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As his mother had claimed, in his strange, orange tinted vision, there was a key hidden in the frame of a photograph on the mantle.
Five days since his return to Spider-Man, and Peter could no longer ignore his questions from what he was calling his ‘resurrection stone’ encounter — Doctor Strange has assured him, after he explained the experience, that it had taken place within the Soul Stone, but Peter elected to ignore that.
With everything that had happened since then, his moms strange behaviour, and her instructions, had been pushed to the back of his mind.
And, yeah, maybe he forgot about them a little in the beginning, but he had amnesia and everything was crazy, so he wasn’t really to blame!
But now that things were... as normal as they could possibly be, he needed answers.
So, he had made a compromise with Aunt May; she, as usual, would stay at the lake house for the whole weekend, while he would be “staying at Neds” — a lie, but May and Mister Stark didn’t need to know that he was actually alone, playing detective about his mom.
He would still go over tomorrow night for dinner, though. Those dinners were sacred, and he would honestly rather have amnesia again than miss one.
The photo the key was hidden in was one that Peter had always loved — his parents, smiling and hugging, in front of an old, sandy coloured building and a beautiful, blue-green sea. May had always told him that it was taken in Greece, while they were on their honeymoon.
Nice photo aside, he had found the small key set hidden inside the frame.
They had been hard to get out; the opening in the frame would only open after an almost invisible button was pressed, and the keys themselves stayed stuck obnoxiously in the small opening until he gave the small mechanism inside the frame a six character password, ‘Sabina.’
His guess for the password truly had been pure guesswork — as well as quite a lot of instinct. Sabina was possibly his mother’s name, and so seemed appropriate in finding out her big secret, though why she would go by Mary, a fake name, was still a mystery to him. Realising that her last name must have been Angeloff was a bit sudden. It was what Natasha sometimes called him, and he felt like it was connected to his mother.
And, if that was wrong, and the password was actually 081001 — August 10, 2001, Peter's own damn birthday — he didn’t need to dwell on it.
He still felt like his instinct was right. Even though it was most definitely wrong.
The key was, unsurprisingly, attached to a key tag, which had ‘40.7527° N, 73.9772° W — Locker C16.’ written on it in his moms handwriting. A quick search showed that those coordinates were for Grand Central Terminal.
Though the key wasn’t for a storage unit in Staten Island, like his mom had said, Peter was sure that whatever was in locker C16 would lead him to said storage unit. The whole ordeal was starting to resemble the second Men in Black movie a bit too much, especially since the locker in the movie was C18 — he began to wonder if he’d find an alien race living inside of it.
Luckily, it didn’t.
He was honestly so over aliens that if it had been a Men in Black situation be might’ve jumped off a building — without his webshooters — right then and there. He was so fucking done with fucking aliens.
In his stress, and rush to get to the locker, he accidentally ran straight into a guy in the busy station, and tripped. The guy said something to him, but Peter didn’t reply. Instead, he ran across to the lockers, and found C18, fumbling with the key trying to open it.
Instead of a small race of aliens, he found a business card for ‘Extra Space Storage’, which was on Arden Drive, Staten Island, and a small green key.
There was also a folded up paper, which, when unfolded, proved to be a set of addition and subtraction problems that undoubtedly belonged to a young Peter — there was a black marker line over where his name would’ve been, but the handwriting looked how his used to. The letter ‘s’ in the title was highlighted in yellow, as well as the numbers ‘4’ and ‘7’ in two of the equations.
Okay. Extra Space Storage, Arden Drive in Staten Island, Unit S47.
He could do this.
Everything was going to be fine.
He totally wasn’t freaking out at all.
Peter considered swinging to Staten Island, but quickly decided against it. It seemed... not right, somehow, to be using Spider-Man to make the whole ‘hunt’ thing his mom had set up easier. He was pretty sure it was literally just because of the obvious amount of effort that she put into the trail of clues, and that using his alter ego would feel like cheating.
And Mary Parker — Sabina Angeloff? — sure as hell didn’t raise a cheater.
The journey to Staten was boring and uneventful. It was just... Staten Island. There wasn’t really any other way to describe it. Everyone he happened to overhear — which was everyone, thanks, Spider Powers — spoke with a thick accent. There was garbage, there was pollution, there were people going around like they had family in the Sicilian Mob.
The couple of busses that he got on were full, like everywhere in New York, and so nobody paid much attention. He was pretty used to the strange looks that came with having a prosthetic limb by now, so what little attention his metal arm brought him went mostly ignored.
In general, people seemed to find the burn-like scarring that branched up the right side of his neck and part of his face more intriguing than his arm; on Thursday a baby on the train pointed at the reddish scar tissue and started crying, but he was still yet to make a baby cry from just his arm.
The ferry was nice, though. After his brief freak out, remembering the ferry incident, he just sat and stared at the water, watching the boats and the birds in the sky.
Peter hadn’t been to Staten Island before — something that lots of people found surprising when they found out May was Italian. He’d had all too many people say “oh, your Aunts Italian? Are y’all from Staten Island?” and, honestly, was just pretty fucking glad that they weren’t.
He, unsurprisingly, had to walk from the bus stop to the storage unit — god, if May and Mister Stark knew he was alone on some random street in Staten Island right now, they would freak.
It wasn’t quite June, so it was still less than three months since the whole... everything fiasco. May, Miss Potts and Mister Stark were being extremely overprotective. So were Rhodey, Happy and Nat, and it was getting quite overbearing.
So, even though he was spending his day alone chasing loose ends in the middle of the forgotten borough, it was nice to have some time to himself.
