34th Street. That is, if Child Protective Services would give a damn about human/spider hybrids who definitely favored Peter’s side of the family tree when it came to the looks department. Somehow, Peter doubted it.
Wade was currently aiming one of his knives at Trevor. Then he threw it. Trevor scuttled sideways in a red, blue, and black blur and then tried to grab one of Wade’s ankles in his pincers. Wade only just dived out of reach. A katana flashed. Trevor snagged it with some webbing and tugged it out of Wade’s hand, sending it spinning across the roof. Wade yelled something incomprehensible.
And what was Peter doing while this madness played out in front of him? Was he trying to stop it and giving Wade a firm talking to about his parenting skills? No, instead of doing those rational things, he was teaching Nancy and Elizabeth the proper way to cocoon criminals. A helpful burglar, captured earlier that evening at an apartment a few blocks away, swung gently in the breeze as the girls spun thick white threads around him. The burglar was out cold—he’d started screaming at the sight of the children when Peter dragged him onto the roof, and finally Peter had bitten him—just a tiny little nip—his venom putting him to sleep for the duration of the lesson.
“Don’t wind the threads around his nose and mouth too tightly,” Peter instructed. “He needs to be able to breathe.”
Elizabeth and Nancy obediently loosened the tight threads a little.
The rest of the children were busy practicing constructing a funnel web, an effective trap for any criminal they might chase and herd into its sticky confines.
Yes, Peter had given in. Not only had he given in, but he was actively assisting his babies in their desire to join him in the mission to protect the city and its inhabitants.
A small part of him still wished things could be different. But the children were so dedicated, and so ecstatic at being able to help. They were already turning into damn fine…super-spiders? super-heroines and heroes? Veronica had even woven a little note for them that she preferred “The Spinner” as her nom de guerre. Trevor was favoring “The Awesome Arachnid.” Peter hoped he grew out of that one.
Maybe the universe really had known what it was doing when it gave him and Wade eight spider babies instead of one ordinary human baby. For one, he and Wade would have been disasters as parents of an actual human. Exhibit A: Wade’s penchant for leaving lethal weapons lying around the house. For another, a human baby would have been so vulnerable, the perfect target for their numerous enemies. He’d like to see anyone lay so much as a finger on Veronica without getting it bitten clean off.
“I’m so proud of them,” he whispered to Wade later that night. The children had been tired out from their training and had actually fallen asleep without too much fuss. Peter had stored the burglar in the front hall closet to deal with in the morning. Now he and Wade were sitting together on the couch, eating cold pizza and flipping through cable channels.
“Me too, baby boy.” Wade gave him a one-armed hug. “I’m glad they take after you.”
Peter put down his slice of pizza and then gently turned Wade’s face so that he could look him in the eyes. It was important that Wade understood this and took him seriously. “They take after both of us,” he said.