Disclaimer: I hold no claims in Marvel

This fic is mostly based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Chapter 1: It's the End of the World

Peter Parker grinned as he easily dodged yet another fist. It was almost like fighting in slow motion with this guy. Peter told him so, which only served to further anger the big lug. Peter flipped over the thug's back, and loosed a string of web at him. With another swift movement of his wrist the robber flew off his feet, hanging about twenty feet off the ground.

Peter stuck himself to the opposite wall to watch him struggle and curse.

"Yeah, I'd be careful with that. You're only hanging on by a thread, and it's quite a long way down," Peter whistled to better illustrate his point.

The would-be-robber instantly froze where he dangled.

"Maybe a little time out will help you learn your lesson about robbing nice old ladies," Peter mimicked the way one would speak to a preschooler.

"When I get free, I'm going to kill you, you costumed freak!" the thug roared.

"All right, buddy, good luck with that. Now, I have much better places to be than listen to your generic bad guy rant of causing my downfall. I've heard every variation these past few weeks, and its gotten old really quickly," Peter muttered.

With that he climbed to the roof of the building. He ran to the edge and threw himself off the side. A large grin stretched across his face as he fell. The rush of air was exhilarating, knowing that he was perfectly safe even as he plummeted sixty feet. At the last possible moment he shot out a string of webbing at the nearest building. He was yanked upwards, and suddenly he was swinging through the air.

Peter made his way through the city, keeping an eye and ear out for anyone who might need some help. It was a relief now not to have the police constantly on his tail. He could actually help without fear of being harassed and arrested.

No other criminals showed their faces for the rest of the night. Or at least not where Spider-Man could see them. Peter was fast, and his senses were great but not even he could be everywhere at once. He was bound to miss a few things now and again. The thought hurt, but he was only one person. He couldn't be everywhere at every second.

For the rest of the night Peter just enjoyed swinging through the air, stretching his muscles. He'd been restless lately, ever since he'd gotten his powers. His body had grown stronger, and his mind had gotten even sharper. The only way to burn off all of the excess energy was to go out every night as Spider-Man.

However, he'd been having strange dreams lately. They were vivid dreams. And some of them were less dreams and more nightmares. Peter couldn't remember really ever having a lot of nightmares before becoming Spider-Man.

In fact he didn't remember a lot of things before his parents came to live in Brooklyn. His Uncle Ben said it was because he'd hit his head falling off a tire swing when he was seven, giving him amnesia. Peter could sort of remember a tire swing, and the old farmhouse they had lived in when he'd been younger. Aunt May said it had belonged to his mom's family. They'd lived there before his dad had gotten the job at OsCorp, and they moved back into the city to live near Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

Peter had to wonder if his new abilities, which included an accelerated healing ability, had healed the mild concussion he'd gotten when he'd been younger. Now, he was just getting back some of the memories he'd lost from his early years.

Or maybe that wasn't the case at all. Maybe witnessing his Uncle Ben's death, and becoming Spider-Man was just taking a toll on his unconscious mind. Now it was just whipping up bizarre dreams just to screw with him. There was also the crushing guilt he still felt for his part in his uncle's death, and the fear that constantly nagged at him that someone would discover his secrets.

The recurring nightmare he'd been having was certainly something he worried about happening should anyone ever find out he was Spider-Man. He'd be having a nice dream about cotton candy clouds, or eating some of Aunt May's amazing chocolate chip cookies. Then BAM! He was strapped to a cold metal gurney in a room with endlessly looming white walls. Men in white masks, and coats would surround him, blocking any chances of escape. Harsh white lights blared down from behind the men, blinding Peter.

Their faces would be blank, black voids behind the masks. Their voices were slow and droning like flies buzzing around road kill. He wouldn't be able to understand a word they were saying. Somehow it made the situation all the more terrifying because he had no idea what they were about to do. He would be able to hear the whirring of strange machines all around him.

The worst part of the dream came when the men in white coats pulled out syringes. At this point Peter would scream and cry, and beg for someone to save him. Without any sort of preparation they would stab Peter, and plunge whatever substance was in the needle into his system.

First a sensation not unlike the pins and needles feeling when your arm falls asleep would spread across his skin. It was just the calm before the storm. The next part would be so much worse. A raging inferno would engulf Peter. It would feel like his body was burning from the inside out, and his blood had turned into lava.

