Chapter 24
They played in the canoes until the bell rang. Knowing that it would take a while to get the kids and canoes out of the water the bell rang forty-five minutes before it was time to eat, so the kids were heading up to their cabin, laughing and talking, with plenty of time to get changed out of their wet clothes before the lunch bell rang.
Ned was walking with Peter, towels wrapped around them and joking and laughing – and also talking to a couple of the girls from Arizona that they’d spent some time splashing with on the lake. Barnes was walking along the trail behind Peter and Ned with a small group of counselors and kids. He was watching Ned more than he was watching Peter, though, trying to see if the boy was walking oddly or if the splinter that was supposedly in his rear. It did look like he was trying to keep his towel from brushing against a particular area on his hip as he walked. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to bring this up with the boy and silently rolled his eyes at finding himself in such a position. He mulled it over as they walked up to the cabin and then just decided to bite the bullet.
“I wonder if we’re having left over pizza for lunch,” Brian said, sitting on his bunk and drying his leg.
“That’d be pretty neat.”
Barnes changed into jeans and a t-shirt and then went over to where Ned and Peter were. Peter was on his bunk digging out a pair of socks and Ned was pulling on a clean (and more importantly dry) shirt.
“Hey, Ned,” Barnes said. “Let’s have a talk.”
The boy nodded.
“Okay.”
To give him his privacy they walked out of the cabin, but not far. Just out earshot.
“You’re walking funny…”
“What?”
“Are you okay?” Bucky asked. “You’re walking like you’re sore.”
“Oh.” Ned hesitated, his sunburned face reddening a little. “I might have a splinter… I can’t get it out. I got it at the bonfire, last night.”
“Do you want me to help you?”
“No. It’ll come out on its own. I had one in my hand, once, and it came out.”
“I don’t know, buddy. It might get infected if we don’t get it out.”
“It’s not very big.”
“If it gets infected, you might get sick. You don’t want that, right?”
“No.”
“I could see if Doctor Strange can-“
“No,” Ned interrupted. “Maybe you can try…”
Barnes nodded.
“Does it hurt right now?”
“No. Only a little…”
“Then we’ll hold off and take a look at it after lunch, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You won’t tell anyone?” Ned asked, looking around.
“Tell them what?”
“About my…” Ned smiled when he realized what Bucky was doing. “Right. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned back toward the cabin. “Let’s go to lunch.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Lunch wasn’t pizza; it was sandwiches, chips and sliced vegetables with iced tea and Kool-Aid to choose from. The cafeteria was noisy as all of the kids were talking about what they’d done that morning and trying to be heard above everyone else.
“What are we doing after lunch?” Peter asked Ross, who was sitting next to him.
The counselor pulled out his schedule.
“It says all camp activity.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re all going to be doing the same thing.”
“Oh. What are we going to be doing?”
“It doesn’t say,” Ross told him. “But I bet it’ll be fun.”
“Yeah.”
Camp was fun, so far, after all.
When everyone was done eating, they were told to meet up in the field in fifteen minutes wearing clothes they could run around in, and the cafeteria emptied out quickly. Peter waited for Ned, but his friend hung back because Barnes had given him a signal to wait with him.
“Are you coming?” he asked, wondering why Ned wasn’t already running up to the cabin.
“Yeah. In a minute. I need to talk to Bucky. Go on without me. I’ll be right there.”
Peter looked at Bucky and the man nodded and shooed him on his way, assuring him silently that everything was alright, so Peter echoed the nod and followed the crowd toward the door. Barnes gave Ned his best smile and gestured toward one of the little rooms that came off of the cafeteria and Peter ran to catch up with the other boys in his cabin, grinning when Tiny came running up to him for a quick ear scratch.
“Are you having fun?”
Peter looked up from rubbing Tiny’s velvety ears and grinned at Phil, who had walked over to talk to him.
“Yeah. Are you?”
Peter knew that Phil was pretending to be staff at the camp during the week he was there. It was a way to keep an eye on things and make sure no one did anything that might make things dangerous. Tony hadn’t said anything about pretending not to know Phil (or the others who were really SHIELD agents but pretending to work at the camp) so he was happy to talk to him.
