XIX. Lamentation

After the funeral and burial of Philip and Madeline Watson, Peter found himself walking alone in the cemetery. Mary Jane was still over by the burial plot with relatives; very soon, she'd be going home with her Aunt Anna. Aunt May and Gwen were probably headed back to the car by now. And Peter… he was walking among the gravestones by himself, trying to make some sense of it all.

"Peter Parker," said deep but friendly-sounding voice. Peter turned and saw that he was being approached by a man… a bald man in a long, black coat. A man… with an eyepatch. "Do you know who I am?"

Peter stammered, "Y-y-you're Colonel Nick Fury."

"That's right. Did you see the spread they did on me in TIME Magazine last month?" When Peter shook his head, Fury continued, "You should take a look at it. Every picture shoots my good side." He turned his head just a little bit, so that his good eye was looking right at Peter.

"Is that supposed to be an icebreaker?"

Fury chuckled. "Let's talk, you and me." Hands behind his back, he kept walking. Peter followed.

"So…" Fury began. "Spider-Man."

"How do you—?"

"Are you gonna ask the country's top spy how he knows you're Spider-Man? Kid, you're not even being all that careful with this. And now you've gone and dragged your girlfriend into it, and, well—" Fury waved a hand in the general direction of the funeral attendees. "That's what happens when super-heroes get their friends and families involved."

Peter looked down at the ground and didn't respond.

Fury sighed. "Look, kid, I know this wasn't really your fault. The Goblin grabbed the Watson girl at that party, and it was just dumb luck. Could've been anybody, really. At least, that's what our analysis says."

Now Peter looked up at Fury, and he was suddenly angry. Angry and suspicious. "Do you know who the Goblin is?"

Fury shook his head. "We were—were—about 95% sure that it was Norman Osborn. Then they were seen together in public. Now we're maybe 50% sure that it's not Norman Osborn. But the Goblin has been careful, and, well, to be honest, this kind of thing is still way below my pay grade. You're lucky I've been able to make enough time to arrange this little meeting."

"Well, then, what do you want?"

"You mean you haven't figured it out? I thought you were smart!" Fury rested a hand on Peter's shoulder and said, "I'm trying to tell you that you've got what it takes. I want you on my team. In a couple of years, once you're not a minor. You've only been at this for, what, a year and a half? And look at the difference you've made. All the powered bad guys you've brought down. You're gonna be one of the greats, kid. That is, if you can get past what's happened here and manage to keep it together until you get out of high school."

Peter shook his head. "I don't know if I want to be Spider-Man as a career. I mean, I want to go to college, be a scientist—"

"Tony Stark. Bruce Banner. Hank Pym. They are all scientists, and they're all on my team. You can do both."

"And what about MJ?"

"Your girlfriend?" Fury sighed again. "Look, kid. Not everybody who gets powers is cut out to be a super-hero. It takes a… a whole bunch of different qualities that don't always come together in one person. Guts, wits, a little bit of ego, a whole lot of crazy… and usually something kinda messed up in your background."

"Like her parents getting murdered?" Peter snapped.

"Yeah. Like that. So… who knows? She's got all the same powers as you now. That means she has just as much potential. If she decides that she wants to get back into the game, you should try and teach her what you know, and there may just be a place for both of you someday as part of the Avengers Initiative."

Peter didn't say anything. He looked conflicted, worried mainly for MJ's sake.

"Peter," said Fury with a small smile, "chin up. Optimism is an act of courage, you know."

"Did you get that one out of a fortune cookie?"

"Yes," said Fury, "as a matter of fact I did. Doesn't mean it's not true." Then he withdrew from his pocket a USB flash drive and handed it to Peter. "One more thing. We got wind that the Chameleon is coming back into the country and trying to reunite with his old crew—"

"Mysterio and the Tinkerer," said Peter.

"Yeah, them. Anyway, I thought I'd give you the heads up, and I put together a few recently declassified files that you might find really interesting. You know, if you wanted to help us take him down."

"I'll think about it," said Peter.

As Fury turned and walked away, he called back, "I would look over everything on that drive very carefully if I were you. You don't want to miss anything important."

Fury then disappeared from sight, leaving Peter alone to wonder, What in the world was that all about?