Peter was certain that the nightmare terrified him so much was because it was just so realistic. He could almost smell the antiseptic in the air, and taste it on his tongue. It terrified him because it was so real. It felt like a memory. But it couldn't be. He'd never been experimented on. Or at least he kept telling himself that.

Not all of his dreams were bad. One was of himself being small and helpless, curled in his mother's arms. Only instead of straight honey brown hair his mother had curly red hair. She would stroke his hair and sing to him softly to him a language that was both foreign and familiar to him.

The dreams with the red haired woman always made him feel safe and warm. She was young and pretty. Sometimes she would be singing to him, other times they'd be playing games. She called him her Little Spider, which never failed to make him smile and laugh.

Peter always looked forward to those dreams. It was sad that he had more of these dreams than he had memories of his own mother.

One of the awful ones was of him being shoved in a small dark space. He would thrash and scream, and claw to get out but he could never escape the small space. Not before a fierce coldness spread through the tube. It would freeze him where he stood, and with the cold spreading through him he would drift off into darkness. Peter would wake up from that particular nightmare with full body shudders, unable to shake off the coldness in his limbs until he took a hot shower.

Peter had done his best to get through the nightmares. He'd been dealing with so many other things at the time that he didn't need the added stress. He didn't need the added stress when he'd been dealing with suddenly having super powers, hunting down Uncle Ben's killer, and Curt Connors turning into a giant lizard.

Once things settled down a bit with Curt Connors hauled off by SHIELD Peter thought the nightmares would calm down too. They were only getting worse.

Peter tried to shake off the thoughts. He came out to forget his problems not obsess over them even more.

He swung around the city until his muscles were appropriately exhausted. Only once he was tired did he go home, and crawl in bed. He was hoping that if he was tired enough he wouldn't dream. Of course like usual he was wrong. As soon as he drifted off to sleep he found himself back into the dream world that was becoming increasingly familiar.

He was smaller now, and curled up in his mama's arms. He was scared even though he was wrapped up in his mama's arms. The men in white were all around them yelling angrily, and his mama was actually scared. It made him even more afraid to see his mama scared. His mama was never afraid. The men in white grabbed him. His mama tried to stop them. She fought them fiercely. But it was hard for her to fight and hold on to Peter too.

In the end they got their way. They struck his mama down, and carried him away. He screamed and screamed for them to let him go. He wanted to go back to his mama.

"Peter."

Peter jolted awake. He nearly leapt upwards to cling to the ceiling before he realized it was only Aunt May.

"Are you alright, sweetheart?" Aunt May asked, pushing a lock of hair back from his forehead.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he assured her, trying to reorient himself.

"You must have been having quite the nightmare. You were screaming," Aunt May worried.

"Sorry for waking you up," Peter murmured.

"Nonsense, you have nothing to be sorry for. I'm just worried about you. You've been having trouble sleeping lately. And just now I could have sworn you were yelling in Russian," Aunt May continued to stroke his hair.

It helped to calm him down.

"Russian?" Peter frowned.

"I think it was Russian," she nodded.

"Huh, I didn't know I was so talented that I could speak another language in my sleep," Peter smirked.

"I suppose so. Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate or maybe some tea?" Aunt May offered.

"No, Aunt May, go back to sleep. I'll be okay," Peter assured her, feeling more than a little embarrassed. He was sixteen years old he could handle a few bad dreams.

She worked long hours at the hospital to bring in more income after Uncle Ben's death. She deserved as much sleep as she could get.

"If you need anything just come and get me. I won't mind," she gave him a quick hug.

He gently hugged her back before shifting to stare up at the ceiling, trying to sort his thoughts and feelings about this newest dream.

He must have eventually been able to fall asleep because he was woken the next morning by the smell of bacon. The rumbling of his stomach had him pulling himself from his warm bed. Aunt May was in the kitchen making pancakes and frying some bacon.

"Good morning," she greeted warmly.

"Morning," he smiled back.

"Did you sleep better once you fell back asleep?" she questioned in concern.

"Yeah, you need any help?" he nodded to the pancake batter.

"No, just sit down. I'm almost finished," she waved him towards the kitchen table.

Peter sat down and watched as she continued making breakfast. They chatted about school, and her work. It was nice to talk about normal, inconsequential things for a little while before jumping into the discussion he wanted to.

