One

A Light Into the Future

Billions of lightyears from Earth in the star-studded reaches of infinite space, there was a planet known as Krypton. A green jewel that orbited a burning red giant, Krypton was a world unlike any other in the galaxy. With golden volcanos, jewel mountains, and forests of glass, as well as sprawling megacities whose spires touched the stars, the people of Krypton lived in a world of scientific and social advancement and progress unparalleled throughout the universe. Yet, as with all beautiful things, it could not last.

Jor-El, the brightest mind in Krypton's long and illustrious history, had not been sleeping easily as of late. It seemed as if every time he blinked, a different plague beset Krypton. The Science Council had thankfully apprehended and imprisoned his one-time friend, the disgraced war hero Dru-Zod and the rest of his Black Zero terrorist cell, including such renegades as Faora-Ul, Ursa-Zod, Jax-Ur and Mala-Ur, and Jor-El's former colleague Non. It had pained Jor-El greatly to learn that the Science Council had ignored his pleas and lobotomized Non, robbing him of his great intellect. As loath as he was to admit it, however, he could understand their logic. Non had been brilliant enough that it might have been possible for him to devise and escape from the Phantom Zone.

Still, much to Jor-El's dismay, it hardly seemed to matter. Quakes still wracked Krypton with ever-increasing frequency. Once it had been every ten years, then every five years, then every year and now it was every six months! Jor-El had tracked the path of Krypton's orbits around Rao and the expansion of the star and he had concluded that the planet would be eaten by its own sun within twenty years. He had warned his colleagues on the Science Council half a hundred times but they refused any evidence that suggested life on Krypton was anything other than perfect. To say nothing of the woes that troubled Krypton from without. Their cold war with the Skrulls was threatening to heat up and the actions of Black Zero had the peace treaty between Krypton and the Shi'ar Empire falling apart at the seams. The Kree were refusing trade with Krypton, which was playing hell on the world economy…

Yet today, as Jor-El and his wife Lara-El were awoken by a tremendous explosion, Jor-El had a sneaking suspicion that none of this mattered. Indeed, as Jor-El and Lara raced to the balcony and gazed out over the city skyline, he saw the one eventuality that he had never prepared for.

The Ravager of the Cosmos. The Unyielding Force. The Reaper of the Stars. Galactus, Devourer of Worlds.

The pair watched in astonished and open-mouthed terror as the purple-and-blue-clad helmeted colossus effortlessly stomped his way through Kryptonopolis, less than a kilometer from their own home. A thread of flashing silver darted around Galactus and shredded the Kryptonian military that tried to defend their home, no doubt the Devourer's herald, the Silver Surfer. Some races lived to tell of when Galactus devoured their world because they had the intelligence to flee. But not Krypton. Krypton had abandoned its spacefaring ways centuries ago. Proud Krypton would fight. And it would die.

"My love," Lara asked as she took Jor's hand in hers and squeezed it tightly, "What do we do? What can we do?" Jor-El looked into his wife's deep blue eyes, full of fear and worry and searching his face for signs of hope and pulled her into his embrace, one hand in her hair as he held her to his chest.

"There is only one thing we can do, Lara," he whispered softly as he buried his face in her hair and knew that this was the last night of their lives, "Go get Kal. I'll prepare the ship." Lara pulled away from Jor-El's embrace and stared up at him with shock that bordered on betrayal.

"No," she breathed out as her lip quivered tremulously, "No, you can't…" Jor-El sighed and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Lara. But it's the only way he'll survive." Lara nodded and ran to Kal's room as Jor went to his lab. Jor had suspected for months that it would come to this. That somehow, Krypton was going to die and that only Kal-El, their infant son, would survive. Krypton's Purity Defense Systems would shoot down any craft entering or leaving Krypton's atmosphere, but a ship small enough for Kal and Kal alone would slip through undetected. Jor activated the ship, a simple rocket with a spearhead design, and began to charge the engines for the jump to hyperspace as he plugged in coordinates. Jor-El had found a suitable world for his son less than two weeks ago: a simpler world than Krypton, but with a young species similar enough to their own that Kal-El would not be an outcast. Its atmospheric content, lighter gravity, and most of all its yellow sun, would grant Kal extraordinary powers, giving him every advantage he would need to survive. As the ship's cockpit opened, Jor-El went to his safe and took out two crystals, one blue and one gold. Jor tucked the blue crystal into the cockpit, carrying with it the knowledge of Krypton's history and, somewhat unsettlingly, a recreation of his own person through artificial intelligence.

