Chapter 68: Aunt May and Peter Parker Walk In
Around noon, Ethan called the whole family to the restaurant for lunch — partly to feed everyone, partly to brief them on his upcoming departure.
He was in the back, apron on, working a wok of fried rice. The technique was, frankly, alarming. The wrist flicks. The toss. The catch. The toss. Pure cooking-anime energy.
Wade stood off to one side watching, eyes glazed over with something close to religious awe. The flip. The shake. The pan-spin — every motion clean, controlled, perfect.
"Ethan. Ethan. How am I supposed to live without you. Take me with you. Pretty please. Pleeease. I want to eat your food every single day."
Wade had latched onto Ethan's leg and was actively wailing. The thought of what came after Ethan left — eating Wanda's cooking — sent a literal shudder through his body. He'd rather jump off a building.
Ethan kicked him off. "Off. Get off me. Take the dishes out. Relax — once I'm in another universe I'll absolutely drag you along."
A few minutes later, the rice was plated. Ethan came out of the kitchen with the platter.
The whole table looked, smelled, and was about to taste like a holiday spread. Everyone perked up.
"Eat, eat. Come on, dig in." Ethan waved them all forward.
Nobody needed convincing. Chopsticks went up.
"So why'd you pull all of us together today?" Wanda was the one to ask. She'd spent yesterday buried in Uncle Fisk's holdings — she didn't yet know Ethan was about to leave for another universe.
John Wick, Master Ip, and Winston all glanced at Ethan, curious for the same reason.
They didn't know either, but they knew their place. Curious or not, they weren't going to push. So when "the lady of the house" spoke first, they were happy to let her carry it and just watch Ethan.
Yes — to John Wick and the rest of the newcomers, Wanda was unambiguously the boss's woman.
Right now, only two people in the room knew Ethan was going dimension-hopping: Pietro and Wade.
Pietro and Wade exchanged a look. Pietro promptly buried his face in his rice bowl, hoping food would cover for his guilty conscience.
Wade was Wade. Calm as ever. He kept eating, glancing over at Ethan periodically, and casually announced to the air around him:
"Ethan's going to a parallel universe, by the way."
"Don't forget to take me with you," Wade tacked on.
The table went still. Everyone was looking at Ethan now. Nobody had expected this so soon.
"Yeah. Sometime in the next couple of days. Don't know how long for. So I want to get everything squared away before I go." Ethan nodded, then caught the look on Wanda's face. The disappointment there was naked. He felt a small twinge of guilt.
Wanda was openly unhappy. She'd just gotten back to spending time with him, and now — barely any time later — he was leaving again.
And not even leaving the city. Leaving the universe. Her brow knit. There was something like reproach in the way she looked at him.
"I'm coming." Wanda hesitated, then pushed it out anyway. She'd had to work up the nerve.
She wanted more time with him. And her abilities could help. A parallel universe wasn't home turf — having one more person watching his back wasn't a bad thing.
Ethan blinked. He hadn't seen that coming.
A parallel universe wasn't theirs. He didn't know what dangers were waiting. If something happened to Wanda in there — that wasn't a thing he was going to be okay with.
He looked at the stubborn set of her face and tried to ease into it gently. "I need you to stay back and run Uncle Fisk's stuff for me. I'll be back soon. Promise."
The rest of the table was very visibly trying very hard to not be involved in this domestic. Heads down, eyes on rice, we hear nothing, we see nothing, we are the wallpaper.
With one exception.
"Stop arguing! The one Ethan's bringing is me! Wanda, give it up!" Wade hollered.
Wade, of course, had not done any of the math on this. He just wanted to go to a parallel universe. Who Wanda was, what was actually happening at the table — irrelevant. Nobody could kill him anyway.
Wanda had not expected Wade to also fight her on this. Her Chaos Magic flared. Her hair lifted. Her eyes burned red. She turned her glare on Wade.
Pietro saw the meltdown coming and grabbed her arm before she could level the restaurant.
Wade, naturally, scampered behind Ethan and pitched his voice into a whine. "Big brother Ethan — Wanda is being so mean. Wittle me is scared."
By this point, Master Ip and the others had quietly picked up their bowls and relocated to a different table.
"Enough. Enough. All of you are staying. Hell's Kitchen has a mountain of stuff to handle and you are the only people I trust with it." Ethan cut the bit short, exhausted already.
It was at exactly that moment that the front door of the restaurant opened.
A woman in her thirties — striking, with a presence that hadn't aged out of her — walked in with a kid of maybe ten, eleven beside her.
She was older, sure, but she'd kept her figure, and her face hadn't yet collected the years. Still beautiful. Still graceful.
She asked carefully: "Hi — I'm sorry — are you hiring servers?"
Then her eyes landed on Wanda — hair still ember-red, eyes still glowing — and on Wade in his absurd outfit —
"I, ah. I think I have the wrong place. So sorry to bother you."
She started backing out, already turning, the boy in tow.
That woman lied to me, she was thinking. People in Hell's Kitchen really are dangerous.
The old lady down the block had told her the safest spot in Hell's Kitchen was this restaurant — that as long as the owner here was willing to look after you, you could live in Hell's Kitchen safely.
It was looking, instead, like this restaurant was the most terrifying spot in Hell's Kitchen.
Spotting the strangers, Wanda yanked herself back to normal in about half a second.
Ethan jumped in fast. "Ma'am — wait. Yes, we're hiring. I promise. They were just — playing around. It's okay."
Wanda shot Ethan and Wade a look that promised consequences, and then her face cleared up like a sky after a storm.
She walked over to the woman and the boy, smile gentle. "May I ask your names?"
She was trying very hard to repair the first impression.
The woman looked at Wanda and could barely process that this was the same person who had been radiating murder-aura ten seconds ago. That's some acting.
"I'm May Parker. This is my nephew, Peter. Peter Parker. You really are hiring servers?"
Ethan smiled and nodded. "Yes ma'am. I'm Ethan, the owner. We are hiring."
What Ethan had not seen coming, in any version of his life, was this: he had escorted one parallel-universe Spider-Man home yesterday, and the universe had responded by delivering his own Spider-Man to his front door.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you