"Aunt May, can we talk about my parents?" Peter asked.

He'd waited until the two of them were sitting at the table with their breakfast in front of them before asking. Peter knew he couldn't ignore his dreams anymore. Something wasn't right about them. He couldn't keep pretending that they were just dreams anymore.

"Of course, what do you want to know, Peter?" she smiled warmly at him.

Peter wanted to make a connection to his parents to disprove the dreams.

"Anything, I don't really remember them that well," Peter admitted.

"Hmm, let's see. Uncle Ben told you how they met, right?"

Peter nodded. The briefcase was what had started the whole mess. He'd found the decay rate algorithm in the case, and it had led him to infiltrating OsCorp.

"Your father was brilliant just like you, and your mother was so kind to everyone just like you. They loved to travel. They traveled all over the world together even after they had you," Aunt May smiled.

"Really? I thought we lived in that farmhouse that mom's family owned?" Peter frowned, trying to remember something about that.

"That was only after you turned six. Before that they brought you everywhere with them. Sometimes your Uncle Ben and I wouldn't hear from them for months they would get so involved in whatever it was they were doing. I think your father worked for some company that would send him wherever it was they needed him most, and your mother just tagged along. You were about seven or so when they came back to Brooklyn to settle down. Then it was barely a year after all of you moved back that they… Well, I shouldn't have even brought that up."

Peter glanced away at the somber tone in her voice. After learning about his father's involvement with OsCorp, he couldn't help but wonder if they were at all responsible for his parent's deaths.

"It's fine, Aunt May. Did we ever come to visit before we moved here full time?" Peter wanted to know.

Aunt May pursed her lips, and drummed her fingers on the table. "You know, I don't think you did."

"Not even for Christmas or birthdays?" Peter persisted.

"Now that I think about it, Ben and I didn't even realize they had you until you were six. They were busy a lot or in places that they weren't able to call home. Richard and Ben didn't get the chance to talk a lot. It was only when they moved back to America that we realized they had you. But you were the cutest little thing, though. All big blue eyes, and auburn curls. Now look at you, all grown up. You're sixteen, soon to be seventeen, and a junior in High School. You'll be off at college before I know it. Where does the time go?" Aunt May sighed, and reached up to ruffle his dark reddish-brown hair.

Peter forced a laugh, and ducked away pretending to be affronted as he fixed his hair.

"And you just stay the same, Aunt May," Peter flashed her a little smirk.

Inside his stomach was twisting, and his heart felt like it had sunk into his stomach. Aunt May didn't have any proof that he'd even lived with his parents before the age of six. The evidence that his dreams were more than dreams grew even stronger.

"Oh, Peter Parker, you little charmer," she shoved him playfully.

Peter laughed.

"Hey, I only speak the truth, and Uncle Ben taught me well," Peter smiled.

"Aren't you supposed to be meeting Gwen instead of spending your time with an old lady?" Aunt May didn't look the least bit impressed.

"You could never be old, Aunt May. But yeah, I should probably go," Peter kissed her on the cheek.

She quickly shooed him from the house. It was her first day off in weeks, and she had planned to have a nice long nap. Besides Peter had a lot of things he needed to think about.

Peter made his way to a small café where he'd had plans to meet Gwen. He stopped suddenly when he saw a group of people all clambered around a TV store.

"Is it another invasion?" he heard one woman cry.

"This isn't aliens," another responded.

"At least it's not New York this time. We've had enough with aliens, giant lizards, and costumed freaks running around here," spat one man.

"But it's our nation's capital that's under attack. They tried arresting Captain America," another man shouted.

"It's Hydra. They're back I'm telling you," an old man grumbled.

Peter slipped through the crowd to see what was playing on the screen. He was shocked to see footage of men in black armor yanking Captain America's arms behind his back. The headline proclaimed his arrest in bold, capital letters. The smaller one at the bottom stated that Captain America was wanted for the death of Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD. It had all just happened and right now there was pure speculation about what was going on.

Peter took off running towards the café. Peter had to fight through the crowded café. People were talking loudly about what was going in DC, and the large TV in the café had the news on. Gwen was waiting for him at a corner booth. She was scrolling through her phone furiously. When he approached she looked up in relief.

