Author's Note: This is where we're gonna get some actual answers and a lot more questions. I know this one's a little short but I wanted it to end there. I own nothing.
31. The Study
Like everything else most of the study was covered in dust. But unlike the rest of the house not everything was where she remembered it being. The last vague memory of this room she could muster up was of a room torn apart, papers everywhere and a window sitting open. But as she pushed the door open she saw an immaculate room no papers scattered around. It almost looked too clean. There was less dust here than there had been anywhere else in the house. She sighed in confusion as she leaned on the end table just studying the room from outside for a moment. Her thumb made contact with the lock and there was a small flash of light and a beep then a click and the drawer opened. Piper swore and jumped. That shouldn't have been possible. She got onto her knees and examined the lock, something was off about it. She managed to hook her thumb nail under the edge of the metal and with a small amount of her enhanced strength popped it off. There was a scanner under it, a finger print scanner. She recognized the design, obsolete for years, but there could be no doubt of what it was. Standing again she opened the drawer. Like everything else there was a slight layer of dust. The knives in the drawer were old and slightly rusted and there was a place for what looked like a side arm that was distinctly empty. Piper stared at the drawer that looked like it had been pulled straight from her dream for a moment stunned. Then she turned to the study.
Stepping inside she ignored the desk and shelves full of books instead she turned to the wall to the left of the window and stared at the photos there. Pictures of her at preschool and her and her parents at the park. The wallpaper was an old and dusty green. None of the photos had fallen off the wall here. She approached the wall cautiously. She gathered a handful of dust and blew it at the wall watching as the still rather early morning light made the dust dance and swirl in the air, until it vanished into the wall. Or more accurately into a crack in the wall so miniscule Piper still couldn't quite make it out. She closed her eyes trying to remember which picture her mother had pushed aside in her dream. She reached out and turned a photo of her parents wedding. It stayed on its side and under it was an old dusty handprint scanner. Piper paused. What if it wouldn't work for her? She shook her head. The fingerprint scanner had. It made sense that this would too. She laid her hand on the scanner and light flashed before the wall creaked open. It only made it halfway open before it stopped the mechanism so old it almost didn't work anymore. Piper shoved the door the rest of the way open. The room from her dream was real. Here it sat before her, stripped of everything but the metal desk. She swore. It was empty, all this work to find a thing she hadn't even thought was real and it was completely empty. She began tearing through the papers in the study. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just pages of theorems and science projects. Nothing useful, not to her, not right now. No explanations. She swore and went back over the house again with a fine toothed comb. It was nearly two o'clock when she gave up her search flopping into the chair at the desk in the study with tears of frustration building in her eyes. Her phone buzzed. She answered without checking the caller ID.
"Hello?" There was a pause.
"Piper are you ok, you sound upset." It was Harry. She scrubbed her face and cleared her throat.
"I'm fine Har. What's up?" She turned in the chair and spotted a photo on the desk she hadn't paid attention to before.
"Well I've got this really cool thing to show you. Can you meet me at the penthouse?" Piper grabbed the photo as an idea popped into her head, a forgotten bit of her dream coming crashing back into her head.
"I can't right now Harry. I'm… out of town. I'll call you later ok?" She set down the photo of her aunt and uncle and grabbed her backpack racing for the door.
"Piper this is really important, is there any way you could get on the jet I know you have access to?" Piper shook her head as she put Harry on speaker and opened her Uber app.
"Harry, I'm sorry but I can't." In the heat of the moment she decided to tell him the truth, or at least some of it. "It's about my parents." Harry was silent.
"Will I see you tomorrow at school?" Piper hopped into the back of a silver Lexus and held her hand over the speaker of her phone as she gave the driver, a middle-aged Lebanese man, the address of her aunt and uncle's old house.
"I hope so Harry, I have to go." He nodded and let her hang up as he stared down at the watch that lay on his desk. He slid it onto his wrist and clicked the button that would normally stop the watch. Instead a black slimy substance covered him, he grinned at the mirror. The suit looked a lot like a black and white version of Spider-girl's costume. He felt powerful and happy. He turned to his window. And spoke to himself.
"Let's go do something worth telling Piper." He leapt out the window swinging away on a black web line.