The sound of Lara's footsteps alerted Jor to her approach and he turned to see her coming towards him, tears streaking her face as she held their infant son in her arms, bundled up in a red blanket with the symbol of the House of El emblazoned on it in gold. Jor-El went to her, wiping her tears away as he held her close.

"Oh, Jor," she whispered in a voice hoarse with heartbreak as she looked down at their son, "Look at him. He's beautiful." Jor-El looked at Kal as he put one arm around Lara and used the other to help her hold their son. He was small and fat, as babies usually were, with a full head of thick brown hair and bright blue eyes that looked up at Jor inquisitively. Jor had tried to be calm and rational about the whole affair, had steeled himself mentally for this prospect month ago. Yet as he held his son in his arms for the last time and planted a gentle kiss on his forehead, he could not fight the tears that came to his eyes and ran down his cheeks. "We'll never see him walk," Lara murmured mournfully, "We'll never hear him say our names."

"I know, Lara," Jor-El said painfully as he took Kal from her arms and placed him inside the ship, "But out there, among the stars, he will have a chance. He will live." He gave his son a smile and the smallest wave as the cockpit closed around him. "Be good, my little Kal-El," he said softly, "Show them the way." As the ship prepared for liftoff, Jor looked back at the golden crystal he had set down on his workbench.

"What is that?" Lara asked as Jor took the crystal in his hands.

"A prototype," Jor-El explained, "For extreme emergencies. It contains pure, magnified yellow sunlight. When Kal lives under it he will grow extraordinary powers. When I break this open it will give me a burst of those powers for a short time."

"To do what?" Lara asked in clear confusion as she rubbed at her eyes. Jor-El looked down at the crystal and held it in both fists.

"To buy Kal-El some time." Lara set her hands on top of his and for a moment Jor-El thought that she was going to stop him. Yet when she looked into his eyes, he saw the fiery determination and iron will that made him fall in love with her and nodded. They took the crystal in their hands together and pulled.

A pair of green-and-red blurs flew out of the opening in the roof of Jor-El's lab and made a line straight for Galactus. The Silver Surfer flew at them like an arrow and tackled Jor-El through the burning ruins of a field of glass trees while Lara smashed into Galactus's jaw and staggered the giant. As they fought, neither Galactus nor his herald noticed a tiny ship rocketing out of Krypton's atmosphere and blinking away in a pinprick of light as it made the jump to hyperspace. Jor-El and Lara's powers only lasted them for moments, yet in those moments they burned as brightly and fiercely as stars.

OoOoOoO

Charles Xavier sat in the study of his manor at a chess table and carefully watched the expressions of his opponent as he planned his move. The man sitting opposite of him was Erik Lehnsherr, his closest friend. Like Charles, Erik was a mutant, a member of the species dubbed "Homo Sapien Superior". Where Charles was the master of the mentality, including powers telepathy and telekinesis, Erik was the master of magnetism, able to control any metal that could be magnetized as well as the power to manipulate magnetic fields themselves. Erik's head of salt-and-pepper black hair was currently obscured by a helmet Erik had devised to protect himself from Charles's powers for just this situation.

"I've told you before," Charles said with a playful weariness, "You don't need to wear that thing for this game. I'd never stoop to cheating, Erik."

Erik looked up at Charles and moved his white knight to take Charles's black pawn. "It never hurts to take precautions, friend. Never know what you might see when you're snooping around in my mind." Charles's face reddened slightly and the two friends shared a chuckle. "So you mean to go through with it?" Erik asked once their mirth had passed, "Turning the manor into a school for young mutants?"

"I certainly do," Charles replied as he took Erik's knight with his rook, "As I've told you before. You remember how you were as a boy, learning to control your powers. Blind and stumbling and lashing out. I was much the same." Erik raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What?"

"Charles Xavier, lashing out?" he asked in a tone that was humorously incredulous, "I'll believe it when I see it." Charles rolled his eyes as Erik moved his bishop.