He was just starting to see the green building at the front of the storage unit place when his phone started to ring, playing ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath loudly. Mister Stark.
Peter knew better than to ignore his mentors call. If he did that, Mister Stark would absolutely freak out, start tracking all of his stuff, and most likely fly a suit out to find him. He didn’t exactly want Mister Stark there right now, when he was so close to finding out his moms secrets.
So he picked up.
“Hey, Mister Stark!” He said quickly. “How’s the weekend without me going?”
“God, so boring without you kid. I’ve been to seven tea parties, and it’s not even lunch yet.” Despite Mister Starks words, Peter could hear the love in the man's voice when talking about Morgan’s antics.
“Cool, cool, cool. Cool. So is there anything you need me for?”
“Eh, just checking in — what time are you gonna be here tomorrow?”
“Uh...” Peter stopped outside of the lobby of the units, reaching to pull the key for unit S47. “Probably about lunch time? I’ll swing over, so I can get some patrolling done in the morning.”
“Cool.” Mister Stark said shortly.
Peter could hear Morgan talking on the other end of the line, and laughed. “I’m guessing you’ve got another tea party to get to then, sir?”
“Whatever.” He could practically hear Mister Stark rolling his eyes. “See ya tomorrow, kid. Love you!”
“Love you too! Tell everyone else that, too! Bye.” Peter replied quickly, ending the call. He wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to the amount of open affection that Mister Stark now showed him — Miss Potts too.
It couldn't have been too fun in the five years when he and May were dead. That much was obvious.
The lobby was very green, a bored looking, middle aged man sitting at the desk looking bored. At Peters arrival, the man looked up, his eyes lingering on his right — metal — arm with curiously for just a moment too long, before his bored expression returned. “Unit number?”
“S47.” Peter said, looking around without much interest.
“Here’s a map, don’t loose it.” The man slid a paper map across the counter, and Peter took it.
He walked through the rows upon rows of identical blue roller doors, before coming to row S. Number 47 was on the right.
He unlocked it with the key from the Grand Central key, and pulled the roller door up. And the unit definitely wasn’t what he was expecting.
Peter wasn’t completely sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The unit just had a couple of fold out chairs, and a few boxes stacked in the corner.
... upon first inspection. A closer look to the wall on his right revealed a thumbprint scanner, which, when he pressed his thumb to it, made the entire room shift, to have the walls either side of him covered in weapons, stacks of money, disguises, and what looked like fake passports. A plain white screen fell down over the back wall, and a projector lowered from the roof.
Some Spy Kids level shit.
When he turned on the projector, it flickered to life, and a shaky video of his mom came into view. Her hair was tied back, her fringe was messy, and her bloodshot eyes had dark, bruise-like bags under them.
She looked like shit.
“I can’t do this.” She murmured, and her hand reached toward where a camera must’ve been, turning it off.
She came back into view a second later — still looking... not great, but she had obviously had some sleep. The room she was in was lit up by a light on the ceiling, and boxes we stacked behind her. “I’ve been packing boxes in the basement for two hours.” She laughed kind of hysterically, “I should probably get some more sleep. I should definitely get more sleep. Gotta do this, though.”
She ran a hand through her short hair, pushing her fringe off her face, and smiling. “Hey Peter... I’m assuming this is Peter. If it’s not, I swear to god, get the fuck outta my SD card.” Her smile dropped slightly, saddening. “So, if it is you, i’m gone — your dad might be too. I don’t really know. All I know is that they’re after me... and I made a huge mistake thinking I could have a normal life.”
She laughed again. Desperately, though, as tears filled her green eyes. “God, I am the worst. I should not have left... I mean, I should’ve left. It was awful there — did you know that we used to use actual people for target practice?”
Okay, so his mom looked — and sounded — slightly insane. That was alright, though. This would give him... answers. Probably.
“What the fuck am I doing?” His mom sighed loudly. “Right. Don’t mind me, i’ll be back later, after i’ve had a million coffees.”
The wall that the videos were being projected onto turned blank again, before his moms face filled it again, looking much less insane, but not necessarily better. “Hey Peter.” She whispered with a small smile. “So... you’ve obviously found your way to the storage unit — just, quick disclaimer, I didn’t have ages to set that whole trail thing up, so it wasn’t great... but, hey. Work with what you’ve got. Also, you probably know this by now, but Mary Fitzpatrick — my maiden name — is a fake one. My real name was Sabina Illarionovna Angelova, and I am Russian — was Russian. Was meant to be Russian. Whatever.”
“This is all just to... tell you why i’m dead, I guess. Because I’m pretty sure I won’t make it to 2007 — which sucks, but I kinda deserve it. I’ve killed so many people.” She laughed softly. “Context is very important in all of this. You have to know that... I didn’t want to. I had to, though.”
“I grew up in the Red Room.” His mom admitted quietly. “I was kidnapped and... taken there when I was three, and they raised me... just so you know, the Red Room's a Russian, child-assassin training room type thing. Wasn’t very nice — lots of ballet. Way too much ballet. I fucking hate ballet. We were taught to kill, trained up as spies. They, uh — they used to cuff us to our beds at night so we couldn’t try escape.”
Peter had kind of been expecting that, if he was honest. Natasha had obviously known his mom — he’d known that as soon as the ridiculous nicknames started. Nat was way less casual in talking about her past though. It was something that she basically never did, so he knew barely anything about the Red Room.
