"Hello, Peter Parker."
"Or should I say, Spider-Man."
With just one sentence from Steve, Peter, who had still been fairly friendly a moment ago, instantly grew wary.
He thought that if someone had sent people after him in order to target Spider-Man, then maybe someone else might come after Uncle Ben and Aunt May in order to eliminate him.
Of course, since his spider-sense gave no warning at all, Peter did not make any rash moves.
"Who are you?"
He had fought side by side with Captain America before, but he had never seen what the man actually looked like.
Back then, Cap had still been wearing that performance costume.
"Forgot already?"
Steve raised a hand and covered the upper half of his face.
"An old soldier."
"Captain?"
In an instant, Peter recognized him. Shocked and delighted, he blurted out, "Why are you here?"
"Came to see a neighbor from Queens, and brought two other friends with me. Mind if they join us?"
Steve shifted aside, revealing a heavy black sedan parked a short distance away.
Nick Fury rolled down the window and showed half his face.
Clearly, ever since Bant had "educated" him back at Plymouth, the black braised egg had finally learned how to knock.
Peter hesitated.
Mainly because Nick Fury looked grim as hell. It was already the twenty-first century, yet the man still wore an eyepatch. No matter how you looked at it, he did not seem like a good person.
But out of trust in Captain America and in his own spider-sense, Peter still nodded.
Nick Fury opened the door and got out with Natasha.
"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Parker."
He shook Peter's hand, but Peter's attention had already been stolen by Natasha standing beside him.
This female agent, who had come out of the Red Room, knew exactly how to deal with a teenage boy overflowing with hormones. The zipper of her black skintight outfit stopped just a little above her abdomen, and the cleavage beneath it was like a black hole that drew in everything around it.
With just one glance, Peter was certain of one thing.
These people definitely had something huge to discuss with him.
Very huge.
"Uh... h hello..."
Peter blushed and turned his head away, shyly shaking Nick Fury's hand.
But that shy reaction was exactly what Nick wanted.
So after introducing himself, he immediately lifted his hand with the palm upward, guiding Peter's gaze back toward Natasha. It was as though those hands were carrying Peter's line of sight, hovering in front of Natasha's chest, trying with sheer force to support the weight of those two enormous... points of focus.
"Nick Fury. This is Natasha Romanoff."
"Peter Parker."
"Come in... sit down?" Peter awkwardly changed the subject.
Even Steve felt his own behavior had gotten a little too shameless at this point.
He immediately shot Natasha a look, signaling for the former Soviet auntie to have a little self-respect and stop playing tricks on this decent young man.
Natasha said nothing, but the look in her eyes plainly seemed to say, Big brother, I'm the one taking the loss here!
Nick ignored the small exchange between the two of them. The moment he heard Peter invite them in, he nodded at once and said loudly,
"No problem!"
See? A pure, innocent boy really was easy to handle.
Nick patted Peter on the shoulder and said to the other two, "I like this boy!"
Then he prepared to follow Peter inside.
Only, just as Nick's front foot was about to step down, he suddenly seemed to remember something and drew it back again.
"Just to be safe, let me ask. Your cousin isn't here, right?"
"He's not."
Peter shook his head, confused.
Nick let out a sigh of relief, and the aura around him instantly grew stronger again.
He was back in form!
On the outside, though, he said, "That's a real shame. He and I are old friends."
"Really?"
Hearing that, Peter raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"What? You don't believe me?" Nick said as if deeply offended. "What, you think he couldn't possibly be friends with a Black man? Kid, that's not a good look!"
"That's not it."
Peter shook his head. He felt it was necessary to clear Bant's name, in case some weird nonsense started floating around.
"Actually, Little Bant doesn't really care that much about skin color itself. The problem is what people actually do."
"You get me?"
"He's met Robbie once. Robbie's one of the editors at the Bugle, and he's Black, but Little Bant doesn't dislike him." Peter said, "The problem is, sometimes things happen, and then people notice that it's always certain groups causing them."
"Fine, that topic isn't important."
Nick Fury was not one of those street-level idiots. He had no interest in discussing color issues with Peter, nor any desire to speak for them.
The group entered the house and sat down on the worn old sofa. Peter poured each of them a glass of water.
Nick Fury looked around the room, then said in surprise, "For the home of a billionaire worth hundreds of billions, the furnishings are, I have to say... rather simple."
Simple was putting it lightly.
If one had to compare it, it was like Tony Stark refusing to live in a mansion and insisting on squeezing into a dumpster beside a homeless man instead.
"We're used to it."
Peter shrugged.
To be more precise, Uncle Ben and Aunt May were used to it.
Every piece of furniture in this house meant something to them, and they could not bear to throw any of it away, even that old black-and-white television that still occasionally fuzzed out with static.
Peter glanced at the clock on the wall, then looked back at Nick, who had been talking about everything except the actual point since he sat down.