"My point is," Charles explained, "We were inexperienced with our powers. We learned how to control them but it was an ugly business because we were alone. With this school, children would not be alone. We could guide them, help them, so that they might be able to prove to humans that we aren't dangerous or to be feared." Charles moved one of his pawns and Erik scoffed.

"That sounds like hiding to me, Charles," Erik said as he moved his hand back and forth across his side, choosing what next move to make. "We should be bold, bring ourselves to the forefront, force humanity to accept us, not cower in the shadows." Erik brought his queen forward as he spoke.

"Humans will never accept us if we inspire fear," Charles shot back, "You're talking about the kind of mentality that incites a war."

"Are you afraid of war, Charles?" Erik snapped. "Do you think we could actually lose? If you do, you're softer than I thought."

'This is not about strength!" Charles spat with surprising vehemence that made Erik straighten in his chair. "If I wanted this to be a matter of force, I could drive over to Washington today and crush the president's mind with a thought!" As Charles spoke, he felt a pressure on his mind, as if a particularly powerful mutant presence was nearby, coming closer and closer. "This is about acceptance, and mutual trust and… and…" The power overwhelmed Charles, making his head go light as his collapsed out of his chair.

"Charles!" Erik cried out in distress as he dove out of his chair, quarrel forgotten as he went to his friend's side. "Charles, what's wrong? Are you alright? What's going on?!" As quickly as it came, though, the power passed, and Charles blinked his bleary eyes and shook his head.

"N-nothing," Charles stammered out as Erik helped him to his feet, "That was just… strange." He looked out the window and across the horizon while wondering what the hell had just happened.

OoOoOoO

Stephen Strange was hiking up the snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas in search of his last grasp at hope. He'd heard stories of the Ancient One, a being of great and mystical powers. Stephen Strange was a man of science, a doctor. He had no use for fairy tales and hocus pocus. But anything, anything that might restore his ruined hands and give him back the life he'd lost…

Stephen paused for a moment as he watched a bright flash of white light streak across the sky. A shooting star, perhaps? Strange couldn't say why but there was something oddly… hopeful in that sight. It put a renewed vigor in his step as he continued his climb.

OoOoOoO

Reed Richards' desk was a complete disaster area. For a man obsessed with scientific accuracy and precision, his desk was a clutter of wadded up and discarded formulas, coffee rings, sticky notes, and pens with the ends practically chewed off. Taking up most of the space, however, were the three typewriters sitting side by side by side while Reed worked on his three simultaneous dissertations on quantum physics, rocketeering, and philosophy in turn. Reed stopped for a moment to rest his weary fingers and take a few puffs from his herbal cigarette. If only his fingers were as durable and flexible as the capacity of his mind.

A massive rumbling suddenly filled his dorm room and Reed shot out of his chair with his smoke clenched in his teeth as he spread out his arms to keep his various books and models from falling off the shelves. One particularly heavy book, Isaac Asimov's "Fantastic Voyage", was just out of Reed's reach. It took a quick voyage of its own and fell right on top of his head, causing him to cry out in pain. The quakes soon passed and Reed slumped back into his chair in shock. It was as if a plane had just flown ten feet over the roof of his apartment!

"Victor!" Reed called, "Did you hear that?" The only reply from his roommate's room across the hall was an indecipherable grumble of the affirmative. Reed shook his head and returned to his work, typing furiously away. He wondered if Victor would ever find something to focus on besides… whatever that project of his was.

OoOoOoO

Tony Stark was deep in his workshop or, as Pepper Potts so quaintly described, his "mad laboratory", up to his elbows in engine parts as he attempted to disassemble and reassemble a Cessna 182 engine and fit it inside a '75 Thunderbird. Not for any particular reason, of course, just to keep his mind working while he waited for Obidiah to come in with the next military miracle he was supposed to whip up. The speakers were blasting "Shoot to Thrill" so loudly that Tony couldn't hear anything but his own thoughts in his head and, when he occasionally had to check, the thrum of his heartbeat. He did notice, however, when one of his wrenches vibrated straight off his workbench and clattered onto the floor. Tony stared at the wrench while sipping his third highball of the afternoon and smeared the expensive and delicate crystal with grease.

