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The living room was silent.

Only the sound of an old clock on Aunt May's shelf (and possibly a pin dropping) could be heard.

There were three pieces of furniture in the living room. One sofa for two in front of the window which faced out onto the street, another three seater up against the wall where the living room door was, and an armchair parallel to the first sofa. Despite this, the large three seater was all but vacant leaving a kind of no-man's land in between the other sofa and the armchair.

Richard and Mary Parker were sitting in the sofa whilst Peter had sat himself in the armchair. Mary Jane for her part was leaning on the arm of the largest sofa. Richard, Mary and Mary Jane were all stealing quick glances at one another, and sometimes giving small polite smiles and even smaller nods.

Peter though was just staring straight ahead at his parents, his gaze never wavering. He was wearing a poker face which nonetheless betrayed a hint of displeasure. To an outside observer it might have seemed Peter was staring at the older couple as though they were doing something rather rude and didn't have the good manners to stop.

After a few more glances and nods, Richard decided to break the tension. He leaned forward in his seat with his arms on his knees and turned towards MJ's direction.

"I'm, er, sorry miss, we didn't catch your name."

Uncharacteristically, MJ looked a tad awkward and slightly flustered.

"Oh, um... I'm, I'm Mary Jane."

Mary suddenly smiled encouragingly.

"Oh. That's similar to my name." She said in a polite and quiet voice.

MJ briefly smiled. "Yeah...guess it is..." Her voice had quietly trailed off with the last few words, once again betraying the awkwardness of the situation.

The group returned to the silence. This time it lasted for only a minute, but again it was Richard who broke the tension by once more addressing Mary Jane. However his polite and casual remarks were also directed at Peter this time.

"...So...how...how do you two know each other?"

Peter's voice was flat and his expression never wavered:

"She's my wife." He said curtly.

Richard and Mary's expressions changed to ones of shock when they heard this. Thier voices however didn't raise an iota.

"You're...oh, we, we certainly have missed out an awful lot." Said Mary, again in her polite quiet voice.

"Yes, last time we saw you, you were barely able to crawl." Richard had smiled and given a small laugh when he said this, evidently thinking they were making some slight headway. Peter's continued flat tone told a different story.

"I got a lot better at that."

The smiles on Richard and Mary's faces wiped away. They looked deferring at Peter

"Well, well yes of course. I just meant..."

At that moment Aunt May bustled into the living room with a tea tray.

"Here we are. Now get them while they are still hot. Richard I remember how you liked yours without milk and Mary is the same. Mary Jane dear I think this that earl grey stuff you said you said you grew a taste for on that trip to London. And Peter, you're sure you don't want anything?"

Peter looked up at Aunt May and for a second he felt like a child again looking up to her for...for what?

He wasn't sure.

Comfort?

No. He thought. Guidance.

But he saw nothing there but a smiling old face. A face he could tell was as lost as he was and was dealing with this in the only way she knew how: by pretending everything was normal. Seeing this Peter just slowly shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw MJ's worried expression as her mouth slightly open and her hand twitched. But she thought better of it and didn't do anything in the end.

"Er...thank you May." Said Richard "You remembered how I liked i-" He stopped as he tasted the tea. An expression of deep satisfaction passed over his face and after he swallowed he sighed deeply.

"I...I never thought it would taste quite that good."

Mary put her hand on Richard's and squeezed it a little bit. Seeing that Peter's mind briefly recalled Mary Jane doing something similar when Aunt May told him about his parents the week before. Right at that moment though, that seemed like years ago.

"Well it has been over twenty years so I suppose I've gotten much better at brewing." May's statements might have been funny if Peter and MJ didn't know she was saying them sincerely as if all this was normal.

"Was the tea rotten where you were staying dear?" She continued.

"I...you could say that..." Said Richard. He was about to take another sip when he looked round the room and decided not to. He put his cup down and leaned forward again, clasping his hands in between his knees.

"I suppose...I suppose you are all wondering just where we have been and, well...why we're here now."

No one answered but it wasn't as if they had to for Richard to continue.

"You didn't know this about us May...nor you Peter. We weren't allowed to tell anyone, even family. Mary and I met when we were secretly working for S.H.I.E.L.D. We were tasked with infiltrating the terrorist group H.Y.D.R.A. and bringing them down from within. Unfortunately that involved us pretending to certain authorities that we were either genuine H.Y.D.R.A. agents or traitors. Because of our jobs we weren't able to spend much time with you Peter but we knew Ben and May would look after you in between missions."

"And besides we were getting close to shutting H.Y.D.R.A. down and going into less hazardous work domestically." Chimed in Mary.