• • •

Perhaps the drug had reached a critical level in his bloodstream. Perhaps the Green Goblin was simply clever enough to disappear for a time. Then again, perhaps it was something as simple as stress from work weighing down on Norman Osborn. Whatever the case, the Green Goblin sensed his moment passing—all of his carefully maneuvered pieces had suddenly been knocked off the board—and so, for now, it was time to lay low.

When Harry Osborn came home to their Manhattan penthouse that evening, he found his father, collapsed on the floor of his study. "Dad!" he shouted, rushing down to Norman's side. There was an empty tumbler on the floor next to him. Harry wondered whether his father had overdone it on the bourbon last night. He knelt down and gently shook Norman, who groaned and slowly came to.

"Unh… Harry…?"

"Dad, were you lying there all night?"

Norman looked up at his son blankly. "I… I don't remember…"

Harry helped his father to rise and said, "You've been working way too hard, dad. All the meetings, the late hours at your lab…"

Norman wobbled a bit as he stood up and held his pounding, aching head. "Maybe I do need a break… Harry. When was the last time you and I just… spent a whole day together, goofing off?"

Harry stared at his father, momentarily shocked. "We've never done that."

Norman pulled himself over to an easy chair which sat near the fireplace in his study and set himself down. His hands were shaking as he gripped the arm-rests, but his face bore a look of peace and contentment that Harry hadn't seen in years. Not since his mother had still been a part of their lives. "What you do say we do that tomorrow? I take off work, you take off school, and we just… hang out. Go to Coney Island or something."

Harry chuckled at that. "Dad, I'm not twelve anymore… but, yeah, I'd like that."

"Okay then," said Norman. He looked up at his son and said, "It was time I reexamined my priorities. You're the most important thing in my life, Harry. I can't imagine how I ever lost sight of that."

Harry smiled. It was almost too good to be true, but here it was: Norman Osborn acting like a father. Somewhere, deep down, Harry had honestly believed that in spite of this second chance at a relationship with his dad, things were going to backslide, to settle back into old patterns and habits and never really get better. But now, right there and then, it looked like things just might get better.

• • •

With Miles Warren in the hospital (and apt to be arrested if he should ever come out of his coma), Peter suddenly found himself with some extra free time on his hands. Debra Whitman had told him that the faculty board was going to be making a few changes in personnel, and until the lab had a new director, his internship at ESU was effectively suspended. That was honestly fine with Peter; at the moment, he had quite a lot on his plate.

A couple of days after the funeral, Peter found himself home alone with nothing to do. Aunt May was out, Gwen was off by herself somewhere, and MJ was at the mall with Liz. So he made himself a sandwich, went down to the basement, booted up his computer, and plugged in the flash drive that Nick Fury had given him. "Files on the Chameleon," mused Peter. "This could be kind of interesting."

He started browsing through the accumulated data. "Let's see… real name, Dmitri Smerdyakov, expert in imitation and mimicry… ex-KGB, went mercenary after the collapse of the USSR… infiltrated SHIELD once. Whoa."

Something in that last file caught Peter's eye. He read: "Smerdyakov gained unauthorized access to a top-secret SHIELD research facility in Utah by assuming the identity of scientist Richard Parker. The deception was discovered and thwarted by SHIELD agent Mary Fitzpatrick…"

Holy crap on a cracker, thought Peter. My parents… worked for SHIELD? My mom was a SHIELD agent before she married my dad?! How did I never know about this? Huh… I wonder if that was how my mom and dad first met. Peter went browsing deeper into the files, only find that many of them were either encrypted or mostly redacted. He ran searches for the names of his parents and crossed his fingers, hoping that something would pop up.

"Richard Parker, Edward Brock, Bruce Banner… scientific team assembled to recreate the (redacted) formula that was successfully used on (redacted) in (date redacted) during (redacted)." This particular report was dated 1992, a few years before Peter had been born; and certainly a long time before his dad and Eddie Sr. had gone to work for Trask Industries, developing Project Venom. But Peter was transfixed by the sight of that third name on the list. My dad and his partner worked with Bruce Banner! Dr. Banner went and turned himself into the Hulk (at least, according to what everybody says on the internet) in a failed experiment to reproduce the Captain America serum. Peter sat back from his computer, his mind racing. His parents… before he was born… they had already been neck deep in all of this. SHIELD, the Avengers Initiative, Captain America, super-heroes… his family was intimately connected to it.

It's a small world after all, thought Peter. Nick Fury obviously wanted me to see this… but why? For the life of him, he couldn't figure that part out yet.