"Huh," he muttered as he casually tossed the glass over his shoulder to land in the wastebasket and shatter, "Weird."

OoOoOoO

At seven thirty in the morning on June 18th, an alien spacecraft appeared in Earth's orbit out of hyperspace and crashed into the heartland of America. Within thirty minutes, the ship and its cargo had been appropriated by SHIELD agents and brought to SHIELD Headquarters in Washington DC for analysis. One particular piece of cargo had been brought to Nick Fury's attention, and now the Director of SHIELD was somewhere in the ass-end of the science department. He was dressed in his field tights with his guns in all his various holsters and a cigar clamped between his teeth as he stared with his one good eye at a baby on the other side of the glass, sitting on a red blanket and holding a crystal about the length of Fury's hand in both of his little fists.

"Alright, Hamilton," Fury muttered as he puffed smoke, "The hell am I looking at here?" Emil Hamilton, one of SHIELD's chief scientists and a leader in the fields of astronomy and xenobiology, straightened his tie while his young assistant, Jennifer Walters, nervously fidgeted her glasses with one hand while the other held her clipboard in a tight grip.

"Firstly, Director Fury, I would prefer you didn't smoke in here. The air is supposed to be clean of any toxins or other dangerous chemicals." Fury gave Hamilton a long, hard look and the scientist stammered for a few seconds before continuing. "Wh-what I mean to say," Hamilton said as he gestured toward the baby, "Is that this boy, despite only appearing to be about six months old, already has the strength and coordination of a five year old." The infant got up to his feet and waddled around his little enclosure. Ms. Walters waved at him and smiled before she realized Fury was looking at her and nearly hid behind Hamilton. "We've tried to take blood samples but… but all of our needles just break on his skin!" That was certainly a surprise. Fury looked at the baby as his hands padded against the glass window and he let out a gurgle. "We did manage to get a swab from his cheek and collect some hair samples, and from what we can tell, whatever he is, the child's DNA is surprisingly similar to a human's, although with a few differences in cellular structure. There's some component in his cells that we have yet to identify that seems to absorb solar radiation and convert it into energy." Fury nodded, stroked his chin, and raised one eyebrow. Emil took the pantomime code for what it was and turned to his assistant. "Uh, Jennifer," he said, "Would you mind going back to my office? I think there are some documents there about the infant that the Director would like to see." Jennifer hurried off and Fury waited until she was well out of earshot.

"So how can we kill it?" The question hit Emil Hamilton like a baseball bat to the lungs.

"Wh-what?" he stammered out in horrorstruck confusion. Fury's stony expression never so much as flickered. "Jesus Christ, Nick. He's a kid."

"He's an alien body, no different from one of those things in the Schwarzenegger or Weaver flicks, except this one looks cute. If he's carrying some kind of alien pathogen, or he has acid blood, hell he might emit a radiation that makes people's brains leak out their tear ducts, we don't know! If he's dangerous, I have a duty to my country and to the world and so do you, doc, to put their lives over his."

Emil took a handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his labcoat and dabbed at his forehead before tucking it away again. "W-well…" Emil sighed as he looked back at the baby through the glass, who had fallen back into a sitting position and was grabbing his toes. "You take a spike, and you put that spike on a five ton press with the business end on his chest. Y-you, you s-start the machine a-a-and after about an hour…" Emil swallowed and tried his hardest not to imagine the screaming, "H-his chest would be cracked open and you'd be able to access the internal organs." Fury nodded and rubbed his chin again for a few moments while leaving Emil in agonizing silence.

"Eh," he muttered with a dismissive wave, "Keep him overnight, run some tests and make sure he's clean. Have your assistant send those papers to my office." Emil let out a sigh of relief as Fury made his way for the exit. With one foot out the door, however, Fury stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Hamilton," he asked, "What about when he gets older? What do we do then?"

OoOoOoO

Two days had passed since the baby had fallen out of the sky and as Nick Fury looked over the papers on his desk, he still didn't know what to do with the damn thing. Once Emil had checked and triple-checked the kid to make sure he wasn't a health risk, Fury'd called the president. The man had his own ideas about what to do, raising the kid in the American heartland in a simulated family in a perfectly controlled environment to be the perfect patriot. Which sounded like the most garbage soviet brainwashing Fury had heard of outside of that stupid Red Room he'd found Romanova in back in the sixties. He'd said as much to the man's face and, well, he wouldn't be going back to Washington anytime soon.

