Peter closed the door behind him, locking it as quietly as possible but to no avail.

"Peter Benjamin Parker!" May yelled furiously "Get up here right now!" Peter flinched, half from surprise and half from terror, taking a deep breath before calling back up.

"Gimme a sec!" he said "I just need to write my will" He steeled himself before heading up the stairs, seeing his Aunt May sitting on his bed with a very angry look on her face.

"Where were you last night?" she asked.

"I told you, I was at-"

"Don't lie to me Peter" she interrupted "Tell the truth, where were you?"

"I..." he began, racking his brain as hard as possible to come up with a believable response "I was at a midnight release for a game" May looked at him with a look that told him she wasn't falling for that for a second. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall, taking a deep breath before speaking.

"Why are you lying Peter?" she asked "You don't usually lie to me, only these past few weeks you seem to have changed"

"I'm not lying" he lied "Oh yeah, GG Pete"

"I'm going to give you fifteen seconds to tell me where you've been or I'm going to unplug everything in your room and give it to a thrift store" May threatened.

"You... you don't know how half of this stuff connects" Peter objected.

"Then I'll just break it, either way, you lose out" May shrugged "Its not my problem"

"But it was worth hundreds of dollars, you'll only be hurting yourself!" Peter said quickly.

"You're stalling Peter" May interjected "Tell me where you were last night"

"I already said I was at Harry's!" Peter snapped.

"Really?" May said, standing up and holding out her hand in a simple gesture "Because you just said that you were at a video game store, didn't you?"

"Rip" Peter thought in a terrified manner "I..."

"Now that isn't like you at all, the few times you have lied to me before you've been able to keep your stories straight" she said with a victorious grin "Now, are you going to tell me the truth or do I have to start ripping this stuff from the walls?"

"Please don't" he whimpered "They're my babies"

"Then tell the truth" she said simply "Its as easy as that" Peter put a hand to his face, knowing that he'd been backed into a corner and he only had two ways out; the first being to come clean. He could tell his Aunt May about the fact he was Spider-Man, what he'd been doing and how much danger he'd put himself and his family in and she'd probably throw him out, or, he could continue to lie. He could keep spinning her a larger web of lies that would only grow bigger and heavier as the days went on before, as he knew too well, its own weight would cause it to snap and expose every dirty secret Peter Parker had.

So he decided to meet her in the middle and tell a half-truth.

"I was on a blind date" Peter admitted with a sigh, giving the best performance of his life at that moment "And it didn't go well" May was obviously surprised by this revelation, his face giving away an emotion that she hadn't been expecting to encounter in this conversation.

"I... well, I wasn't... what?" she asked in complete shock.

"Some of the guys at the Bugle set me up on a date with a quote-on-quote bombshell of a woman... and I mean woman by the way, she was in her twenties, which I found out when I got there" May sat back down on the bed, crossing one leg over her knee and resting her elbow on it, placing her chin on top of her fist.

"Okay then..." May nodded.

"Any response?" Peter asked with a raised hand.

"I don't really know how I'm supposed to respond to that" May said, linking her fingers and leaning back against the wall "Care to give me some ideas?"

"How about 'That's okay Peter, I know you're feeling burnt out and extremely emasculated by your humiliation last night and because of that I'm not going to punish you for sneaking out and lying to me'?" Peter suggested. May looked at him with a raised eyebrow before responding.

"I could say that but I've got a better one 'I know you're feeling burnt out and extremely emasculated by your humiliation last night and to hit that point home you're scrubbing the kitchen and the bathroom down', I like that one better, what about you?" Peter's jaw dropped in horror at the task he was being given and he knew that no one had even attempted to scrub the bathroom down for two years and the kitchen was a hell zone full of empty bottles, ruptured bottles of cleaning solution and grime in almost every orifice that wasn't usually seen by the regular day to day activities they had in there.

"It doesn't really matter what I think, does it?" Peter asked in a hopeless manner. May stood up and ruffled his hair with a chuckle.

"Of course it doesn't honey, now get to work" she said with a genuinely happy smile on her face "I'll check in on you every few hours to make sure you're doing a good job"

"How about every few minutes to make sure I don't drink bleach?" Peter asked, causing his Aunt to laugh as she walked out of the room.

"That seems fair enough" she smiled "Just don't use the expensive stuff, it costs and arm and a leg to replace"

"You'd think your nephew would be worth more than a bottle of bleach wouldn't you?" Peter called after her. She stopped in the doorway and turned around, leaning on the frame with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, you would wouldn't you?" was all she said before leaving and going downstairs. Peter stood in his room speechless before opening his mouth and hollering the first thing that came out of his mouth.

"You heathen!" Next Chapter: The Old Buzzard Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 45 Minutes