“In the Red Room... they have this graduation ceremony. You have your final exams, and then you have this, uh, procedure — so you can’t have kids. They said it just took away any extra distractions. That it’s easier that way.” She grimaced, and ran a hand through her hair nervously. He had picked up that trait from her, apparently. “So you’ve probably put two and two together and realised I got out before I graduated.”
“I was a part of a little program that they did. Middle of 1990 — I was fifteen when it started. There were five of us, and i’m pretty sure HYDRA was involved somehow — they’re basically like... an undercover terrorist group that’s been around since at least the forties — anyways, they were testing Captain America sort of stuff on us, trying to make us super fast and strong and everything... I was the only one that survived the testing, but it had some, uh, side effects? I was super sick, for like, a week, and then ‘poof’, I was all better.”
His mom grinned a little, but her expression was slightly pained. “I suddenly had all this strength, and so I... well, I was the success story. Their Little golden girl." She paused, and sighed. “For quite a few months, even though I hadn’t graduated yet, they sent me on some super secret missions... Field work. I never failed — that was what the experiment aimed to do, and it worked. I was... too scared to go against them. Too scared to fail — in the Red Room, failure means elimination, and elimination means death.”
“They called me The White Widow... White Widow spiders are really rare, and as dangerous as Black widows, and people don’t know much about them, so the name kinda fit. I did all sorts of stuff — eight months worth of spying and assassinating...”
“Then, I failed. It wasn’t exactly a hard mission, but they wanted me to kill this family... and the daughters just reminded me of Nat and Lina, and I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t do it” She waved a hand in front of her neck sharply, as though she were slitting her throat. “They were going to kill me. I made too many problems — something went wrong with the experiment, and I became a threat to the Red Room, and therefore needed to be killed. They let me say goodbye to my sisters — dressed it up like I was dying from an injury, and — and I got out.”
"I got out, and I — well, I actually did some mind bendy stuff on Madame, who was in charge, and so she couldn't not let me go, but she sent some other Black Widows after me, and I — I got rid of them." She sighed. "I also learned that I really hate long train rides, after that. It was... Trans-Siberian, and then I got another train from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, and then another from there to Helsinki — that's in Finland — before I finally switched to boats because I couldn't stand to go on another train... but, I made it to New York eventually, which was... it was great."
“Took myself to an orphanage, started tenth grade as ‘Mary Anderson’, pretended to be a normal not-trained-assassin teenager. Got adopted by the Fitzpatricks at the start of eleventh grade.” She shook her head, smiling falsely. “God, all of my friends said I had the perfect fairytale life when I married your dad — that was in ‘97. We met eleventh grade. We were chem partners.”
“I’m sure you know the rest.” An actual smile was on her face now. “What you don’t know is that your dad started working with one of my sisters. Natasha Romanoff — she’s a SHIELD agent now... SHIELD is like, an anti-HYDRA. They stop ‘world threats’” She air-quoted. “Your dad started there a few years back, and this agent — Barton — was actually sent to kill Nat, cause she was an assassin, obviously, but instead made her an Agent? I dunno. From what Rich said, he's a pretty weird guy. I reckon he's gay, but your dad thinks he has a secret kid... but I know for a fact that he actually has two kids and a wife, but hey; nobody needs to know. Or know that I know that.”
“Nat thought I was dead — she was so happy when she first found me... she scared the shit outta me, but she was really happy. We catch up pretty often now... there were three of us, back in the Red Room, though — Me, Natasha... well, her name was Natalia back then, and Yelena. I was the oldest, Nat was the youngest... we were sisters. It was what Madame wanted, and so that’s how it always was.” She started eating from a bag of M&Ms, and snorted. “We used to say that we were destined to be sisters because our second names all started with ‘I’ — Sabina Illarionovna, Yelena Innokentievna and Natalia Ivanovna... that not how it works, but... well, we were just kids.”
His mom dropped her head sadly, putting her M&Ms to the side. “You probably don’t remember Nat. You’ve met her quite a few times... always call her Auntie Tasha — we taught you some Russian, too... but if i’m gone she’s not gonna see you anymore — I can’t have you being a target.” His mom swallowed, her eyes becoming glassy with tears.
So he was right. Natasha Romanoff knew his mother.
Natasha Romanoff was his moms sister.
Natasha Romanoff was his fucking Aunt.
— Natasha Romanoff was Auntie Tasha?
He could remember Auntie Tasha. She only ever came over when his dad was working, and she and his mom had been super close. Peter had absolutely loved Auntie Tasha, but after his parents died, he never saw her again. May had thought that Tasha was his imaginary friend, and he had started to believe that too — but Tasha was real!
“Basically, I’m gone because Nats sources in SHIELD are saying that some sort of HYDRA offshoot is looking for me — have been since I escaped... but they’re figured out who I am. That’s why i’ve done all this. Your dad doesn’t exactly know everything about my past — just the bare basics — so he doesn’t know about Nat, so we’re going on a little ‘holiday'" She air-quoted again. “Because what he does know is that there’s a target on my head, and we don’t want one on yours. Better to keep our stuff separate from you.”
Tears were spilling from her eyes now, and she smiled gently. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you... and you really are my little miracle — skipped graduation ceremony and all. I just... I wish I didn’t have to leave you like this. Just know that I will always love you, and watch over you.”
Peters mom wiped away her tears, and her smile wavered. “This is all just my stuff — like all of my Sabina Angeloff stuff. My me stuff. You might find something interesting in there, I dunno. I love you so much, but... but I have to go.”
She leaned forward, her hand partially obscuring the camera, presumably pausing before she turned off the record button. There was the sound of footsteps, and someone calling “Mommy” softly.
