Peter was quiet for the entire ride home as he leaned against the door. He was exhausted but anytime he closed his eyes, he saw Aurora pinned to the wall or the words from the test results flash before him.

May peeked over at him every now and then. It was times like these when she was truly worried about him. She was supposed to be his guardian, and yet he went out and fought like hell, just to come back like this.

Aurora kept her gaze locked outside the window, watching the city pass them by. She ached, and the bumps from the road didn't help. She half wondered if she should've rested for longer. It wasn't long before they pulled into the parking garage of the apartment building.

Peter looked up when they got there and grabbed his bag and hopped out of the car with the walking stick and followed May to their apartment.

May lead the both of them up to the apartment, making quick work of getting the door open and ushering them inside. "Don't be up more than you two need to be." She didn't want them overexerting themselves.

Aurora followed the two of them, finding the building to be gleefully familiar. After they made their way up to the apartment, she slipped inside and quickly found a spot to sit down.

Peter nodded at that and sat down in the chair, letting Aurora have the couch. "Thank you again for coming to get us..." Peter signed.

May sat down in one of the other chairs, looking between the two teens. She watched them carefully for a moment before sucking in a small breath. "Now, are you ready to fill me in?"

Aurora tensed up, her focus now being drawn to her hands. She had begun to fiddle with them anxiously. "It was my fault, really-"

Peter shot Aurora a look. "No," He signed at her. "Their fault for not leaving us alone." He wasn't sure she understood sign language or not.

Aurora knew some sign language, but it was usually just the basics. She had learned the basics to communicate with anyone who she met on the job. She let out a sigh. "There's these guys, and they keep coming after us. Kasey too."

May frowned, leaning back in the chair she had chosen. "So these guys aren't leaving you all alone? Who even are they?"

Peter hesitated before signing again. "The people who are responsible for Kasey's situation." He explained. "We don't know too much about them really..."

Aurora picked up a couple of the signs, silently reminding herself she'd have to study up on sign language at some point. "They got the upper hand on us and it spiraled down from there."

May's frown deepened and she turned towards Peter. "Do you know who they work for? Like some guy up top or anything?"

He shook his head slightly. "Maybe a higher up that Kasey and I fought... yesterday??" He didn't look quite sure. "I think it was yesterday..." He signed. "But aside from that, no. Nothing."

"That explains where you've been this whole time. I haven't been getting many updates on you, you know." She scolded him. It was purely out of worry, however.

"You guys fought someone?" Aurora vaguely remembered hearing that was why Kasey had gone to the tower. Aura had been a bit.. preoccupied.

He flinched. "Sorry... Everything has been a bit chaotic..." He looked at Aurora and nodded. "Big guy. Had a metal arm." He explained. "Didn't see him with the group that was attacking you."

Aurora shook her head. "I haven't seen anyone like that. Most of the guys I dealt with had guns." She didn't want to even mention the knife guy.

"A metal arm? Didn't one of your Avenger friends have a friend that had a metal arm?" The two probably didn't have any connection, but May heard metal arm and went with it.

Peter shook his head. "Not Mr. Barnes." He replied. "Much bigger than him."

May thought for a moment. "Ah, then he must've been huge." Bucky was big enough as is, someone bigger than him sounded scary.

"I'm sure Mr. Barnes wouldn't be targeting us anyway." She didn't know much about the man, having not been involved a whole bunch with the other Avengers and their counterparts.

Peter nodded in agreement to Aurora. "He wouldn't. There's no reason for him to." He replied before sighing softly before snapping his fingers slightly. "Do either of you remember the Fisk case?"

May hummed before nodding. "Yeah, that big guy over in the Hell's Kitchen area? I didn't hear much, but I remember that."

Aurora shook her head lightly. "I didn't really tune in much to it. At the time it wasn't my area, so I wasn't too worried about it."

"He was big like Fisk is but not quite that big but close-" He tried to explain as he signed.

"Now that's big." May spoke with a short nod. Still, she hated that Peter had to fight someone like that! "You should be more careful over there! The crime rate in that area is no joke!"

Aurora smirked to herself. It was pretty funny to watch her be so concerned over Peter, while Aura knew very well how strong he was.

"I know, I know. We didn't mean to start hanging out there. Things happened with Kasey and now she's staying over there for now or something and it's just... crazy." He signed quickly before huffing and throwing his head back against the chair.

May watched him and let out a soft sigh. "I know, you want to protect everyone Peter." She stood and patted him gently on the shoulder. "Just be careful. So. Do you kids want anything?"

"No, I'm good May. Thank you though." Aura replied, just wanting to relax on the couch.

Peter shook his head a bit with a deep breath. "Same here."

May shrugged lightly, but went towards the kitchen area to get herself a drink. "While I'm glad to know you've been working on your sign language, why?" She asked Peter.

Aurora went silent, deciding not to say anything. Her anxiety spiked again, and she turned away from May.

Peter flinched. He knew she was going to ask eventually but... He hesitated before sighing softly, turning towards her a bit but not meeting her gaze as he hesitantly signed. "Not... Not supposed to speak... Doctor's orders." He explained.

"Okay..." She made a cup of tea, holding the warmth between her hands. "Doctors orders? What kind of injury causes that?"

Peter hesitated. "Uh, set your cup, and yourself, uh, down first-" He told her, knowing she wouldn't take it well.