"Peter, thank god. This is absolutely nuts," Gwen exclaimed.

"I just saw the news on my way here," Peter agreed as he sat down across from her.

"The story just broke. No one really even knows what's going on yet," Gwen shook her head, her eyes wide with shock.

"They said SHIELD took out a freeway trying to arrest Captain America," Peter just couldn't believe that. Cap was one of his heroes. There was no way he'd do anything to deserve something like that. The guy was just too good.

"Something has to be going on with SHIELD. It will all be sorted out soon. I can't imagine the Captain doing anything that would warrant his arrest," Gwen said, echoing his thoughts.

"Some old guy said it was Hydra behind all of this," Peter told her, even if it sounded completely ridiculous.

"Hydra? But they were defeated back in the 40s," Gwen frowned.

"Hey, they were an organization that was famous for the whole 'cut off one head and two more grow in its place'. Even if, you know, that's inaccurate when it comes to hydra mythology. But anyway, Hydra existing definitely wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened in the last couple of years. I mean they found Captain America literally chilling in an iceberg, and they were able to thaw him out. Now he's alive and well. Why couldn't Hydra have survived the war too," Peter shrugged.

"It does sort of make sense. Who else would try to frame Captain America?" Gwen nodded.

"Only the worst of the worst," Peter replied firmly.

"So Captain America's been arrested and Hydra may or may not be behind it all. We can revisit it when we actually have more information. How are you, Peter?" Gwen asked.

"What do you mean?" Peter frowned.

She quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at him. "I mean the fact you're giving a raccoon a run for their money with the whole circles around your eyes."

"That's an oddly specific and unnecessary comparison."

"Don't try to deflect, Peter Benjamin Parker," Gwen chastised.

"Hey, only Aunt May can throw out the middle name."

Gwen stared him down.

"It's not exactly an easy job being a high school student by day and a crime-fighting, web slinging superhero by night, Gwen," Peter sighed.

"No, this is something else," Gwen said with utter certainty.

Peter reluctantly told her about the nightmares. It was nice to get them off his chest.

"They sound awful," Gwen murmured.

"Yup, and the worst part is that I can't help but think that they're…"

"They're what?" Gwen prompted when he trailed off.

"Real," Peter finally admitted.

"You mean you think you might have been experimented on?" Gwen frowned.

"I don't know," Peter had been afraid to admit out loud that was what was happening in his dreams.

"I'm sure your parents would never let something like that happen to you," Gwen assured him.

"I know. My Aunt May said they were good people, good parents. But…"

"But what?" she pressed.

"Nothing," Peter shook his head.

"Nothing?" Gwen didn't look convinced.

"Yup, absolutely nothing," Peter nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"It's just these dreams," he blurted out. "I'm still a kid in all of them. I asked my Aunt May this morning about my childhood, just to stop worrying about it but…"

"But whatever she said only made you worry more," she deduced.

"Yeah, she said she, and my Uncle Ben didn't even realize my parents had a son until I was six because they lived overseas and moved around a lot. They didn't meet me until a year later," Peter explained.

"So it's perfectly reasonable, it doesn't mean there's some big conspiracy hiding something from you," Gwen placated.

"Yeah, but, I haven't told you this before but when I was six I fell off my tire swing. I hit my head, and got amnesia. I can't remember anything before I was six," Peter admitted.

"Peter, no one can remember what happened to them before they were six. Our childhood memories are basically a big jumbled ball of mush," Gwen soothed.

"You're right, these dreams are just making me crazy," Peter shook his head, smiling at himself for his insane thoughts.

"No, you're not crazy. You're having these nightmares for a reason. Just know that you can talk to me about them anytime you want. Even if it's the middle of the night you can call me. It helps to get stuff like this off your chest then to just keep it festering inside, which is probably why you're subconscious is dreaming up stuff anyway," Gwen stared him down.

"Yeah, okay. I'll do that," Peter glanced away, touched that she would be willing to do that for him even after he'd inadvertently gotten her father killed.

"And you can pay me back in chocolate," she grinned brightly.

"I'll see what I can do," Peter grinned back, pleased that he had someone to talk to about this stuff.

Their attention was inevitably drawn back towards what was going on in DC. They spent an hour and half watching the video clips of the wreckage, and reporters hypothesizing what had happened. The news had been sent into a further tizzy when Captain America actually managed to escape SHIELD custody. No one really knew what to think anymore.