"That's right. When we left for that last time it was supposed to be our final H.Y.D.R.A. mission. We'd gotten close to the man in charge of their Russian base and with one more trip we'd know everything we needed to. Unfortunately...our cover had been blown. Somehow they found out about us. They're agents had disguised themselves as passengers on our plane and hijacked it. They threw us out with parachutes before they blew up the plane, making it look like we'd been killed. They took us back to Russia, to a smaller base where we were kept prisoner. They tortured us for years to extract the information we knew but we never said a word. Thier leader felt that it would be crueller to just let us rot than simply kill us so we were kept there for years. But recently Spider-Man brought the Russian H.Y.D.R.A. base down with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help. S.H.I.E.L.D. were looking through the base and they found us. They debriefed us and sent us on our way. And...here we are."

"We came straight back to where we had left. We came straight back to our family. We...we were so sorry to hear about Ben..." Mary squeezed Richard's hand again. "With his age in all honesty we weren't sure either he or you May would still be around. But it still was a hard blow."

"We're still dealing with it. But at least you're still around May. And looking as lovely as ever if I dare say."

"Oh you flatterer" Giggled May, who still was plainly in denial about the whole thing.

"And you Peter. Look at you. You've become a man now."

"A married man" Corrected Mary as she smiled at Mary Jane, who awkwardly smiled back.

"Sorry, a married man. Me...Me and your mother are so happy to see you son and...we can't wait to be a family again."

They both smiled at him now, warm, inviting smiles.

"Excuse me I need to take a walk"

With that Peter got up and strode out of the living room and towards the front door, grabbing his jacket from the hook as he went. He'd left so abruptly the front door had slammed shut before anyone could say or do anything. MJ nevertheless quickly got up and went out the door herself.

By the time she was out the door and down the steps leading to it Peter was several houses down and not walking at a particularly relaxed pace. MJ employed a light jog to catch up to him and called out whilst she did so.

"Peter! Peter wait!"

Peter stopped sharply, but only to try and zip up his jacket in the cold weather. When MJ caught up with him his head was bowed in concentration. He was evidently struggling with his jacket, unable to zip it up. He gave a quiet little laugh.

"Heh. Guess we wasted our money MJ. My parents would've come to us if we'd waited."

There was a kind of cynical smile on Peter's face when he said this. He was also slightly gritting his teeth as he continued to struggle with his jacket. As comfortingly as she could manage MJ tried to reach him.

"Peter...I can't imagine how your feeling right now-"

Peter gave up on the coat, and turned to half yell at MJ. In what almost seemed like on breath he finally vented.

"I don't know how to feel! Suddenly they're people in my life who I'm supposed to love and I...I don't...How can I? I don't even know who they are!"

MJ took a tiny step back but continued unperturbed. "Peter they're your parents. They're your family."

Peter continued to vent, gesticulating towards Mary Jane, May's house and other random directions as he did so.

"No, you're my family. Aunt May is my family. Those people in there happen to be related to me. That doesn't mean anything. Not when they were never there for me. Where were they when Flash was beating me up at school? Where were they when I graduated Collage? Where were they when I got married? Where were they all those times I needed them huh? Off playing spies! For all my life MJ! All my life!" His voice started to break with those last words and MJ could tell how much he really was hurting; how much he was fighting back the tears. She adopted a quiet and sensible tone and tried (again) to be understanding; but not just to Peter this time.

"They've explained all that Peter. It wasn't their fault, you're being too hard on them."

Peter looked up at the sky before fixing his gaze back onto MJ; that cynical smile was back again. He addressed her snidely, almost like he was mocking her.

"Yeah: 'them'. Who's to say they even are my parents? How's anyone supposed to know what they look like now after so many years?"

MJ knew Peter didn't mean to be this vaguely rude to her. All the same she felt she best deflate his attitude, so quietly, like a parent talking to their child, she spoke to him again.

"I...I don't know Peter...I just know that if they aren't your parents do you really want to leave Aunt May alone with them? And if they are...do you really want to spend your time playing hero and running away instead of getting to know them?"

That did wipe the cynical look off Peter's face. Now he looked serious and cagey.

"I'm not running away" He said, lightly shaking his head.

"Then why're you out here now?" MJ had crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders as she asked this.

"...I wasn't going to suit up"

"Yes you were. Whenever there's something really upsetting you, you put on a mask and lose yourself in it for awhile. I speak from experience. But not this time tiger. May needs you...and maybe those two people in there too."

Peter looked down at the ground. MJ couldn't see his face but she imagined it was halfway between a look of slight shame and that of a lost little boy. She tilted her head slightly as if to peer up at his downward face.

"We can go in together if you want."

Peter lightly nodded.

MJ gently took his hand and lead him back to the house.