The room fell into a long silence.
Aunt May wiped away her tears and looked at him blankly. "... Have you been carrying it all by yourself all these years?"
"Sometimes friends can help."
Aunt May looked at Uncle Ben, with unconcealable pride and relief on Uncle Ben's face. Aunt May sighed helplessly, "You two really... go out and risk your lives, and you actually feel glorious?!"
"Of course." Uncle Ben nodded.
"If this makes you feel at ease, my injuries will basically heal on their own." Peter said.
"Is it okay if my back is broken?" Aunt May stared at him.
"It should be okay."
Uncle Ben held his wife's hand. "Would you rather he hide instead of saving those people?"
Aunt May opened his mouth, and finally leaned back on the chair weakly. "No... I just don't want to lose him."
"Aunt May, some things are more important than my own life." Peter said.
"When did you think about that?"
"The same people who kidnapped dad also kidnapped you and Uncle Ben."
Aunt May's eyes turned red again. After a long time, she gently patted the back of Peter's hand. "... So, why did you choose Spider as the code?"
Peter blinked and grinned. "Because 'Batman' was registered by someone else."
The aircraft carrier slowly landed on the top apron of Avengers Tower.
Peter, accompanied by Tony, came to the door of the main conference hall. There was a huge crowd behind the door, and the top media outlets in the United States and even the world had already surrounded the scene.
"Are you ready?" Tony straightened his tie and asked in a low voice, "Do you need me to go up and start the show for you?"
Peter shook his head and took a deep breath. "No need, Tony. You have to face the trouble you caused."
The door opened with a bang.
Countless dazzling spotlights flashed instantly, the click of the shutter and the reporters' noisy questions came like a tsunami:
"Mr. Parker! How old were you when you started working as a superhero?!"
"Mr. Parker! It is said that you were only fifteen years old when you joined Avengers. Is this true?!"
"Mr. Parker--"
Tony patted Peter on the shoulder and stepped aside.
Peter walked up to the podium step by step and held the desk with both hands. The noise in the audience gradually subsided under his gaze.
Peter adjusted the microphone and spoke calmly and clearly:
"Gentlemen and ladies... my name is Peter·Parker. I am Spider-Man."
The entire audience fell into dead silence for an instant, and then an even crazier frenzy of questions broke out.
After the press conference, Peter and Tony took the elevator back to the top floor lounge.
Peter slumped on the sofa, rubbing his sore eyebrows. "It's not easy to deal with these reporters."
"You've been answering questions for an hour, aren't you tired?" Tony poured himself a glass of wine at the bar, "And you actually answered the question 'Are you single now?' seriously."
"I have to stay polite." Peter sighed.
"Welcome to Vanity Fair, kid." Tony walked over with a wine glass in his hand, "From today on, the paparazzi will follow you like flies. Remember my advice: Don't do anything to them. If you smash their camera, remember to pay full compensation as soon as possible to avoid lawsuits."
"My own troubles are secondary..." Peter looked solemn, "Uncle Ben and Aunt May must not be affected."
"Fury has arranged the highest level of witness protection plan for them. They will be transferred to a place where no one knows them and will be absolutely safe." Tony raised his glass and said, "Relax, you saved the world, tonight belongs to you, superhero."
"But I can't go home anymore." Peter whispered.
"You have saved the world several times, and you are still afraid that you will not be able to live independently?" Tony raised his glass, "Take a breath first, Spider-Man. The real difficulty is yet to come."
"Thank you, Tony."
Night falls.
In front of Queens's old house, a moving truck arranged by S.H.I.E.L.D. was parked on the roadside.
Several agents in civilian clothes quickly moved the packed furniture piece by piece into the car. Uncle Ben and Aunt May stood in front of the porch, directing the final cleaning work.
Richard patted Peter's shoulder gently, comforting him silently. Peter put his hands in his pockets, watching the home that carried the memories of his childhood and youth being emptied bit by bit, with mixed feelings in his heart.
"All items have been inventoried and we are ready to go." The agent in charge of leading the team came forward to report.
"Thank you for your hard work, give us a few minutes." Richard said.
Aunt May wrapped his thick coat tightly and walked over, exhaling. "It's really cold tonight. Peter, aren't you cold in such thin clothes?"
Peter pulled on the black hoodie on his body. "The suit has a built-in temperature control system that can automatically adjust body temperature."