Her voice was a whisper again, and there was a genuine smile on her face. “That’s you, so i’ve gotta go. I love you, and I'm amazed by you, and as long as you haven’t followed in my footsteps and become an assassin, i’m proud of you!”
The camera clicked off, and the wall became blank.
Well, that was... a thing.
The boxes held all sorts of weird stuff. The first one Peter went through was, if anything, slightly concerning — though unsurprising considering what the video of his mom just told him. It was full of an assortment of guns, knives and batons, like the ones Natasha used, and a couple of tins full of bullets.... what the hell was he meant to do with all that?
Maybe he could give it to Nat — surely this stuff should be hers anyway, since apparently his mom was her sister.
It still wasn’t all that surprising, considering how his mom was acting in his vision thing, but it would never stop being weird.
Like, Natasha Romanoff was his Aunt — and his mom was a Russian spy and assassin that escaped and made an honest life for herself. Both completely awesome things that he was having some trouble processing.
The next three or four boxes were all full of files. Peter only looked inside a few of the files, but all of the ones that he did open held information concerning either the Red Room, Sabina Angeloff, or The White Widow.
That was all probably stuff his mom had gathered to help her hide her identity — maybe she was taking all the physical evidence of her old life away, so she could wipe any trace of her assassin persona. He couldn’t know, but that seemed pretty plausible.
The second last box was basically just photos. There were lots of old polaroid sort of pictures, mainly of three girls — one blonde, one brunette, one red haired. The brunette was definitely his mom, just with longer hair and no bangs, and the smallest one, the redhead, was obviously Natasha. Peter assumed that the blonde was Yelena.
His mom had always loved taking photos, so the collection of old ones was pretty in character — how she got a polaroid while in the Red Room escaped him, though. He was in lots of the newer, non-polaroid photos, somewhat surprisingly pictured with Natasha.
He put some of the photos — some for him, and some for Nat — in his backpack, when his phone rang again, blaring Black Sabbath, and lighting up with the contact, ‘Iron Dad :)’
Mister Stark again — no one would ever believe them if he said that Tony Stark was a clingy helicopter mentor.
Peter rolled his eyes, both annoyed at his mentor calling again and being distracted from what he was doing, but picked up the call anyway, standing up and putting the phone to his ear. “Hey, Mister Stark, what's up?” He answered, hiding the irritation in his voice.
“Kid. Pete. Sweet Child O’ Mine. Light of my life—”
“What do you want?” Peter cut him off, chuckling, “You obviously want something, just get it over with.”
“Jesus, kid — I don’t want anything!” Mister Stark insisted. “I was just calling to say that I miss you, and I love you, and you better be on time tomorrow, and —“
“Oh — oh no.” Peter said, slightly sarcastically, “You’re cutting — sir? Sir, you’re cutting out —“
“Don’t be a little shit, while i’m telling you how important you are to —“
“What was that, Ned? Mister Stark, I can't hear you, but i’ve gotta go — Bye — Love you too —“ He pressed the end call button.
God, Mister Stark was being clingy today. That was his fourth time calling, and it was getting kind of annoying — they literally saw each other yesterday after school!
Like, sure, it was fine that his mentor was worried about him, and checking in with him — especially after a real-death experience, five years of mourning, then another near-death experience — but this was getting kind of extreme.
Peter rolled his eyes, as he moved onto the last box, which held things from his childhood home — things that Aunt May and Uncle Ben had never found when packing up the house in the suburbs. A couple of family albums, all three of his moms high schools yearbooks, both his parents wedding rings (wow his dad really must’ve been worried to agree to that), his mom]'s passport... all that sort of stuff.
Things that any normal person would own, but someone who knew his mom's origin story could use against her and her family. Against Peter.
And his mom's origin story definitely made his own cooler, which was an added bonus... sort of. His mom having a sucky life and being practically forced to murder people wasn’t exactly a bonus — just made his family history cooler.
It also made Natasha Romanoff his Aunt — he still couldn’t get over how cool that was!
Peter left the storage unit carrying the last box, with some of the photos from the unit packed into his backpack. The box was kind of awkward, and, being a moving box, pretty big, and so it made the trip back to his apartment much less enjoyable.
He got home, though, which was the important thing, and managed to pack the contents of the box away — the photo albums and yearbooks with all the other ones, in the top of Mays wardrobe, and the passports and rings away in the box of his parents things, which he kept under his bed.
Peter only kept two of the photos for himself; one of three-year-old him, his mom and Natasha at what looked like central park, and one of just him and Nat, both grinning at the camera, in a little coffee shop. He put them both up on his shelf, with the few photos of him with Ben, May and his parents that he kept up.
The other photos were for Nat — because other than one of the two of them together, they were all of her, his mom, and their other sister — and so he left them in his backpack for when he saw her at dinner tomorrow.
True to his word, Peter went patrolling on Sunday morning. He was only out for thirty minutes or so, though — both a result of not many people committing crimes at nine in the morning, exhaustion from lack of sleep, and the pressing need to rest his metal arm.
He hadn’t meant to not sleep last night, but between trying not to think about what the files in the storage unit might help clear up, and binge watching vine compilations and videos about the mysterious White Widow, he had ended up still awake when the sun started to rise.
Mister Stark would not be impressed when he inevitably found out. And then Mister Stark would tell May, and May would go into peter-is-being-a-dumb-little-shit mode.
The lake house was upstate; further upstate than the compound had been (would be? The new compound wasn’t finished yet). It took him a few hours to get there, because the tall buildings of the city didn’t last forever, and so he had to meet Happy in the car halfway.