They could, he supposed, dump the kid off at some orphanage and hope for the best. In hoping for "the best", however, the boy could get picked up by some abusive wackjobs or a couple of religious fanatics who'd make him think he was Jesus come again. Christ, wouldn't that be a mess?

For a good five minutes, Nick Fury had seriously contemplated just throwing the little bastard back into space.

A knock at Fury's door took him out of that idea and brought him back to frustrating reality.

"Come on," he called as he cleared a space on his desk and stamped out his cigar in the ashtray. The door swung open and agent Richard Parker stepped inside. "Parker," Fury asked in surprise, "The hell are you doing here?" The young man, tall and handsome with a thick coiff of brown hair, took the chair opposite of Fury's and propped his elbows on the desk.

"Seems you've got a bit of a problem on your hands, Nick," Parker said with more than a hint of sarcasm as he looked at the papers strewn across the desk. If he wasn't Fury's best field agent, he'd reach across the desk and clock him. "I think I might be able to help."

"Oh yeah," Fury asked sarcastically, "How's that? You offering to take him in?" He smirked. Richard didn't. "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. You are, aren't you?" Richard Parker's face, often adorned with a smirk or a waggish grin or a half-prepared quip on the tip of his tongue, only offered Fury a slight shrug and a sheepish smile.

"Mary and I have been trying for a child," he explained, "But it's just not working. We've been considering adoption anyway and, well…" he shrugged again as Fury leaned back against his chair and ran a hand through his hair.

"Christ almighty, Parker, I'm not running an agency or a kennel! This kid is an alien. We don't know what might change as he gets older! Hell, he doesn't even look like you!" Fury stabbed a finger down at a photo of the infant on the table and Richard followed his finger down to it.

"Well," he began while stretching out the word, "He's got the same hair as me. He's almost got Mary's nose… heck, my brother Ben's got blue eyes." Fury groaned and shook his head.

"You're serious about this, aren't you?" He asked in disbelief. "Hell, Parker, do you know what this'd mean? You and Mary's field lives would be over! You can't raise a child in this line of work. Why the hell do you think I've got three wives and none of my kids talk to me?"

"I know," Richard agreed, "Mary and I have talked about it. It wouldn't be fair to our child to always be disappearing for months at a time. It wouldn't be fair to my brother and my sister in-law to make them help raise the baby. So we agreed that if it came to it, we'd request an extended leave of absence." Richard sat up straight in his chair, squared his shoulders, and looked Fury straight in the eye. "And that's what I'm doing now, Director Fury." Fury settled in his chair and his eye widened as the words settled in.

"Jesus," he muttered for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, before reaching across the table and shaking Richard's hand. "Alright, Rich. Ya got yer damn kid. Go downstairs to the science department and talk to Hamilton, then you'll have to go see Alice in resources to get everything straightened out. You should be able to to take the kid home in a couple days." Richard took Fury's hand in his and shook it enthusiastically, grinning from ear to ear.

"Thank you, Nick," he said earnestly as he stood up from his chair, "I promise, you won't regret this." Fury rolled his eyes as Parker made his way for the door.

"I'm already regretting it," he called, "I'm losing my two best field agents!" He heard Parker laugh as the door shut and shook his head. He must be getting soft. Still, it wouldn't be the worst upbringing for the boy. The Parkers were good people. They'd raise the kid right. Hell, who knew? In twenty years or so, the kid might come back to work for them. Wouldn't that be something? A Super-Agent.

"...I'm losing my mind."

OoOoOoO

Mary Parker smiled at the baby boy sitting on the kitchen table in her and Richard's kitchen table, laughing when she played with his toes and he let out a bright and bubbling giggle. He was such a beautiful baby. Next to the boy was a box with the blanket and crystal the boy had come with. Mary didn't know how Richard had convinced Hamilton to let him take the objects but it didn't really matter. They had a son! She smiled at him again and rubbed her nose against his, causing him to giggle again. Richard was in the next room on the phone with his brother.