"Awesome, kid." Uncle Ben came over and praised with a smile, "I used to hear you talk about those high-tech fabrics, but I didn't expect you to actually make them."
Peter lowered his head and said in a dry voice, "I'm sorry... it's all because of me that you had to leave your hometown."
Aunt May stopped and reached out to hold Peter's face, forcing him to raise his head.
"Look at me, Peter." Aunt May's eyes were gentle but firm, "You have done nothing wrong. You are our pride. If there was no Spider-Man in this world, I don't know how many families would be broken. Your uncle and I just wanted to find a quiet place to retire. Don't ever feel guilty about this."
"We chose a good place to live in Port Townsend in Washington State." Uncle Ben smiled and hugged his wife's shoulders, "It is a small town near the sea, and the environment is much quieter than New York."
"I will visit you often." Peter said seriously, "At least once a month."
"Take care of yourself first, brat." Uncle Ben hugged Peter hard and patted his back, "Remember--"
"With great ability comes great responsibility."
The three of them read these familiar words in unison, looked at each other and smiled, and the heaviness of separation was immediately relieved a lot.
Watching the vehicle disappear, Peter withdrew his sight. Before departure, he had asked Tony to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. and erase the migration files of Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Hydra was still lurking inside, and he could not leave the whereabouts of his family.
Doom almost killed him last time and made Felicia leave him. Now Doom has been dragged into another world, but he still took away the things he cherished.
"We have to move too." Richard looked at the empty house, "Maybe go to the city."
"No, it's too dangerous for you to live with me. You didn't go with Uncle Ben and the others because Fury promised to protect you."
Richard looked dim. "Then where do you live?"
"Susan has reserved a guest room for me. I'll go to Baxter Building tonight. Do you want to come with me?"
"Fury asked me to go back to deal with the crisis and find out where Doom got your photo." Richard paused, "Peter, they moved away, and we are still a family."
"But you have never wanted me to be Spider-Man. That's me, dad."
"I don't know how not to be afraid of you getting hurt." Richard looked at him, "But I'm proud of you. If you need anything in the future, call me anytime."
Peter smiled, "Thank you, Dad."
"Okay, be safe."
After the father and son said goodbye, Peter drove through the neon-lit streets of Manhattan and drove straight to Baxter Building.
The damage on the top floor of the building was extremely serious, with blackened walls and ruins everywhere. Peter took the elevator to the living area, opened the door to the lounge, and found Susan sitting alone on the sofa, lost in thought.
"Susan? Why don't you sleep so late?" Peter was a little surprised.
Susan was startled by the sudden sound. After seeing clearly that it was Peter, his expression relaxed. "Peter... You scared me. I have a little insomnia."
Peter walked over, took an apple from the fruit plate on the table and took a bite. "Where are Ben and Johnny?"
"Kamar-Taj went to apply for leave this time and will come over early tomorrow morning to help clean up the rubble. Johnny couldn't sleep due to the burning smell everywhere in the building, so he went to stay at Liz's house."
"Liz?" Peter laughed, "He is so brave. Liz's father is not easy to mess with. The last time I went to her house, her father almost shot him out with a shotgun."
Susan burst out laughing, but the laughter quickly subsided. She looked at Peter and asked softly, "Have you settled down at home?"
"They moved to the West Coast and entered the witness protection process." Peter leaned on the sofa and smiled self-deprecatingly, "From today on, I am considered a homeless person."
Susan's eyes were red, full of self-blame. "I'm sorry... If I hadn't insisted on inviting you to join Foundation, you would never have provoked Doom, nor would you have fallen to this point..."
"Don't be stupid, Susan." Peter sat next to her and reached out to hold her cold fingers, "Even without you, I am still Spider-Man. It is only a matter of time that my identity is exposed. On the contrary, knowing you is the luckiest thing that has happened to me in these years. Johnny is my best friend. He takes care of me like an elder. As for you..."
Peter stared into her beautiful blue eyes and raised the corners of his mouth slightly. "You are the most important person to me. If you hadn't used Logan's blood to bring me back from hell, I would have died at the hands of Doom."
Susan lowered his head and said softly after a while, "You also helped us a lot, Peter. Don't take all this on yourself."
The two sat on the sofa and talked about the thrill of the day. The words gradually became less and less tense, and the tense nerves finally relaxed. Reed is still recovering, the building has to be rebuilt, and the family has moved to a distant place; these problems will not disappear overnight, but at least they can still help each other.