He and Happy arrived at the lake at about one o’clock, and luckily, May, Mister Stark, Miss Potts and Morgan had been waiting for them to arrive to have lunch. His mentor made a bit of a show of hugging him when upon their arrival — helicopter mentor mode was definitely activated, much to May and Miss Potts amusement.
Lunch was really good — big sandwiches and fruit, with Miss Potts’ famous home-made lemonade. After eating, Peter and Morgan went to play outside for a while, eventually ending up back inside, drawing.
The day was going ridiculously slowly; Peter just wanted it to be dinner already, so that Nat would be there, so he could talk to someone about his mom, and her history, and all her assassin stuff...
... Maybe there was someone he could talk about it to?
Going up to his room and calling MJ was a pretty spare of the moment decision. He kind of liked her, so calling her wasn’t ideal, but she was probably the only person other than Natasha that would know anything about a long disappeared russian spy-woman — that sort of thing was right up MJs alley; a mixture of a female assassin and information that would’ve become accessible when the SHIELD/HYDRA files were leaked, with a tiny bit of a missing persons case to top it off.
She picked a up pretty fast, speaking in a monotone voice, “Kay, what do you want?”
Peter scoffed, and rolled his eyes. “Why do you assume I want something? Hm?”
“Well it’s either that — just give me five minutes, Cindy — or you’re trying to tell me that Ryan was right in the BuzzFeed Unsolved episode about Peter Quill again.”
“He was! That’s beside the point, though — wait, you’re with Cindy right now?” Peter asked, and, okay, maybe that made him feel a teeny bit left out.
“Yeah, and Betty, Ellie and Catelynn.” MJ said, “We would’ve invited you to dinner and studying for SATs with us, but you disappear to who the fuck knows where every weekend.”
“I’m upstate, MJ, you know that. I just can’t say where, cause it’s confidential.” He skirted around her question, like he always did when his friends asked about weekends; where he went, who he was with, how he had a sister. “Anyway! I need your help!”
“Surprise, Surprise.” She muttered sarcastically.
“What do you know about the White Widow?” Peter asked quickly.
His friend let out a short laugh, her interest in the topic quite evident to Peter. “The White Widow? Well, they reckon she’s from the same place as Natasha Romanoff... Appeared in 1990, was active for just under a year — she had a super high body count for such a short time — and then just... disappeared.”
“Yeah?” He prompted her, having known everything she just said. “Who was she killing?”
“Death toll of two hundred and eighty four in her 'lifetime', that we know about. Her targets were... not always connected, to say the least — would go from people in power, to random, small time scientists, to families connected to SHIELD. The number before the SHIELD/HYDRA info dump was only like, one-twenty-something, but apparently she killed at least a hundred and fifty people during her training, and three more people in the Red Room before she supposedly died.” MJ laughed. “She’s a bit like Boudicca — just with more USSR and mystery — with how she’s considered a ‘feminist icon’, when she literally slaughtered hundreds of people, and had absolutely nothing to do with gender equality.”
Peter screwed up his face in irritation. “So you’ve got no idea what happened to her? Like, at all?”
“There’s barely any information on her — even when all the SHIELD/HYDRA files were released, in 2014, there was barely anything... There were HYDRA files about her, they reckon she was part of a Winter Soldier enhancement sort of thing, in the Red Room — that was where Black Widow trained, that was released too — and she was the only one that survived testing.”
Right, so SHIELD had barely anything on his mom — courtesy of either her or Nat, surely.
“The records say that she died from injuries she got on a mission, but that the story was to hide the fact that the people in charge killed her for failing — they were very big on the whole murder thing.”
Peter knew he could find out more from her, so he pressed on. “But if the records say they killed her, why doesn’t anyone know what happened to her — she’s dead?”
“That’s the thing.” MJ said. It was pretty obvious that she was invested in this stuff, so she wasn’t even questioning why he cared about it so suddenly. “She was enhanced — people think she might’ve broken out when she found out they were gonna kill her. For all we know, she could be living in Ireland, with three kids and a happy marriage right now.”
Wow. Surprisingly accurate... really, he shouldn’t expect anything less from MJ, but that was really close — the White Widow wasn’t alive, but she had moved to a new country, gotten married and had a kid.
“Huh. Okay, thanks MJ!”
“It’s cool —“ MJ cut herself off, continuing with a suspicious tone in her voice. “Why do you care about the White Widow all of a sudden, Peter?”
Ah, there it was — That was the thing about MJ; unless she was talking about something she actually cared about and found interesting, she was very distant. Very observant, and easily suspicious. If she gave a shit about the topic, she could talk as much as Peter could. If not, she was a bit like a toned down version of Natasha.
And she could flip between the two so easily.
“Uh... just saw a meme?” Peter tried. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she was gonna see right through him. “And got kinda, uh, interested — cause I didn’t really know who she was...”
“Alright, weirdo.” Peter could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “I mean, I didn’t expect much more from —“
“Peter!” May opened his door, poking her head into the room. “Nat just got here, and dinners almost ready.”
“Okay, May!” He said quickly, as his Aunt left, waiting until her steps were going back downstairs before speaking to MJ again. “Uh, I should probably — food — so I —“
“Right. Right, yeah. Bye, Peter, send me that meme!”
“Yeah, I will! See ya at school, MJ!” He hung up the phone after a second.
Great — now he had to make a meme about his mom.
And also talk to Natasha about their relation. What could possibly go wrong?