"Yes, Ben, I'm serious. We're moving upstate, maybe Rochester or Syracuse. Don't worry about money, Mary and I can afford it." Richard paused as Ben said something on the other line. "C'mon, Ben, I'm not a wild college kid anymore," Mary doubted Richard had ever been 'wild', "I know how to manage my money. Yes, and how to live responsibly. I'm telling you, Ben, Mary and I want him to have the best of everything. Wide open spaces, clean air, he'll see the Adirondacks and Niagara Falls. It'll be great!" What he would never tell his brother, Mary knew, was the information that Emil Hamilton had given them: that those wide, open spaces would be better for the baby's incredibly powerful senses until he learned to control them. Richard paused again and nodded for a few moments. "Well, yeah, sure," Richard said as he broke out in a wide grin, "Of course you can come visit! And it's not like we're moving tomorrow. There'll be plenty of time." Richard listened and nodded again before looking back into the kitchen and smiling. "All right, Ben, I've gotta go. We'll see you and May next week." He paused as his mouth turned up in his usual smirk. "Don't suppose you'd help us pack, would ya?" He paused for an answer and laughed. "Didn't think so. I'll talk to ya later, Benny." He hung up the phone and walked to the kitchen, sitting at the table at the seat perpendicular to Mary. "You two seem to be getting along pretty well."

Mary beamed as the baby held one of her fingers in his tiny hand. "Oh, Richard, he's wonderful!" Richard smiled and tousled his soft brown hair.

"He sure is," he agreed before turning to look at his wife. "Jeez," he muttered, "In all the excitement, I forgot that the kid doesn't have a name!" Mary had a mischievous twinkle in her eye and Richard grinned. "Oh, I know that look. You've already got a name, don't you?"

Mary nodded and took her finger from the boy's hand to stroke his face. "It came to me almost as soon as I saw him. I was hoping to name him after my grandfather." Richard's eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead. "What?" She asked incredulously.

"That old battleaxe?" Richard asked in surprise. Mary shot him a look and he held up his hands defensively. "All right, all right," he said in a resigned tone, "Peter Parker it is." He looked back at Peter, who was looking back and forth between them. "You like the sound of that, Peter?" Peter let out another burst of giggles and eagerly clapped his hands. Richard and Mary laughed as well and he supposed that was that. Peter Benjamin Parker.

OoOoOoO

Four years rushed by for the Parkers. Packing, moving, painting, unpacking, and making their new house into a home. Ben and May visited every few weeks and they fell in love with Peter practically on sight. Peter's aunt and uncle loved him just as much as his parents did. Their new life wasn't without its chores and challenges, glad ones, mostly. Some were the ones you expected with moving and raising a child. Then there were the other things. The unnatural things Peter could do, and the natural things that… never happened. Never a bruise or a scrape, never blood. Richard couldn't imagine what went through his son's mind on those occasions. And because he couldn't, Richard would worry sometimes that he'd fail Peter when he got older and came to him for guidance.

Still, Peter was a wonderful boy. Always easy to smile and laugh and finding the joy and wonder in just about anything. No two parents could have asked for a better son. And Mary was a wonderful mother, born to it as she'd always known. They had a wonderful life.

Then a knock came at their door one day and that wonderful life came crashing down around them.

It was early October and Mary had Peter in the backyard, taking pictures of their son playing in the fall leaves while Richard was in the bedroom, writing a letter to Ben if anything ever happened to them and Peter had to live with his aunt and uncle. He put everything in the letter, leaving nothing out, and put that letter in the box with Peter's blanket, that strange crystal, and a letter for Peter himself. A knock came at the door and Richard got up to answer it.

Nick Fury was standing on his front porch, dressed in a shirt and tie with slacks and a long coat. Bizarrely enough, he had no cigar. He didn't even smell like smoke.

"Director," Richard said as he took a step back in surprise, "What're you doing here?" Nick looked around the area amicably with his hands in his coat pockets.

"You two picked out a nice place," Nick said amicably before gesturing inside with his head, "Mind if I come in?" Richard shook his head and stepped aside to let Fury into the house before going to the back door.

