New chapter!
Thanks for all the support!
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The three minutes of darkness ended.
Power returned to the city, and life began dragging itself back into motion.
Peter and Mary Jane had finished dinner and were walking home.
The night between them was warm, restless, and charged with everything they had not said for years.
They were not exactly racing home to sleep.
They barely made it through the front door before they were kissing again, Peter hurrying Mary Jane up the stairs.
Then he reached for his keys and froze.
A pale little figure lay in front of his apartment door.
A baby.
Completely uncovered, with skin so white it looked carved from snow.
The veins beneath were faintly visible, almost too clear to be real.
“Oh my God,” Mary Jane breathed.
She rushed forward first and knelt beside the baby, careful and gentle.
“He looks healthy,” she said, checking him with shaking hands.
“No obvious injuries.
Who would leave him here?”
Mary Jane lifted the baby into her arms while Peter knocked on the landlord’s door.
“Do you know where this child came from?”
The landlord and his daughter stared at the baby in Mary Jane’s arms.
“Peter,” the daughter said, delighted and horrified at once, “you have a baby?”
“Congratulations?” the landlord offered weakly.
Peter stared at them.
“He’s not mine.
Someone left him outside my door.
Did either of you see anyone here?”
They both shook their heads.
Peter sighed and turned back to Mary Jane.
“We should call the police.
Child services.
Somebody who knows what to do.”
Mary Jane looked at him like he had suggested leaving the baby in the hallway.
“Peter, we should take him in.
At least for now.
Maybe this is a sign.
He was left at your door.
You don’t have to do this alone.
I’ll help.”
She looked down at the baby and softened.
“Look at him.
He’s beautiful.”
The baby stayed quiet in her arms, calm and obedient.
Of course he was obedient.
He was Evan.
Evan had turned into a baby, and now he needed a guardian.
At least while he was this small.
He could survive on his own, technically.
But surviving as a loose infant was inconvenient.
If anyone saw a baby crawling out to hunt for food, half the city would need therapy.
So after thinking it through, Evan had returned to Peter.
Peter could be his guardian.
“Mary Jane, I’m still in school,” Peter said.
“I can barely support myself.
And the law isn’t going to let a single guy just adopt a baby someone left outside his apartment.”
“Who said you’re alone?” she asked, far too naturally.
“You have me.
We can get married.
We can both work.
We can raise him together.”
Only after she said it did she realize what had come out of her mouth.
She blushed.
She did not take it back.
Peter went completely still.
This was not the night he had expected.
It might have been better.
He loved Mary Jane.
He wanted to marry her.
“Okay,” he said, still half stunned.
“If you mean that, then…
let’s get married.
We’ll raise him together.
I’ll ask Harry for help with the paperwork.
And I want to name him after my friend.
Evan Reed.
Evan, for short.”
Mary Jane smiled down at the baby.
“Evan works.”
Just like that, they had drawn a future around themselves.
Beautiful.
Impossible.
A little insane.
Then the first real problem arrived.
Mary Jane ran out for baby clothes, bottles, bottle nipples, formula, and everything else she could think of.
She and Peter mixed the formula exactly the way the label said.
The baby refused to drink.
No matter what they tried, he would not open his mouth.
That terrified them.
Babies had to eat.
Inside the apartment, Peter and Mary Jane sat on the bed.
She held Evan in one arm and a bottle in the other, brushing the nipple against his lips as gently as possible.
Evan stared back at her with innocent eyes and the weary sadness of someone with too much to say and no safe way to say it.
He did have things to say.
He simply could not say them.
He did not need milk.
More precisely, he could not drink it.
After this evolution, his body had returned to infancy, the cleanest and most delicate stage of human life.
From this point on, formula was useless to him.
Anything processed or contaminated would interfere with what this evolution had rebuilt.
And what it had built was terrifying.
Evan was stronger now than ever.
He had not tested the limit yet, but after this evolution, he had enough confidence to stand in front of Hulk and see what happened.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.