On a whim, Peter attempted to search the files again, this time using "Captain America" as the search term. That turned up no results. Hm. What else do they sometimes call it again? Oh, right. He typed, "super-soldier serum". One hit. The file wasn't encrypted, but most of the text had been blacked out. Only a few snippets were legible. "SHIELD report #1945324-SSCA-1984-7. (Lots of redacted text.) Investigators have concluded that the lead was falsified. Suspect Jack Hardesky, alias (redacted), is now believed to have fabricated the story that he witnessed (a long redaction) and memorized the formula for the super-soldier serum. There is no known connection between Hardesky and (redacted), nor does there exist any evidence that he came into contact with Johann Schmidt, alias (redacted). Our conclusion is that (redacted) has engaged in an elaborate campaign of disinformation, and that Hardesky was an unwitting participant."

None of that meant much of anything to Peter. Just then, he heard the sound of keys jingling upstairs and the kitchen door opening. It was probably Aunt May getting home. He quickly unplugged the thumb-drive and hid it in the bottom of one of his desk drawers, under a stack of old papers.

• • •

Peter came upstairs and found Aunt May sitting at the kitchen table, waiting. In fact, she looked as if she were waiting for him. "Sit," she instructed.

Peter did so. There were sacks of greasy fast-food resting on the kitchen table, as yet unopened. Aunt May never brought home fast-food; this was serious.

For a while, neither of them said anything. Peter could hear the seconds ticking by on the old kitchen clock. At last, Aunt May broke the ice. "You owe me an explanation."

Peter nodded. "Where do you want me to start?"

"Why are the Watsons dead? I want the whole truth."

And so Peter began to tell her. "…During that party, when MJ was kidnapped, remember?" May nodded. "The Green Goblin and his partner, or minion or something, the Jackal, they gave Mary Jane spider-powers."

"'Spider-powers'."

"They turned her into a spider-woman. With all the same super-powers as Spider-Man."

"And why did they do that?" asked May.

"To make a super-villain who could fight Spider-Man," explained Peter. "They brainwashed her, they made her do some pretty terrible things."

"Mary Jane… has super-powers. Spider super-powers."

"That's right. But she isn't brainwashed anymore. We fixed that—actually, we asked the Fantastic Four to fix it, but Reed Richards and Susan Storm were off on their honeymoon—uh, I guess that means she's Susan Richards now—so they called Tony Stark and he fixed it."

"And I suppose that's, what, just an average Tuesday for you?"

"Not exactly," said Peter, shaking his head.

May pondered this for a minute. "So… you undid the brainwashing. And the Green Goblin came after MJ's parents to… what, get back at the both of you?"

"Something like that. I think he had this loony idea that he could keep making MJ do things for him if he threatened her family."

"And so he blew up their house, and he stabbed Philip in the chest, and he threw Maddie off a bridge."

Peter slumped down onto the table and let his head fall into his hands. "It's my fault," he mumbled.

"Say that again," said May.

Peter looked up at his aunt. His eyes were reddening; he was on the verge of tears. "It's my fault Mrs. Watson is dead. I tried to save her, but I wasn't fast enough—"

May took both of Peters quivering hands into hers and said, "Did you throw her off the bridge, or did the Green Goblin?"

"The Goblin did, but I couldn't—"

"Then hush," said May. "Even… even Spider-Man can't save everybody."

In spite of himself, Peter found the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. "But… when it comes to people who matter… people I know, people I love… I fail them. Just like I failed Uncle Ben."

Aunt May stiffened. "What did you say?"

"The night that Uncle Ben died… the burglar who killed him… earlier that day, I saw him somewhere else, stealing money. I could have stopped him, so easily, but I didn't…"

May released Peter's hands and leaned back in her chair. On the outside, she seemed calm, thoughtful; but in truth her mind was racing. It was all falling into place, little things coming together that all suddenly made too much sense. "And that's why you're… no. No, I want to hear you tell me. You look me in the eye, and you tell me."

Peter wiped his cheeks off with his sleeve and looked his aunt in the eye. "I'm Spider-Man. I try to help people wherever I can, because one time I didn't, and because of that we lost Uncle Ben."

"Show me," said Aunt May.

"What?"

"You're Spider-Man. I want you to prove it."

And so Peter stood up from the table, sprang off the ground, and clung to the ceiling.