May gave him an odd look, but took her cup and returned to her seat, setting the cup on the end table nearby. "Well..?"

Peter took a deep breath as he moved to face her better. "First of all, I'm fine now and Dr. Lee said it's likely to recover completely due to the healing factor but..." He hesitated before reaching up and gently tugged the hoodie collar down to show the bandage wrapped around his neck. He didn't meet her gaze, tense as he waited for her reaction.

It took May a moment for everything to click. It was a good thing Peter had told her to set her cup down, otherwise it would've been on the floor now. "Oh my god!!" She gasped out, immediately getting up to go over and check on him, despite being told he was already recovering. "Why didn't you tell me sooner??"

Aura kept her mouth shut, avoiding looking at either of them. Maybe if was a bad idea for her to come along-

Peter flinched slightly but let her check him over as he signed. "I figured it wouldn't be a good thing to text you about-" He joked lightly, a wiry smile on his face. "But I promise. I'm okay now." He tried to reassure her.

"Until you are completely healed up, I don't want you going out there." May told him, firm on her decision. She understood that he could do a lot of things, but she insisted he heal.

Peter sighed but agreed a lot easier than May had expected. "Okay, I was wanting to take some stuff to Kasey though, if that's okay?" He requested. "We just wanted to check in with her."

May narrowed her eyes, rolling the thought around. "I suppose. No swinging about, for either of you. If you need, I can drive you." She returned to her seat, and though she didn't easily show it, she was pretty shaken up.

Peter frowned a bit. "That's a problem though. We- well. Maybe Aura- But I'm not supposed to know where she is outside of the suit-" He signed.

May sighed again. "Of course." She sipped on her tea. "I can still drive you, just drop you off somewhere inconspicuous."

"Yeah that could work." He agreed. "Maybe a bit later though, let us both rest a bit longer..."

May nodded, sipping her tea again. "I'll be here if you two need anything, just let me know when you'd like to go." With that said, she finished her cup of tea and set the dish in the sink for later, before heading off to her room.

Aurora let out a sigh, leaning over to look towards Peter. "She took that a lot better than I thought she would."

"Yeah- a... a lot better than I thought." He agreed.

Honestly, Aunt May had taken it a lot better than anyone so far. Even Aurora kept actively avoiding even looking at his neck. She stifled a yawn. "I wonder if he knows we're gone by now."

"Maybe. He said he had work to do." Peter pointed out. "But he wasn't in the lab..."

"You're right, he wasn't. So what kinds of work was he doing then?" She questioned, wondering if it was as simple as him doing CEO work, or something else entirely.

"Maybe something involving Kasey??" He signed before shrugging. "I don't know."

"I mean, we had the file.." She pulled her phone out of her pocket, remembering what content was on it. Setting it on the couch, she debated even wanting to look at it. If Tony was working with something related to Kasey, what was it?

"Do... Do we read it?" He asked hesitantly.

Aurora glanced at the phone before reluctantly grabbing it. She shared her screen to the television so they'd both be able to read it. "One click and I can bring it up."

Peter was hesitant before sighing and nodding. "We need to figure this out."

"Okay." Aura nodded and sent the pictures up onto the screen. She took a deep breath and began to read.

'Subject 25 took a month and a half to stabilize enough to start testing. We almost lost them nineteen different times. It's a miracle we managed to stabilize them every time. We had to monitor their frequency for so long, constantly adjusting it and trying to change it to stay constant with the new frequency.'

'It's been making progress but it's a fragile balance at the moment. After the first tests we had to spend another six months just monitoring them and focusing on retraining their frequency after how unstable they got from the first test. They've been in their room, mostly sitting still and staring off into space after the side effects of the test. They haven't been very active aside from the occasional breakdown, nightmare, panic attack, or screaming fit from what we can only assume is potential phantom pain.'

'Plans to help fix that are in progress at the time of writing this but we aren't sure if it'll help. We have some backup plans in place if it doesn't work the way we intend for it to.'

Peter read through it, confused by what some of this meant.

Aurora's eyes scanned over the picture, taking in the information. She understood a little bit, like the side effects and breakdowns and phantom pains, but what from? What did it mean by fixing frequencies? She scrolled, bringing up the next picture.

'Plans are being put into motion, we're about to finish setting up and they will go get them and get started with the plan. We're worried it might cause them to destabilize but we have monitors to watch for that so all should be good as long as we keep them stable.'

"They keep mentioning stability?" Peter noticed.

"Yeah, and I don't get it. Are they stabilizing them from the serum maybe? After all, it caused some pretty bad reactions..." That was about as best as her guesses would get. Never in a million years would she jump to the conclusion of the multiverse.

"Maybe??" He replied, tilting his head. "Maybe Kasey can explain it better?" He suggested. "We just don't have all the information."

Aurora nodded in agreement. She was glad that this stuff wasn't more intense than the other things they had read. She just hoped Kasey could give them a better explanation. "Hopefully. All this confusion is getting exhausting."

"Yeah, really." He agreed. "Should... Should we try calling her? See if we can come visit?"

Aurora shrugged lightly. "Maybe? I mean, she hasn't seen you since you took off, right? I'm sure she must be worried about you."

Peter nodded. "Yeah... I'll see if I can get a hold of Atlas." He pulled out his own phone and dialed Atlas' number.

While they waited, Aurora disconnected from the television, in case May decided to come back. That wasn't their secret to share, after all.