“Time of my life…” came the reply. “I leveled out the path to the bonfire this morning while you were canoeing.”
Peter frowned.
“Why?”
Coulson smirked.
“Because it needed to be done, and I’m a groundskeeper and it was the ground that needed to be kept.”
And because it was closest to where Peter was that morning, which put him where he needed to be if something had come up.
“Neat.”
The SHIELD agent smiled.
“If you say so.”
“What are you going to do, now?”
“Trim some brush up by the field.”
“That’s where we’re going, too.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” Peter rested his hand on Tiny’s enormous head, not at all concerned about the dog’s large teeth as he rubbed the space between his ears. “Do you know what we’re going to be doing?”
“I thought you knew by now that I know everything…?”
That earned him a grin.
“What are we going to be doing?”
“Can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”
Peter groaned theatrically.
“Awww. You could tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Nope.”
“If you tell me, then I’d owe you a favor…”
Part of negotiating, after all, and Peter was getting pretty good at it.
“If I don’t, then you can save your favor for something else. You’re going to find out what you’re doing in the field in fifteen minutes. You can wait that long.”
Peter rolled his eyes – something he’d picked up from Tony and Coulson privately thought looked adorable on him, even though it was annoying when Stark did it.
“I don’t mind wasting a favor.”
Phil tapped the boy on his nose, unaware that his expression was as amused as he felt. He was usually pretty good at hiding his emotions. Even with Peter.
“If you don’t get going, you’re not going to find out at all.”
“Ugh.” He wasn’t as annoyed as he sounded, though. “I’ll see you, later.”
“Yup.” The boy turned and ran off, but the large camp dog stayed with Phil rather than follow along. The SHIELD agent slapped the dog on his side. “Go find something to do,” he told the dog. “Or I’m going to make you trim shrubbery with us.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The entire camp was waiting when Jay walked into the middle of the group. He was holding a megaphone and carrying a piece of paper. Everyone watched as he raised his hand and all of the little individual conversations stopped.
“Every day of camp, after lunch, we’re going to have a theme,” he told them, stopping to watch as Ned ran up to the field with Barnes following at a much more sedate rate. They joined Peter and the boys from Alaska and Jay continued. “Today’s theme is Mystery and Detective work.” He paused again when the inevitable conversations started up, again, and then lifted the megaphone to his mouth once more. “One of the counselors from each cabin has a list of items that are spread around the camp and hidden. Your job this afternoon is to find these items – and then bring them back up to the field, here, and use those clues to solve the mystery.”
More murmuring, now excited.
“A scavenger hunt,” one of the older girls said, near Peter. She wasn’t talking to him, of course, but to her fellow cabin-mates. “Fun!”
Peter looked up at Ross, who was now holding a piece of paper that he hadn’t had a minute before.
“Is that the list?”
“Yeah. Listen though.”
Jay wasn’t speaking again.
“The rules are that the teams have to stay together and you have to bring each item back when you find it. There’ll be a sign with your cabin’s name and a place to put everything. Any questions?”
There were a lot of shouts to the negative and all the kids gathered around their counselors, eager to get started and watching Jay for permission to start.
“Go!”
Ross looked down at the list.
“We need to find a paddle.”
Since the boys had been canoeing all morning, they knew where to look for that.
“Let’s go!”
They weren’t the only group of campers taking off from the field, but not all of them were heading for the water.
“They must have different items,” Ned said as he and Peter ran toward the hill with their friends.
“Yeah. Where were you?”
Ned hesitated, but then shrugged.
“Getting my splinter taken care of.”
“Oh. Good. Did it hurt?”
“No.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“How’s it going?”
“So far so good. Nothing exciting – or even interesting.”
“Are you bored, yet?”
Strange was standing on the little porch to his little cabin and watched as what seemed like most of the camp went running down the hill, obviously having a great time.
“Yes.”
He had had a pretty easy time of things, really, and assumed it was because the camp was well run and organized. Clearly they were good at the camp thing. He could appreciate that, since it meant he wasn’t knees deep in crying children.
“Still beats picking up trash?”
“Absolutely.”