Chapter 3
“Summer camp…?”
They weren’t alone. Tony decided that more people needed to be included in the conversation and that meant a larger screen than anything in the kitchen. By the time Tony, Phil, Pepper, and Peter had walked into the living room and settled in, JARVIS had pulled up a monitor and Tony had conferenced in the compound, well aware that they were definitely going to need to know what was going on. Nick, Steve, and Natasha were all gathered at one of the conference rooms, sitting at a table and looking at a large display that allowed everyone at the estate to see their expressions.
At the moment, Nick’s didn’t look very enthused. Peter was, though, and his eyes were big and hopeful. The display at the compound was more than big enough that everyone there could see it.
“Camp Wood Leaf,” he confirmed. “The kids at Eric’s are going. It’s next month.”
“Are you sure you want to go, little man?” Nick asked. “We could pitch you a tent in the field, here, and have our own camping experience.”
Tony knew that response before Peter even opened his mouth. Nick most like had, too, though.
“Ned’s going.”
Which told them everything, of course.
“What do we know about this place, Tony?” Steve asked before Natasha could.
“Nothing,” Stark admitted. “We just learned about it less than an hour ago. Eric is sending me the information he has, and I’ll have JARVIS pass it your way.” He hesitated, looking at Pepper who knew what he was asking and shrugged, slightly. “We’re not against the idea of him going…” Which wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth – but they were against the idea of Peter being upset at being left out of something that he wanted so badly. “We want him to be safe, though, and I’ve already been told that having Ironman or Tony Stark as a counselor will be too much of a distraction.”
“So will Captain America, I suppose,” Steve said, looking a little annoyed by the fact. Or maybe he liked the idea of going to summer camp, himself, and was thinking of killing two birds with one stone by taking Peter…?
“We wouldn’t want to draw attention to him,” Natasha agreed. “Do we send him under another name?”
“We can’t,” Pepper said, speaking up before anyone else could. “Ned will be there. It’d be too difficult for the boys to try and remember to call – and respond – to a different name all week.”
“So he goes as Peter Stark,” Nick said, nodding. “But we make sure no one knows in advance that doesn’t need to and that no one who isn’t there, already, finds out until he’s gone.”
Tony nodded.
“That won’t be a problem. We’ll talk to the admins at the camp and JARVIS can keep everyone else in line.”
Meaning that any social media or other posts that mentioned the boy being there would be deleted before they even posted.
The boy hesitated, looking at the adults in the room with him and then at the screen, and finally up at Tony.
“Does this mean I get to go?” he asked, looking almost afraid to ask but unable to hide the hope in his entire being.
Tony nodded, but held up a hand before Peter could move.
“Unless we find out something really wonky about the place – or any of the people running it,” he added. “I’m not going to send you any place that might put you in danger – and I’m not going to let Ned or the boys get into anything dangerous, either.”
Peter hugged him, hard. A little harder than was comfortable for Tony, but he smiled when Peter let him go and stepped back, excited.
“I’m going to go tell Ned!”
“You do that, buddy.”
The boy ran into his room, slamming the door behind him, and Tony sighed, looking at the others and losing the smile.
“I must be out of my mind…”
“We’ll figure it out, Tony,” Romanoff said – although she didn’t look any more confident about the idea than he did. “It’ll be good for him.”
A scowl and a shrug.
“I know.”
But he still didn’t like having Peter out in the open like that.
Even at camp.
OOOOOOOOOOOO
Wong was standing in the kitchen of the sanctuary when the cloak of levitation swept into the room followed by Stephen Strange. The magician glanced at him and snorted, amused and unable to hide it.
“I was going to ask how traffic court went, but I don’t think I need to ask…”
Strange scowled and a cup of coffee appeared on the counter.
“That place is ridiculous, and the judge is an egotistical tyrant.”
“Oh? What kind of fine did he slap you with?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
Wong frowned.
“That isn’t so bad.”
“And two hundred hours of community service.”
“What?”
“Two hundred hours of community service. To impress upon me of the seriousness of my infraction.”
“Seriously? What did you do to piss him off?”
They’d done a little reviewing of the possibilities that might have come from Strange’s ticket in court, and nothing had indicated community service was even a possibility.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Nothing big.”
“Uh huh.” Clearly he wasn’t going to answer that question. “So what does the community service entail?”
“The clerk gave me a list…” he set a paper down on the counter. “Various soup kitchens, homeless shelters, garbage clean up sites, and some random organizations that are always needing help.”
Wong picked the paper up, looking at it.
“That’s going to take forever,” he said. “Figure even if you do eight hours a day at one of these places, you’re going to be working 25 days… And who has time for eight hours a day?”
“I know.” Strange scowled. “I’ll probably just not do it. It isn’t like they’ll come arrest me, or anything.”
Wong frowned.
“That’s exactly what they’ll do,” he disagreed. “Which would be an inconvenience for us – and the sanctum in general.”
“I’m not going to spend the next month working menial tasks because a judge got a wild hair up his-“
“What about this one?” Wong interrupted, looking at the list, still. “Camp Wood Leaf… They need a camp nurse.”
“I’m not a nurse.”
“You’re a brain surgeon,” Wong reminded him. “I’m sure you’d qualify for the position.”
“It’s a summer camp,” Strange reminded his friend. “Summer camp. I’ve never been to summer camp as a camper, and I’m certainly not going to go as a nurse.”
“You’re looking at it the wrong way. This isn’t 8 hours a day; it’s the entire week. Plus a day before to settle in, probably, and another to clean up or do whatever a camp doctor would do after the week of taking care of little kids. That’s 216 hours, total. All of your community service in one easy week.”
Strange frowned; he clearly hadn’t thought about that.
“It’s a week of dealing with children.”
“You wouldn’t be a counselor. You wouldn’t have to deal with them all the time. Only if someone gets hurt. You slap a Band-Aid on them and send them back to their counselor. And depending on the age group, the kids are probably in bed by nine, so you’d have the evening to yourself to do whatever.”
“Huh.” That wasn’t such a bad thought. “You might be on to something.”
“Because I’m a genius.”
“You could handle the sanctum alone for a week?”
“Of course.” Wong looked at the paper. “You’d better call and see about filling the position,” he told Strange. “Otherwise someone else will take it and you’re back to cleaning gum off the picnic tables in the park.”
“True.”
He reached into his pocket for his phone.