Aunt May nodded, and Peter dropped back down to the floor, turning in midair and landing easily on his feet. Then May turned around and started walking toward the living-room door.

"Where are you going?" asked Peter.

"I'm going to need some time to think about all of this. Process it. It's a lot to take in." She turned and faced Peter again and said, "In the meanwhile, you may keep… being Spider-Man. For now. But there are going to be rules—once I decide what they should be. Am I understood?"

"Yes ma'am." That was the only possible response to Aunt May's suddenly stern tone.

Her expression softened. "There will also be questions. Lots of questions, Lord only knows. But we don't have to make a marathon out of it. Just, um, just so that I know, though… who else knows about you?"

"Mary Jane, of course, and Gwen," said Peter. "And Johnny Storm… and I guess Ben Grimm and Tony Stark kind of know. Oh, and Nick Fury."

Upon hearing that final name, a look of… well, something funny, possibly annoyance, appeared on Aunt May's face. She grew thoughtful again, but she didn't say anything. She just walked into the living-room, sat down on the couch, and started to think.

• • •

Over the course of the next few days, the relative quiet of the Parker household was quashed by the sounds of near-constant construction-work. Trucks full of materials and work-crews had simply shown up one day and started fixing up the Watson house. At one point, during the second day of the repair-work, a workman had knocked on the Parkers' door and explained that they'd also been hired to fix the minor damage that their house had sustained, a bit of singed siding and paint from the explosion next door.

"But, who's paying for all of this?" Aunt May had asked. Surely it couldn't be anyone in the Watson family. Philip and Madeline hadn't exactly been well-to-do, and that was even less the case for Philip's sister Anna. The workman had simply laughed her off and muttered something about insurance, before whistling to his crew and getting to work on the outside of their house.

It was Gwen, though, who spotted the one van in the fleet that didn't seem to be carrying any supplies or gear or workmen. It was a black, unmarked van that had just shown up along with all of the construction workers' vehicles. It sat parked on the opposite side of the street and stayed there at nearly all hours of the day and the night. "I know a stakeout when I see one," said Gwen.

Aunt May and Gwen sat in the living-room one afternoon, peeking through the curtains out at the van. "Now who in the world are they?" May wondered aloud.

"I'll go find out," said Peter, who stood up from the couch (where he'd been sitting and flipping listlessly through TV channels).

"No violence," ordered May.

"Not unless they're bad guys," countered Peter. "But I don't think they are. Do we have any cookies?"

May reacted to the non sequitur by staring at Peter blankly; but Gwen grinned, winked, and pointed a "finger gun" gesture at him. "Ah, gotcha, the ol' 'bribe the cops with donuts' routine."

"I do love me the classics," said Peter. And Aunt May's cookies were way better than donuts, to boot.

A few minutes later, he was walking across the street with a plate of Aunt May's homemade cookies and a thermos full of freshly brewed coffee. He went around behind the unmarked van and banged on its back door. The door slowly opened; inside were a two men and one woman, all of them lightly armed and wearing the same plain black uniforms (without any kind of identifying markings). There was some simple surveillance equipment—video cameras and screens, parabolic microphones, a few laptop computers—in the back of the van with them.

"Hey," said Peter. "I was just wondering. You guys feds? SHIELD? Or NYPD maybe?"

"Are those cookies?" asked one of the male agents.

"And coffee," affirmed Peter. "Stakeouts suck. Everybody knows that. Here." He handed over the plate.

"Thanks," replied that agent.

The female agent took the coffee and said, "We're SHIELD."

"Fury send you?" asked Peter.

The woman nodded.

"Did he tell you why?"

She was already opening the thermos and sipping the coffee, and so she just sort of half shook her head and made an "mm-mm" noise. (The coffee was still pretty hot.)

The other male agent, the one who was sitting up near the front of the van and hadn't spoken yet, said, "We're just supposed to watch the skies."

"Oh, gotcha," said Peter. "In case of low-flying goblins."

"Something like that," said the agent.

"You know, we're pretty much fine here," said Peter. "You really should be watching my girlfriend—"

"At her aunt's place in Brooklyn," said the first agent. "Yeah, don't worry, we are."

"Okay, well… just ask if you need anything," said Peter.

"Thanks, kid." The agents slammed the rear door of the van shut again.

Peter went back across the street to explain this new development to Aunt May and Gwen.