Dinner went as usual, once Rhodey was there. Nebula was back in space, doing space stuff — Peter wasn’t really sure what she got up to — so it was just him and May, the three Starks, Rhodey, Happy and Natasha. The conversation was normal, the food was normal, the people were normal.
What wasn’t normal was the fact that Peter barely talked for most of the meal, and was even acting grumpy, which was extremely out of character. If anyone noticed his behaviour — ehem, Nat, the super observant super-spy — they didn’t mention it, letting him sit, silently eating his dinner and blocking out most of the conversation.
“— Clint seems to be doing much better... you seen him lately, Nat?” Mister Stark said, and Peter noticed a slight bit of strain in his mentors voice, as the mans eyes flickered over to him worriedly. He ignored it, because he wasn’t in a great mood.
“Heaps better.” Natasha confirmed, a smile appearing. on her face. “I went to the farm on Friday — he’s great, Laura’s great, the kids are all great. It’s all working now.”
Rhodey let out a quiet laugh at the mention of Clint’s kids. “Has his daughter shot you with an arrow yet? Every time i’ve talked to him he goes on about how good at archery that kid is.”
“Oh, come on!” Nat laughed. “I’m her Auntie Nat, she would never shoot me with an arrow! She loves me too much!”
“I would never shoot you with an arrow either, Auntie Nat!” Morgan piled up, making Mister Stark laugh.
“Nah, we’ll give you a gauntlet, you can shoot her with that instead.”
“We won’t give her a gauntlet, Tony.” Miss Potts said, exasperated.
May laughed at them. “Well, maybe Morgan can team up with Barton’s kids. Make an army full of your nieces and nephews.”
“As the first person to ever call Natasha Romanoff my Aunt, I approve of that idea. I’ll lead the club.” Peter said, without thinking. Silence filled the room, and everyone stared at him, except for Natasha, who was resting her chin on her clasped hands and staring blankly at her plate. “What? Have I got something on my face?”
“Peter, I hate to break it to you, honey, but you’ve never called Nat ‘Aunt’ in your life...” May said, sounding kind of confused.
“Oh, but I have.” He replied saltily, his irritation — a result of confusion and sleep deprivation — clear in his voice. “Remember Auntie Tasha? That’s her.”
Realisation dawned on Mays face, and Natasha reddened. “Auntie Tasha was your imaginary friend, when you were little —“
“He’s right.” Nat sighed, looking Peter in the eyes for the first time. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit you after your parents died, but... your mom didn’t want me to...”
“And so instead you just let me think that my very real Aunt was imaginary?” Peter snapped at her. “And then confuse me by nicknaming me her real name for a month and a half? Were you just waiting for me to find out? Why didn’t you just tell me, after everything that...”
Natasha looked very tense, and everyone else was staring between the two of them in confusion. “Anyone got a clue what’s going on?” Mister Stark finally said, after a moment of silence.
“I’m his Aunt.” Nat said, her voice slightly strained. “His mom was my older sister.”
“I thought you were an only child.” Happy pointed out.
“I am — I’m not — I... we didn’t have the same parents, she was just... my sister. It was just how it always was. She raised me more than the people in charge did.” For once, she spoke with hesitation, letting her emotions be seen by all of them.
“People in charge? At the Black Widow program?” May asked, her voice laced with both confusion and bewilderment. “But... how? How was Mary — what?”
“Mary wasn’t moms name.” Peter added, his voice low. “Her name was Sabina Angelova, she was the White Widow, and she escaped the Red Room with the help of Bucky Barnes type enhancements.”
Natasha flinched.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the —“
“Fuck!” Morgan said, cutting May off, and making Mister Stark and Miss Potts exchange glances.
“Oh, shit, i’m sorry — Tony, Pepper, I — “
“It fine, May.” Mister Stark said nonchalantly. “She’s done this before, it’s inevita — unavoidable.” Peter assumed that the change of words was related to the whole Thanos thing — trauma, yay! “Also, I share your sentiment. What the F-word. How — what? I’ve read the files about the White Widow, isn’t she.. dead?”
“Escaped.” Peter corrected. “They said that she died from injuries to cover up the fact that she escaped after she found out they were gonna kill her.”
“No, no, no, Peter, that can’t — that can’t be right!” Mays voice was becoming slightly hysterical, dinner long forgotten by everyone except an oblivious Morgan. “I — I’ve known Mary—“
“—Sabina—“ Peter cut in.
“— since she was sixteen! She’s not — she wasn’t an assassin! It can’t—“ May looked between Peter and Natasha, bewildered. “What?”
“That’s because she was sixteen — when she escaped.” Nat spoke quietly, her eyes filled with tears. “She... I was eleven. They told us — mainly me and Yelena — that she was gonna die from injuries... we got to say goodbye to her. Just us two, cause we were her sisters. They only covered up their plan to get rid of her because she was their poster girl for the perfect assassin, and their image would be ruined if we knew they killed her... but she, uh, managed to get away, and she went and lived in Queens, and she she got married and had Peter — I didn’t know that she was still alive until 2003.”
“So you’re saying that the White Widow, one of the most prolific murderers of the early nineties, the same person that left Tony and I a death threat in our last year of college, was a sixteen year old, who is his mom?” Rhodey pointed at Peter, obviously pretty confused. Natasha and Peter both nodded. “Jesus Christ.”
"Ah, shit." Tony muttered. "You look a lot like your mom, don't you."
"Yeah...?"
"Rhodey." He elbowed his friend, gesturing to Peter. "I told you he looked like someone — he looks exactly like Meredith McCall!"
"Holy shit, you're right!" Rhodey answered. "I knew there was something weird about her!"