Eventually their mutual parental figures called them home. They wanted them home with all the strangeness that was going on in DC. He and Gwen said their goodbyes, and headed home.

The rest of the afternoon Peter kept an eye on the news as he finished up some homework. It was a good thing he did because the events in DC only got worse. He called Aunt May in, and the two of them watched as three massive helicarriers crashed into the river and nearby buildings. SHIELD was in complete ruins. According to the news, SHIELD agents were turning against each other, and Captain America had gone down with one of the helicarriers.

Peter did his best to console his Aunt May. She was in tears over what was happening in DC. There was plenty to be upset over. No one really knew the exact sequence of events. They only knew that it was complete carnage at the Triskelion, and other SHIELD bases. SHIELD was fighting against itself, and only time would tell what the outcome would be.

He felt useless not being able to go out and help. But it's not like he even knew what was going on at the moment, and he would just get in the way. Peter decided he would do his part by going out as Spider-Man. However, the criminal element must have all been inside glued to their TVs because there was hardly any activity for him to take care of that night.

He swung around the city, making sure everything was all right. When nothing popped up, he took the time to practice his maneuvers, and test himself. By the end of the night his muscles were well exercised, and he made his way back home. To sleep and have his dreams be filled with the now familiar, vivid images.

The next morning Peter headed to school, and walked right into chaos. He had been expecting everyone to be a bit crazy over what had happened in DC. But he wasn't quite expecting it to this extent. Everyone he passed was hunched over their phones or tablets.

"Peter," Gwen greeted him with a kiss to his cheek.

"Hey, what's up with everyone?" Peter nodded towards a group who was gathered around a single laptop, and muttering amongst themselves.

"You haven't heard then?" Gwen asked as the two of them started walking towards their first class.

"Heard what?"

"Someone downloaded a bunch of SHIELD's secret files onto the Internet. Years upon years of SHIELD secrets were just thrown out there for all the world to see," Gwen continued.

"What?" Peter was shocked. What could have possessed them to do such a thing?

"The most terrifying part is that Hydra was behind this whole attack. They've secretly been hiding inside SHIELD since the very beginning, waiting for its moment to take over. They were going to use the helicarriers to kill anyone who opposed them. Captain America stopped them by stopping the three helicarriers before they could take off. The Black Widow was the one to download all of SHIELD's, and therefore Hydra's, dirty little secrets onto the world wide web," Gwen ranted.

Peter's fingers itched to go look. He didn't have a smartphone like most of his peers. He'd have to run to the computer lab if he wanted to look.

"They weren't able to stop them completely. There are still a lot of Hydra cells out there, and SHIELD is completely ruined. The SHIELD agents that aren't Hydra are being brought up on charges from all of the information that was put online. Hydra went really deep. Top members of governments all around the world were a part of Hydra. Who knows what will happen now. Hydra didn't succeed but they aren't exactly gone either," Gwen spat.

Without SHIELD there wouldn't be anyone to stop Hydra. The Avengers were currently scattered. Tony Stark hadn't made another appearance as Iron Man since New Years when he blew up all of his suits. Thor hadn't been seen since his battle with the dark elves in Europe. The Hulk and Hawkeye hadn't been seen or heard from since the Battle of New York more than a year ago. Captain America and Black Widow along with some newcomer they were calling Falcon had been involved with the entire DC affair.

Peter was barely able to make it through the school day. He was jittery with the desire to start rifling through everything that had been dumped onto the Internet. Everyone else was feeling the same way. Quite a few of his classmates lost their phones that day from using them during class.

When the school day was finally over Peter and Gwen went back to her apartment. Gwen's laptop was much faster than Peter's old desktop no matter how much Peter had fiddled with it.

The two of them settled in her room and she pulled out her laptop. There were tons of different sites being built around SHIELD's secrets. The Government had tried to shut some of them down, and claim all of the information for themselves. But as everyone knew, once something was on the Internet there was no turning back.

"Search for my parents," Peter suggested.

"Why?"

"SHIELD practically knows everything. If my parents are on SHIELD's database that means it was foul play. If they aren't than I suppose it was just a plane crash that killed them," Peter shrugged.

"Okay," Gwen nodded, and typed in their names.