"Mary," Richard called, "I think you should come inside! We've got company!" Mary smiled and waved before scooping Peter up under one arm with her camera still around her neck. Peter giggled and pulled away to sprint toward the house with Mary chasing fruitlessly after him. Peter rushed into the house but came to a sudden stop when he saw Fury standing in the middle of the living room.

"Daddy," Peter asked softly as he looked up at the strange man who was missing an eye, "Who's that?" Nick dropped into a crouch to get on level with Peter and spoke to the boy in a tone and with a softness in his face that Richard had never heard nor seen before.

"Hiya there, Peter," Nick said as he held out his hand for Peter to shake, "I'm Nick. I'm a friend of your parents'. I've heard about you, kid. Your dad tells me you're really special." Peter smiled as he shook Nick's hand. "You started school yet?"

"Nuh uh," Peter replied as he warmed up to the stranger, "Mommy said I won't go to school til after it snows."

"Won't that be nice?" Nick asked. Peter nodded and, if Richard couldn't sense the lingering gravity of Nick's visit as Mary entered the house, he'd be recording this moment and using it as blackmail.

"Peter," Richard said, "Your mom and I need to talk to Nick. Why don't you go to your room, okay?"

"Okay, daddy," Peter said with a nod as Nick stood back up, "Bye, Mr. Nick!" Fury chuckled as he watched Peter waddle off to his room and shut the door. The second he heard the door click shut, it was like a switch went off and Fury's face returned to its normal stony expression.

"What's going on here, Nick?" Mary asked as she put her arm around Richard's at the elbow. Fury sighed and looked down at the floor for a moment before looking back up at them.

"I need you to come back to the field." Richard and Mary stared at him in shock, completely taken aback.

"Nick," Richard insisted, "Y-you can't be serious! We can't just leave Peter!"

"I'm very serious," Fury assured them. "It's the Red Skull."

"He's alive?!" Mary asked in disbelief. Fury nodded slowly with a sour expression. "But how? And why? What's he planning?"

"That's what SHIELD needs to know," Fury told them, "And that's why I need my best field agents to go undercover to Turkey and find out." He studied the worried expressions on Richard and Mary's faces and it put a knot in his stomach. "If I had any other option," he admitted, "I'd go to someone else. But this is the most serious issue SHIELD's ever faced. If the Red Skull's popping out of the grave, he could bring HYDRA back to its full strength. And as the only one in this room who lived through that period, I'd prefer we had whatever information we could get our hands on to avoid that situation."

Richard and Mary shared a long look, the sort of look that Nick, as a married man, had been locked in several times himself. The old silent conversation, every twitch of the lip or raise of an eyebrow a whole damn soliloquy. It took all of thirty seconds for the conversation to finish before they turned back to Fury with expressions that were simultaneously resigned and resolute.

"How much time do we have?" Richard asked, "We need time to get everything straight. You know, drop Peter off at my brother's, a-and that sort of thing."

"I can give you three days," Nick told them flatly, "Any more than that and we're stretching it." The couple nodded and, as Fury left, he found himself wishing that one of them would have socked him in the jaw. At least then he'd have something to think about besides the fact that he felt like a complete heel.

The three days rushed by. Most of the things they had needed to do were what Richard and Mary already had plenty of experience in. Packing luggage, receiving false identities, researching the area they'd be dropped into, and contacting Ben and May. The hardest part had been explaining things to Peter, as they had been dreading.

"But why can't I go with you?" Peter asked as they stood in Ben and May's living room. Mary was chewing her lip to keep from crying as Richard got down on one knee to look Peter in the eye.

"I told you, Pete," he explained gently, "Your mom and I have to go help Nick with something serious. Things could be dangerous and we don't want you to get hurt."

"But I never get hurt!" Peter protested. Richard hated to admit that the boy had him there. Still, he had to think of a way out of this one.

"You haven't been hurt," Richard corrected as he put a hand on Peter's shoulder, "That's different. If you went with us and something did happen to you, your mother and I would never be able to live with ourselves." He pulled Peter into a hug and pressed him close to his chest. "We'll be home before you know it, I promise. I love you, Petey."

"I love you too, daddy." Peter said as he buried his face in his father's chest. Richard held him for just a few seconds more before pulling away and standing up to go up to Ben and May's bedroom, giving a passing glance out the window to the car waiting outside.