"The guest room has been tidied up, go to bed." Susan stood up and patted his shoulder.
"You should also go to bed early." Peter said.
After entering the guest room, Peter closed the door. There are many things waiting for him tomorrow, and he can finally get some sleep tonight.
Morning light spills into the guest room through the curtains.
Peter yawned and sat up. After talking to Susan last night, he finally had a good sleep.
There was a gentle knock on the door.
"Morning, Peter. Did you sleep well?" Susan asked standing at the door.
"Much better, thank you, Sue."
"That's good." She smiled, "No matter what happens in the future and you need friends, guidance, or someone to listen to you, you can come to me."
Peter nodded. He still had many worries, but he no longer felt that he could only face them alone.
Sassy in the suit suddenly said, "Peter, Mr. Stark sent an emergency call, saying there is a serious situation."
"Let him wait for two minutes." Peter rubbed his hair.
"Peter! Move your ass over to me immediately!" Tony's voice was directly inserted into the channel.
"Stark! Don't keep hacking into my suit system!"
The channel changed back to Sassy's voice. "Sorry, Mr. Stark is too good at finding loopholes."
Susan held back his laughter and stepped aside. "Go quickly."
Peter said goodbye to her, called out Black Spider Suit, walked to the window and jumped down, and the propeller behind him lit up.
A few minutes later, Peter landed on the tarmac on the top floor of Avengers Tower and strode into the penthouse apartment.
Tony was standing in front of the holographic projection table, looking through the dense data with a frown.
"Good morning, Tony." Peter put away the nano mask on his head, "Why are you calling me here in such a hurry?"
"Good morning? You just revealed your true identity to the world yesterday, and you can still say good morning to me today?" Tony teased without raising his head, his eyes still glued to the holographic screen.
"Just polite words." Peter walked up and took a look, "Wait... are these S.H.I.E.L.D.'s encrypted files?"
"That's right, the tracking Trojan I implanted into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main server yesterday finally extracted the underlying data." Tony suddenly stopped mid-sentence and squinted his eyes as he looked up and down at Peter.
Peter blinked. "What are you looking at me doing?"
Tony crossed his arms and looked at Peter: "I just said goodbye to my uncle and aunt yesterday, and I seem to be more energetic today. It seems that someone has advised you?"
"Yeah, someone reminded me that I still have friends who can help." Peter said, "Okay, let's get down to business, what did you find?"
"Okay, I'll give you a break."
Tony chuckled, stretched out his hand and pushed a holographic file in front of Peter: "I think you will definitely be interested in this."
Peter looked at it intently and frowned instantly.
It was an amnesty order personally signed by President United States, and the object of the amnesty clearly read: Walter Hardy--Felicia's father.
The signing date was exactly one year ago.
"How come this thing is in Fury's hands?" Peter asked in a deep voice, "Didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. originally make up his mind to let Walter rot in prison? How come he was suddenly granted amnesty?"
"It was dug out of Fury's personal encrypted database." Tony knocked on the console, "It took JARVIS a full ten hours to brute forcely crack this firewall."
"Did you dig up anything else?"
"Except for an encryption project code name called 'Project Insight', there is nothing special about it. Fury seems to have mentioned this to me before, but I can't remember clearly."
"You don't remember?"
"Battle of New York Just after the fight, I was so busy that I almost died every day. How could I have time to care about his secret plan." Tony spread his hands indifferently.
Peter There was a dark light flashing in his eyes.
Project Insight--Hydra is the ultimate weapon to completely cleanse all potential threats and seek domination.
Hydra... amnesty order...Felicia left without saying goodbye...
Countless fragmentary clues collided crazily in Peter's mind, but one key lead was always missing.
"Sassy," Peter's eyes flashed with sharp light, "Retrieve the theft cases of high-end art and antiques that occurred in all top security facilities, private collections or national museums in the world in the past year."
"Searching."
The mask of the suit closed automatically, and the holographic vision instantly spread out before his eyes, with dense red dots all over the global map.
"Screen out all cases where the suspect has been captured or the identity of the thief has been identified." Peter With Felicia and Walter's methods, it is impossible to leave conclusive evidence at the scene.
The red dots suddenly decreased sharply, leaving only about ten.
"Connect the lines in order of time of occurrence."
A tortuous trajectory emerged before our eyes: from an ancient statue of Rome, to a famous painting of the United Kingdom, to somewhere in Paris, Tokyo, Africa... the final landing point was at the edge of Bulgaria in Eastern Europe.