"Same, she was —"
Rhodey scoffed. "No you didn't — you were too busy being with her every moment of every day."
"Yeah, because that's usually what people do when they're dating. Just because I was with her, doesn't mean I didn't know that something was off!"
"I'm sorry," Peter stared at his mentor. "Did you just say that you dated my mom?"
"Only for a tiny bit..."
"It was for the mission, Pete. It wasn't... romance."
"Ouch. My third longest relationship, and she didn't even care."
"She cared a lot." Natasha snapped. "Just not romantically. As friends. That assignment was one of the main factors leading to her escape... because you guys showed her what normal people were like."
“So it’s not just luck that you survived that spider bite...” Pepper murmured sudden;u, making everyone but Natasha look at her in confusion. “If she was enhanced, it could be passed on to him. Peter only survived the... the stones because of the radiation in his blood from the bite, right? So maybe it’s the same... same sort of thing?”
“It is.” Natasha unformed them. “I... when you went and brought him, Tony, and I saw who he was... well, let’s just say I had a lot of time on my hands after Germany, and so I did some digging. A scientist had been bitten by the same spider and died within the hour. Sabina was the only survivor of the experiment that gave her powers — hereditary luck, apparently.”
“Huh.” Peter said. “I never thought of that. Thanks, mom.”
“How the hell are you all so calm about this!” May exclaimed, obviously still freaking out. “How — this isn’t — this is insane! And you guys are all so normal about it! How aren’t you all freaking out? Peter! You can’t tell me you’re not freaking out!”
Peter shrugged. He hadn’t expected May to take it well — not because of the fact that his mom was an escaped spy who killed hundreds, but because May hadn’t had any idea at all.
May and his mom had always been close, despite the six year age gap between them, and so finding out that your basically sister wasn’t who she was? That would be weird.
He hadn’t even meant to tell everyone like this; he had planned on talking to Nat alone about it all, then tell everyone gradually, when he was ready. His comment about Nat being his Aunt had just slipped out, and then his annoyance mad kids manifested, and now May was freaking out.
“It wasn’t — I wasn’t that surprised, May.” He explained slowly. “When I, uh, got rid of the aliens, I saw Mom and Dad, and you and Ben. I... I don’t think you would remember it, cause it wasn’t exactly real — anyway, mom told me some stuff about having a big secret and how to find out about her past, and she was all happy when I asked if Nat was gonna be okay...”
He trailed off, before continuing. “Yeah, then after I woke up I kept thinking about how similar Nat acted to mom, and she kept calling me mini Sab — for Sabina — and Angeloff Junior and stuff, so I kind of figured...”
May sighed loudly, and silently returned to eating her dinner after a quiet “This is insane.”, everyone else following suit. An uncomfortable awkwardness hung in the air as they finished eating, the only talking being surrounding Morgan.
After everything was washed up, and packed away, Peter went and sat outside, on the porch. He could hear the others inside, the tenseness beginning to dissipate in his absence, though clearly still hanging around them.
The conversation was a lot more causal than the outburst toward the end of the meal — May was laughing at something, presumably Happy (he still needed to find out what the fuck was up with those two), Rhodey and Mister Stark were doing something with Morgan, to which Miss Potts was repeatedly trying to get them to stop.
Natasha was silent.
If he didn’t have enhanced senses, he wouldn’t have heard her come outside, and sit next to him on the decking.
Her footsteps were almost silent, hard for even him to hear, and if he was being completely honest, if it wasn’t for the steady beat of her heart, he probably wouldn’t have realised that the footsteps belonged to a person, and weren’t just the sounds of the forest surrounding them.
Her legs were crossed as she sat next to him, her elbows resting on her knees, and her head resting in her palms. She spoke first. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, дитя... I'm... sorry. That name's a force of habit, too. I used to call you that when you were little. It means kid in Russian.”
“тетушка.” Peter said suddenly, after a moments hesitation. “Was it you that taught me that word? May never knew what it meant, but I remember saying где тетя, or just тетушка, and her and Ben would get super freaked out because suddenly little five year old Peter was just speaking some other language. Other than the ones that they knew that I knew.”
Nat grinned, tousling his hair affectionately. “Yeah, me and your mom taught you that. Your dad knew she was Russian — no one else knew, but Richard did — so you could speak a bit of it at home. Your favourite word was кошка. Cat.” She laughed at the memory. “You had this little stuffed cat toy — and when we went out for coffee, Sab and I used to speak Russian, just in case we mentioned something about when we were kids — so obviously, you didn’t understand most of what we were saying, so you would just sit there, with this cat, and whenever you got the chance, you would just say ‘кошкa! кошка!’ — it was pretty adorable.”
“Mister Pickles.” He laughed. “He was my favourite. May and Ben got him for me when I turned two.”
“I know.” Natasha said in a hushed voice. “I only met you a month or so later, so you were always talking about how ‘Auntie May and Uncle Ben gave him to me when I turned two!’” She mimicked a little kids voice, making his laugh more.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you at dinner.” Peter said, looking fully at Natasha — his fucking Aunt — for the first time all afternoon. “I just... It just kinda sucked that you knew, and you didn’t tell me, and... I don’t even know anymore — my imaginary Aunt is real, what my Aunt and Uncle always thought was gibberish when I first moved in with them turned out to be Russian, and I’m only alive 'cause mom was some sort of super soldier? It’s just... a lot.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, дитя. Your mom... she had this whole thing set up, and she thought it would be best for me not to contact you, just to be safe. Just like how she let me believe that she was dead for eleven years. She was just trying to protect you.” Natasha said considerately. “It must be pretty weird, the whole ‘my mom was an assassin’ thing.”