"You be good," Mary told Peter as she combed her fingers through his hair and straightened his shirt, "Listen to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, do whatever chores they ask, and brush your teeth and…" Mary let out a shaky breath as she pulled Peter in for a tight embrace. "I love you, Peter," she whispered, "My baby boy."

Upstairs, Richard was handing the box with the letter and Peter's things in it to his brother. "If something happens while we're gone," Richard explains, "If we don't come back…"

"Please, Richy," Ben asked softly as he looked down at the box Richard had put in his hands, "Don't say stuff like that. You're making me nervous." Ben had an idea of what Rich's job was. He and Mary said they worked for the government and that was good enough for him.

"I'm serious, Benny," Richard said as he put his hands on top of the box, "If something happens, there's a letter inside that box. You need to read it. And promise me you'll take care of Peter." Ben set the box down and smiled before pulling his brother into a hug.

"You got it," Ben promised, "We'll watch him like he's our own." Richard smiled before pulling out of Ben's hug. "I love you, brother." Ben told him. Richard nodded and squeezed Ben's arm.

"I love you too, brother." Richard headed downstairs and picked up his suitcase while Mary and May exchanged heartfelt goodbyes.

"He doesn't like almonds," Mary reminded her sister in-law after Peter headed upstairs to his room to watch them leave, "And he can't go to sleep unless you read him Peter Pan."

"I know," May assured her as she gently squeezed Mary's hands, "I know, don't worry. Does he have any allergies that I need to worry about? Peanuts, bee stings, anything like that?"

Mary shook her head. "No," she told her with a bit of a smile, "He's a sturdy little boy." She and May exchanged kisses on the cheek and Richard gave May one of his own as Mary picked up her suitcase.

"I guess we're as ready as we're going to be," Richard said.

"You take care of yourselves," May warned with that worried smile of hers.

"Same to you, May," Mary said before she and Richard walked out the front door. They made their way down the front steps and walked across the street to the waiting car before putting their suitcases in the trunk and getting in the back seat.

"It'll be fine," Richard assured her, "We're the best, remember? We'll be back to see Peter in no time." He gave her leg a reassuring squeeze and Mary gave him a half-smile. "You'll see," he told her, "It'll work out."

OoOoOoO

Six months had passed since Richard and Mary had left their son at Ben and May Parker's house. Today they'd received a letter from the government that they were missing, presumed dead. While May was in Peter's room and attempting to console him, Ben sat on the edge of his bed and held the letter Richard had written him in his hands. He'd been staring at the letter for nearly half an hour now and was no closer to opening the letter than he had been when he'd taken it out of that box. It was as if… once he opened the letter, he'd be admitting Richard was gone. Finally, Ben forced himself to realize that Richard wrote him this letter for a reason. If there was something in this letter that could help him raise Richard's son then he had to read it. He owed it to Richy. It was his responsibility. He opened the envelope carefully and pulled the letter out, unfolding it slowly. The first few lines nearly brought Ben to tears. Once he got further down, though, his eyes went wide and he nearly dropped the letter.

"May!" Ben called out. "I need you to come in here!" Their lives were about to get a lot more interesting.

Dear Benny,

If you're reading this, then the first thing I want to tell you is how much I love you. I feel like I never said that enough when we were growing up, but I always have. You're my big brother, my best friend, and you always looked out for me. I wouldn't trade the years we had growing up for anything. So for that, I'll always be grateful.

The big reason I'm writing this letter is because of Peter. If you and May are going to look after him then there's something you need to know. Peter isn't from this planet. I know you're going to think I'm being funny, but I'm serious. SHIELD, that's who we worked for, found him crashed somewhere out in Oklahoma or Colorado, somewhere in that area. The important thing is, Peter has these abilities. As he gets older, they're going to grow stronger, and he's going to need answers. I won't be around, so you'll have to give them for me. Here's as much as we know…

So hey! I'd been tooling with the idea of a Marvel Superman story for a while now when this idea hit me, so you'll be seeing a few ideas in here that would have shown up there anyway. No, this won't be taking priority over "Faster than a Speeding Bullet" or "With Great Power", and I'm sorry those haven't updated in forever. I still hope people have fun reading this, since I've had so much fun writing it!