Somewhat hesitantly, he stammered, "So... what exactly do you want..."
His hands waved around awkwardly.
"Sorry, I'm not trying to rush you, it's just..." Peter looked at the clock again. "In a few hours, my Uncle Ben and Aunt May might be back, and they probably wouldn't want me hanging around with suspicious people... uh, sorry!"
Realizing he had said the wrong thing, Peter instantly looked even more flustered.
"I don't mean you're suspicious, you know, especially since Cap's here... it's just that my uncle and aunt don't know that, and you're a one-eyed guy, and she looks like a nightclub streetwalker..."
The moment he said that, Nick Fury and Natasha both fell silent.
The black braised egg awkwardly turned his head aside, while Black Widow quietly retracted all of her dazzling "patterning" and silently pulled the zipper of her outfit all the way up.
"You're really something when it comes to conversation, kid..."
"Thank you."
Peter nodded and accepted the remark sincerely.
"I wasn't complimenting you. Forget it, let's get to the point."
Nick wiped a hand down his face, then pulled out a thick stack of files from the briefcase he carried and placed them on the table.
"Originally, I was worried you wouldn't be able to accept this all at once, but..." Nick Fury stood up and said seriously, "We're actually here because of Richard Parker and Mary Parker."
Peter froze.
His gaze turned vacant and stunned.
He did not speak, because he suspected he had heard wrong.
But Nick Fury told him that no, he had heard just fine.
"That's right. Your parents."
"You can take a look."
He tilted his chin, indicating for Peter to pick up the documents.
And so, for a while, the house fell into a rare silence.
The three adults sipped plain cool water, while the only sound in the room was the rustling of Peter turning page after page.
Steve Rogers looked at Peter with concern, as though afraid the boy might not be able to handle the blow.
Perhaps this kid's body was many times stronger than his own, but when it came to the heart, everyone was both strong and fragile all at once.
This was the second time Peter had come into contact with information about his parents in recent days.
The first time had been when he found that briefcase.
It was because of that discovery that he had tried to contact Dr. Connors, and as a result had been bitten by a mutated spider and become Spider-Man.
After that, all of those clues had vanished again.
Neither Connors nor Norman Osborn knew anything about Richard and Mary's whereabouts.
In fact, Connors had always been deeply hung up on Richard's disappearance.
As for Norman Osborn, after everything that had happened recently, he had finally let the matter go, but he still almost never brought them up.
Both men had concluded that Richard and Mary were probably dead.
Only Peter stubbornly believed that they had merely been forced to leave because of some special reason.
Maybe one day they would still come back.
He knew that hope was incredibly slim, but he had kept holding onto it anyway, like a dream made of bubbles.
And now, with Nick Fury barging in carrying the cruel truth, that dream shattered.
"So... they're dead?"
Peter realized his voice sounded surprisingly calm.
"They're dead."
Nick nodded.
"On the very night they left you in this house, their plane was attacked. It was a stormy night, weather bad enough to be disastrous, yet the plane still took off. After that, they vanished. Finding these clues wasn't easy."
"Hydra killed them?"
Peter asked.
Perhaps because he had already long grown used to life without his parents, he did feel sorrow, but his emotions did not surge out the way one might expect.
That calmness only worried Steve more.
"Peter, are you okay?" the old soldier asked, placing a hand on Peter's shoulder so the boy could feel that someone was beside him.
"I'm okay. Thank you, Captain."
Peter spoke softly.
Then he looked toward Nick Fury.
"I thought Hydra had already been wiped out long ago."
Of course Peter knew Hydra's story.
Not just him.
The whole world knew it.
Captain America, Steve Rogers, had crushed Hydra, and because of that, World War II had finally been won.
"Most of them were destroyed, but there are always remnants," Nick said. "You know how snakes are. They're good at hiding, slipping into water, crawling into caves..."
"We've hidden this secret for a long time. Originally, we had no intention of telling you, because even now, Hydra is still hiding. It could be you. It could be me. It could even be the Captain, or anyone else. A secret like that might drag an ordinary kid like you into danger.
"Until we realized you aren't an ordinary teenager. You have extraordinary superpowers, and with just a little training, you can handle the vast majority of super-criminals.
"This is your talent, and also the mission your parents left behind for you. Maybe I haven't fully introduced who we are yet, but there is one thing we can say for sure.
"We have a common enemy.
"Hydra!"
Peter raised his head, pressing his lips together tightly as he looked at Nick.
"So what are you planning to do?"
The moment Peter finally asked that question, Nick's mouth instantly curled into a smug grin.
At last, they had reached the final step.
Now wasn't Spider-Man as good as caught?
So Nick immediately brought out the lines he had prepared long ago and solemnly declared,
"I have an idea. To bring together a group of remarkable people and see if we can become something more. So when people need us... we can fight the battles they never could."
Peter: ???
"Why does that sound kind of familiar?"
/-\
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