Author's Note: Ya'll are awesome, only one person so far in the reviews has figured out where I'm going with this though. I own nothing, lots more angst in this one.

32. Shifting

Piper thanked the kind old Lebanese man who drove the Uber promising him a fantastic review for getting her to the address so fast before she grabbed her bag and left the car. He pulled away as she stared at her aunt and uncle's house. Mrs. Watson, MJ's mom, was in her garden next door weeding the roses. She looked up and smiled brightly.

"Piper? Is that you? I haven't see you around here in years." Piper swiped at her eyes and nodded forcing a smile.

"Hi Mrs. Watson. I thought it was time. To go through some of my uncle's things." Mrs. Watson glanced down at her watch.

"Aren't you at school for another hour sweetie?" Piper shook her head.

"Got called out for the day." She thought for a moment she hadn't asked Pepper for a key to her aunt and uncle's house having only planned on ripping open one old wound for the day but here she was. She knew Mrs. Watson was a touch nosey so she leaned on the fence and asked a question.

"Has anyone been by, to change the locks?" Mrs. Watson shook her head.

"No one's been by in the last four years sweetheart, save the movers for the Estate Sale." Piper nodded and smiled before walking purposefully up to the front porch.

"Thanks Mrs. Watson." It took a few minutes of digging in the slightly overgrown roses that were beginning to climb the porch but eventually she found the false rock that hid a slightly rusted old key. With some difficulty she slipped the key into the lock and opened the door, closing it behind her. She sighed looking around. The memories, happy and not so happy, were much fresher here. The last time she'd been here she was by herself too. Until the police knocked on the door from Mrs. Watson's house and told her that her uncle had been killed. She shook herself out of her old memories and looked around. It was much like she remembered it being, except the furniture was in the wrong places, stacked near walls. In the center of the living room was a large pile of boxes. Everything her aunt and uncle had ever owned stacked taller than she was. Her stomach grumbled. She hadn't eaten since breakfast and this looked like it was going to be a long job. She set her backpack against the door and pulled out her phone looking up the nearest pizza place. She placed an order for delivery as she circled the large stack of boxes trying to figure out where to start. She thanked the man on the phone and hung up sighing. She easily pulled one of the boxes off the top, of course none of them were labeled. It was going to be tant amount to finding a needle buried in a graveyard looking for one tiny flash drive in everything her aunt and uncle had ever owned. She sighed this was an exercise in pain already.

Two hours later found Piper sitting on a mattress she'd purloined from the upstairs guest bedroom. It had been sitting against the wall, she'd had to take a few minutes when she found a photo album of much happier times. It was now safely tucked in her backpack, out of sight out of mind, for the moment anyway. Things were scattered around her, her aunt's old cook book, a box with her uncle's bowling trophies, papers, old school projects of hers, bit and bobs from a life she hadn't had the courage to revisit in a long time but she was only halfway through the boxes and still there was no sign of the flash drive. If the drawer of guns and knives was real and the secret room was real there was no way the flash drive had been her imagination. She sighed in frustration setting aside a box of linens. She pulled the next box forwards and popped it open. Her phone buzzed. She ignored it as she shifted through the papers in the box. Nothing interesting, more of the same really. She rolled her eyes and grabbed a piece of now cold pizza out of the box that sat behind her. She set the box aside and pulled the next one out of the pile as she took a bite.

Piper flopped back on the mattress narrowly missing the now mostly empty box of pizza. She checked her watch. It was nearly seven in the evening. She'd been at this for nearly five hours. She sighed deeply and struggled to her feet. Her legs were stiff for sitting so long. There were only three boxes left. She popped one of them open and sighed. Pots and pans. The next one had more linens. The last one had an ancient computer, well to her standards anyway. She grinned and pulled it out. There was a monitor and a tower for it. A slightly cracked keyboard lay at the bottom of the box next to a wired mouse, a far cry from the tech at Stark Tower, but it was what she was looking for, sort of. If the flash drive was going to be anywhere it should have been there. But it wasn't. Piper swore and threw the mouse hard. It stuck into the drywall next to the door to the basement. The door creaked open and Piper could have sworn she heard an echo. She stood from the remains of the box and made her way over to the door. She didn't remember being in the basement a lot as a kid. It had been the laundry room and her uncle's work room. She carefully made her way down the dusty stairs. There was nothing down here except an old disconnected washer and dryer. Piper sighed and kicked the dryer. It skidded across the floor and hit the wall. There was a thunk and a section of brick fell free sending up a cloud of dust that had Piper hacking and covering her mouth and nose with her shirts collar. When the dust settled she made her way to the now open section of wall. A safe was hidden behind it. Piper stared. She had no memory of this, of either her uncle or her aunt even mentioning it.

She knelt down. It was the standard sort of safe you could get at any Walmart, except it was old, older even than the four years it had taken Piper to come back into this house. There was a knob on the front, clearly waiting for a code she didn't know. She looked around and whispered to herself.

"Sorry Uncle Ben." She punched the safe, the metal crumpling under her strength and ripped the door off of it. She tossed it aside and turned on her phones flash light to be able to see into the dark alcove and interior of the safe. She ignored the texts she had from Ava and Sam. Inside the safe was a small neat pile of bills, emergency money probably and a box. Piper pulled the box out of the safe and popped it open. The first thing that caught her eye was a ring box. She opened it and found her Aunt May's wedding ring. She carefully added it to the chain with her mother and fathers. She'd have to find her Uncle Ben's and add it too. There were some important papers in the box but it seemed like the rest of it was empty. Piper swore again and made to throw the now empty box but as she moved it she heard something shift inside it. She frowned and shook the box. There was definitely something moving in it. She took a closer look at the bottom of the box and after some searching found a tiny catch on the inside of the box. She paused. What could possibly need so much protection and secrecy to be locked in a safe hidden behind a false wall and put in under the false bottom of a box. Did she really want to know? She jumped as her phone began to ring. She checked the caller ID this time. She sighed and considered letting it go to voice mail but answered after another couple of rings.

"Sam, I'm in the middle of something." There was a sigh of relief.

"Good you're not dead." Piper sat up, the box still in her hand.

"No I'm not dead, I told Fury I wasn't gonna be available today. Lay off bugging me about training bucket head." Sam sighed exasperated this time.

"No that's not it. Have you seen the new in the past few hours?" Piper shook her head as she grabbed the cash out of the safe, it didn't feel right to just leave it there. She still had the box in her hand as she began to make her way up the stairs.

"No, what did I miss is everyone ok?" Sam spoke to someone else for a minute then his voice became clear again.

"Ava's texting you the video. You need to see this." Piper backed out of the call as her phone buzzed again and loaded the video. She watched as a distinctly male figure swooped in saving several people from an apartment fire and then the video cut to him stopping an armored car video. Piper paused the video as he turned to web swing away. The suit was a black and white recreation of her own but the figure wearing it was distinctly male. She stared for a minute.

"Piper are you still there?" Piper's grip on the box in her hand tightened.

"Yeah I'm here."

"Since when is there a Spider-man?" Piper shook her head.

"I have no idea."