Peter honestly didn't know whether or not he wanted to find something. He walked over to look at a few pictures that Gwen had on her desk so that he wouldn't be hovering over her shoulder constantly. There was a nice picture of her and her father, and another of Peter and Gwen.

Gwen's soft gasp had him whipping around, and quickly moving back to her side. There on her screen was a picture of his parents.

"I don't… I don't think you want to read this, Peter," the blood had left Gwen's face, and she tried to tilt the laptop away from him.

"Gwen, I need to see it," Peter insisted gently.

"I know, I just— I want to protect you," Gwen handed him her laptop.

"Thanks," he shifted so that she could read right alongside him.

Peter shifted his entire focus to the files on the screen. Both of his parents were in SHIELD's database, and not because of his dad's association to OsCorp. His parents had apparently been actual SHIELD agents. According to the records his mom had been a field agent with SHIELD before she met his dad. She'd actually been assigned to keep an eye on him as an up and coming new scientist in the field cross species genetics. They had placed her in the shop because they knew his dad would be going there.

The first report his mom had written up about his dad was in there. It didn't say how they got married but the next file was their marriage license, and the paperwork of Richard Parker officially joining SHIELD. After that there were various reports of missions they had gone on together.

Peter was confused when one of the missions they'd gone on happened to be in June 1998, which just happened to be the month and year he was born. How could they have been infiltrating insurgents making biological weapons when Peter was supposed to have been born during the time they were there undercover?

Peter quickly scanned the following mission reports. He knew they probably wouldn't outright say they'd gone on maternity leave but they had to have at least taken some time off. There was absolutely no mention of them taking any time off. They had literally gone on one mission after another in the few years surrounding Peter's birth. Sure they took a few weeks off here and there for some recuperating time. But there was no way his mom could have been kicking butt while she was heavily pregnant.

Peter was beginning to think that they must have had him through a surrogate. That was until he got to a certain mission report. The two of them had been tasked with looking through an old Soviet base that had recently been accidentally unearthed. It had held some questionable equipment that had immediately put it on SHIELD's radar.

A lot of the report was redacted but there was enough information for Peter to infer that the 0-8-4 also known as an object of unknown origin had been a child. It was a child who they believed had illegally been experimented on, and then abandoned in a cryotube when the project didn't yield the desired results.

The Parkers had been tasked with taking care of that child once they had managed to thaw him out alive. From the reports the boy was practically feral, and had no memories of his life before he'd been cryogenically frozen. He'd been frozen for 36 years, according to the files they had scrounged up from the abandoned base. They could only piece together a vague idea of what his life had been like before being frozen from the old, incomplete files. They'd put the boy's age to be about six years old, and they'd unfrozen him in 2004.

It didn't take a genius to add up all these facts. Peter knew where this was all leading even before he got to the last few pages.

The last few pages were reports on the boy's progress in assimilating to a normal life. He lived with Mary and Richard in a farmhouse in the Vermont countryside for a year before the boy was deemed ready to live amongst civilians. Richard and Mary were given complete legal documentation to prove the boy was their biological son. One year after that Richard and Mary were killed on an assignment.

It didn't state Peter's name but he knew it was him. Who else could it possibly be? The timing was perfect for what Aunt May had just told him about his parents traveling. The information about what had happened to him after Richard and Mary's deaths was completely redacted. SHIELD had apparently decided there was no reason to further study him. But SHIELD spying on him in the past wasn't what worried him at the moment. He was worried about the future. It wouldn't take a genius for someone to look up Mary and Richard's relatives and discover Peter.

He felt the blood rushing in head. He felt shock quickly followed by fear shoot through him. What if someone decided to come looking for him, and picked up where the men in white had left off? He knew for certain now that his dreams and nightmares from the past few months were actually memories.

Peter was an experiment from a shady Soviet organization simply dubbed the Red Room. While the reports stated they failed to yield the results they wanted from Peter something had to have gone right, too.

Peter had survived being cryogenically frozen for 36 years as well as a bite from a radioactive spider. Peter and Gwen had gone back looked over the spiders OsCorp had created after the Lizard debacle. Not a single other person had survived a bite from those spiders. They had a one hundred percent mortality rate. But instead of killing Peter it made him stronger or apparently it just unlocked whatever serum the Red Room people had pumped him full of.