He shrugged. “It’s just... weird — but then the more I think about it, the more it makes sense, yknow? Like, mom was vegan, she hated violence, she was extremely feminist, from what I remember, and she picked me up from preschool everyday after leaving her office job. She was a scientist, but she worked in an office.” Natasha nodded, and Peter supposed she was well aware of his moms occupation.
“And so at first, it just seemed... strange, that this non-meat-eating, violence-hating, pretty normal ‘complete mom’ killed people as a living when she was my age...” He chuckled softly. “But it makes sense — she didn’t eat meant because she would’ve been scarred and disturbed by how many people she had killed, and how these animals were just like those people. That meat was just adding to her kill count. She hated violence because she was raised in violence, and acted violently, and she would’ve wanted to leave that behind. She became the perfect mom because she wanted me to have the childhood she never got, and she had an officey job because she needed normalcy.”
“And there were other things too, I guess.” Peter shrugged again. “When I was a kid, she used to be pretty easy to scare — like, every time someone knocked on the door when she wasn’t expecting it, I had to go upstairs, and she would answer it once I was gone. And she was always really — and I mean really — strong. She accidentally broke our shed once from slamming the door... and so it all just makes so much sense, and I’m not sure how I feel about it — because mom and the White Widow are such different people, but their the same, and not just because they’re physically the same, but just... how mom was. She was always both of her identities at once, and it’s really confusing. But it’s not, and I—“
Peter paused mid ramble, with a sigh. “I’m still figuring it out, but it doesn’t seem... new? If that makes sense? Like, I feel like i’ve always known, but i’ve just never known... so it’s... yeah.”
Natasha was grinning at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I went through a pretty similar thing, back in ‘03. It was just like... she was Sabina, because she had always disliked what we were doing, and she was always loving and caring and her, but it was so strange to see her, so domestically, with a husband, and a baby, somehow leaving all the murder and spying and missions and training behind.” She wrapped an arm around him gently. “You’re more like her than you know.”
Peter smiled at Nat, also close to tears. “What was Yelena like? She was your other sister, right?”
“Yelena was... she was Yelena. She is Yelena.” Nat laughed softly. “Yelena was in between your mom and I — I was born start of 1980, Yelena was middle of ‘77, and Sabina was the very end of 1974. I guess Sab was the link between ‘Lina and I — we got really competitive and... didn’t get along as well after she ‘died’” Natasha air quoted. “We were always sisters though. Tried not to hurt each other too much; always cared... I guess it was just a manifestation of our grief, cause our big sister was gone.”
“Did she get to re-meet Yelena too?” Peter asked, unable to help his question from coming out of his mouth.
Nat answered without hesitation, though, her smile saddening. “Yelena and Sabina never reunited, no. I met Lina again, though, just before the, uh... everything.” Yeah, the Thanos shit show was still a tough subject with everyone — not just him. “She blipped too, so that sucked... I’ve met up with her again, though, since everyone came back. She’s pretty alright — i’ll introduce you two sometime. She was so excited when I told her about you.” Peter smiled, side-hugging Nat. “я люблю тебя, тетя?” He phrased it more like a question. The words came naturally to him, being something that he remembered from when he was little. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, or if it was even actual words, but it made Nat smile. “Was that — did I say something? Or was that just nonsense?”
“You just said ‘I love you, Aunt.’” She told him. “And to that, I’m gonna say, я люблю тебя тоже, малыш — that means I love you too, kid.”
“I’m gonna have to learn Russian.” Peter laughed. “Or re-learn Russian? Learn more Russian?” He sighed, slightly amused. “Better Russia mouth.”
“You have fun with that, Peter.” She said, standing up, and offering him a hand, pulling him up with her. “You’ve gotta get going soon, though, so we should probably clear things up a little, with everyone, kay, маленький человек ребенок — i’ll let you figure that one out yourself, when you ‘better Russia mouth’”
Peter laughed at her as they went inside the lake house, having absolutely what she said.
They did clear things up a little, even if that meant that he had to let May and Mister Stark look through everything in the unit — which he didn’t really mind. He gave Nat the old photos that he brought for her, which she was super happy about, messing up his hair affectionately and smiling widely as he passed them over.
He and May left not long after everything got sorted out, Peter yelling a quick, “Bye Rhodey, see you next week! Seeya tomorrow, Miss Potts, Mister Stark — yes i’ll remember that i’m meeting Mo at her school, I promise! Also, thanks for driving us home, Hap!”
He wasn’t quite able to escape the bone crushing hug that his mentor pulled him into, nor the fatherly cheek kiss that the man gave him. Or the hug that Miss Potts suffocated him in right after that, when she finished saying goodbye to May. Or Morgan’s hug — that one, admittedly, wasn’t embarrassing, because she was adorable, and he loved her.
Before he got into Happys car, though, he hugged Natasha tightly — something that he quested he hadn’t done since he was five. She smiled into the hug, patted his hair softly, and whispered, “до скорой встречи, дитя” and then finished with a translation of, “See you soon, kid.”
“люблю тебя, тетя” He murmured back, that being the only thing he really knew in Russian — but hey, telling his Aunt that he loved her as a goodbye was still a nice thing to do, so it worked.
Peter was surprisingly content when he got into the back of Happys car, waving to The Starks, and Rhodey, and Nat — his Auntie Tasha, his тетушка, his ex-assassin-spy moms sister.
Black Widow was his Aunt — and that was pretty fucking awesome. And it seemed like spider names ran in the family, too.