And the neighboring country next to that finish line is Sokovia.
The birthplace of Ultron in "Avengers 2" is also one of the most important secret bases of Hydra!
Peter's heartbeat suddenly accelerated. "Sassy, bring up the coordinates of the Hydra stronghold we found in the Wyndham base, and compare it with this route!"
The blue coordinates of the stronghold light up accordingly.
A mind-numbing scene appeared: among the ten unsolved cases, the locations of six of them exactly matched the locations of the first six secret strongholds of Hydra!
"Peter," Tony's voice suddenly became solemn, "Look at this again."
Tony pushed a video and coordinate data over.
The coordinates are located on the outskirts of Rome - exactly where the first theft occurred. The additional monitoring log shows that it was the signal sent from this coordinate that activated Doom Robot in the Peter laboratory, leading to a series of subsequent disasters.
As for the blurry surveillance video, a figure wearing an all-black combat uniform and a mask on the lower half of his face sneaked into the laboratory.
The most conspicuous thing is his mechanical left arm that reflects cold light in the shadow.
Winter Soldier, Bucky·Barnes.
The ultimate assassin brainwashed and controlled by Hydra.
With a bang, all the doubts in Peter's mind exploded instantly, piecing together a chilling truth.
Hydra instigated Winter Soldier to activate Doom Robot, destroying his originally peaceful life and forcing him to disclose his identity and separate from his family. After learning the truth, Felicia followed Hydra's stronghold to trace it!
But how did she get the list of these strongholds? S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal top-secret information and Tony took ten hours to decipher, so why could she predict it?
Unless... someone deliberately leaked the information to her.
Nick·Fury.
Anger instantly rushed over Peter's head like a volcano erupting.
"Tony, thank you." Peter's voice was as cold as ice, "I have to go."
Tony noticed something strange. "Where are you going?"
"Go and smash that old face of Nick·Fury!"
Peter suddenly turned around and walked towards the balcony.
"Wait! JARVIS!" Tony shouted.
Three sets of Iron Man Armor instantly flew out of the hidden compartment and stood neatly in front of the balcony door.
"Tony, get out of the way." The killing intent in Peter's eyes almost solidified.
"At least tell me why, Peter! You can't just rush out like that!"
"Fury took advantage of Felicia!" Peter threw the integrated global map data to Tony, "See for yourself! He is using Felicia as a pathfinder to pull out Hydra's nails!"
Tony quickly scanned the hologram and took a breath. "Damn... Walter Hardy is the world's top infiltration expert, Fury wants to use them to pry open Hydra's defense... But Peter, what's the use of going to Fury now?"
"I--"
"Your ex-girlfriend is now dancing under the gun of Hydra!" Tony interrupted him sharply, "If you don't go find her now, she may die in the hands of those bastards at any time!"
Peter's figure was shaken.
Can't go any slower...
He can't afford to lose anyone anymore!
Fuck the original plot, fuck the timeline!
Since Hydra dares to ruin Peter·Parker's life, then he will uproot Hydra and burn it until not even ashes are left!
Peter directly bypassed the armor and jumped down from the balcony. With the thrusters fully activated, it cut through the sky like a black stream of light and rushed straight towards Baxter Building.
After landing on the balcony of the building, Peter quickly walked into the living room. Susan and Thing Ben and Gerry were cleaning up the house.
Susan looked up and saw him, his eyes had returned to their usual calmness and restraint. "Peter? Why are you back so soon?"
"Susan... I have to leave for a while." Peter motioned for her to take a step to speak.
The two walked into the laboratory and locked the door. Peter took a deep breath and told the truth that Felicia was tracking Hydra and his plan to completely wipe out this group of lunatics.
Susan listened quietly, then reached out and gently pressed his shoulder. "Go, Peter."
"Susan, I..."
"Don't hesitate at this time, Peter·Parker." Susan said with firm eyes, "Do what you should do. You are happiest when you are by her side. Even if there are problems between you, you owe yourself a chance to ask questions face to face."
Peter looked at her steadily and finally whispered, "Thank you."
Walking out of the laboratory, Peter briefly explained a few words to Ben Gerry, and rejected Ben's proposal to go together - this was a cross-border infiltration, and the fewer people there, the better.
Returning to the equipment room, Peter stuffed the high-energy compressed rations, water purification device and various tactical accessories into a backpack with space folding function, and then got into the specially modified suspended flying car.