"Peter," Gwen gently touched his arm.

Peter flinched slightly. "Yeah, what? I'm okay."

"You've been staring at the wall for five minutes. I don't think that's the best example of being okay," Gwen said sardonically.

"Well, I did just find out that I am apparently an experiment who was born in 1962. Huh, technically I'm 52 years old. I'm robbing the cradle," Peter laughed, wincing when it came out sounding a bit hysterical.

"You're a regular grumpy old man," Gwen attempted to joke.

"You kids, get off my lawn," Peter rasped back.

Gwen snorted.

"Do you think I know Russian? I mean it had to have been my first language right? Quick say something to me in Russian to see if I understand," Peter demanded.

"Nyet," Gwen said blandly.

"Does that mean night?" Peter joked. He knew what it meant. He remembered screaming it when the men in white strapped him down to a table.

She laughed. "No."

"No, it doesn't mean night."

"No, it means no," she was laughing hard at this point.

Peter smiled, pleased that he'd gotten his desired outcome.

"But seriously, what if someone realizes who I am?" Peter asked quietly.

"There is a ton of information on here, Peter. No one will find it," Gwen reassured him.

"We did," Peter pointed out.

"Because we were looking. I doubt many people will want to specifically look up Richard and Mary Parker," Gwen stated confidently.

"Yeah, after years of working in the shadows, there's got to be a ton of more interesting information to look at," Peter tried to sound as confident as she did.

But Peter was still uneasy. Not only had he found out he was an experiment but his parents weren't his biological parents. In fact he'd only lived with them for two years, and had spent the first six years of his life in a Soviet lab.

All of his nightmares were real, and it was very possible that someone could find him. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. The people from the Red Room had thought he was a failed project. Who would want to look up a failed project?

A tiny part of him was even thrilled to learn that the red haired woman was real. Peter knew she was his biological mother. It just felt right to acknowledge her as such.

"It will be all right, Peter," Gwen laid her hand over his.

This was exactly what Peter attempted to convince himself over the next week. The world was still in complete turmoil about all of the secrets that SHIELD had been keeping from them over the years. So far no reporters or anyone worse had come knocking on his front door to ask if he was the little boy they'd pulled out of the cryotube in some abandoned Russian bunker.

He couldn't help but keep an eye out for people watching him as walked to school or ran out on an errand for Aunt May. Peter knew he was being paranoid but he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. It didn't help that he had started getting even more memories back. Not just of the lab but also of Richard and Mary, and a woman with red hair whose face he could never quite make out.

Aunt May, of course, realized something was bothering him. Peter already felt guilty about keeping the whole Spider-Man thing from her so he found himself blabbing the entire story to her.

When he was finished she wrapped her arms around him and said, "Peter Benjamin Parker, you are my nephew no matter what, and nothing could make me stop caring about you. I love you."

It was only when she wrapped him in her arms that some of the tension he'd been carrying around for the past few weeks, left him. He hadn't realized that a part of him had been worried about her rejection if she found out he wasn't really Richard and Mary's biological child.

"I love you too, Aunt May," Peter hugged her back.

"Lord knows who would pick up after you if you didn't have me," she huffed.

"I've gotten better," Peter argued.

"Well, at least you finally learned how to use a washing machine, and stopped washing that American flag of yours."

Peter flushed. He'd panicked when his suit had turned their laundry various shades of red and blue, and had blurted out the first explanation that had come to his head.

"What do you think Richard and Mary thought about me?" Peter asked hesitantly.

Peter honestly didn't know how to feel about them. He had been their assignment. The only question was if he had been a willing assignment or not so willing one.

"I can't speak for them, or why they made the decisions they did. But I feel pretty confident in saying that they loved you. You were such a shy little thing. You barely said two words that year they moved back here. I suppose we know why now. But Richard and Mary were so good with you, so patient, and you clung to them," Aunt May smiled warmly.

"Right, yeah," Peter nodded.

He wished he could have remembered more about them. Maybe then he would know how to feel about them.

"At least I've got you as an aunt," Peter grinned charmingly at her.

"You bet you do. Now, come help me make dinner," she commanded, swatting him with a towel.

They set to making some spaghetti.

It felt good to finally have it all off his chest, and went a long way in finally accepting the truth of his origins.