Chapter 41
“Oh.”
The man named Rob scowled. He was excited and annoyed that his partner wasn’t.
“Oh?” he echoed. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I could say more,” was the reply. “But you and I both know that Tony Stark isn’t going to send his son off to summer camp without making sure no one is going to get close to him. The place is probably crawling with Avengers and SHIELD – and people trying to sneak in and get a picture of the kid.”
“Doubtful,” his friend said, still excited and now a little smug. “The post wasn’t from Stark’s people; it looks like it was a simple social media post that was taken down immediately – probably by Stark’s tech.”
“If you saw it, plenty of other people saw it, too.”
“Not really.” Rob was smug. “No one is as good at hacking as I am. I beat Stark’s tech, but only because I’m that good. No one else probably even caught a glimpse – much less had the brains to make sure to get a screen shot.”
“Huh.” He knew his partner was good; he’d proven it plenty of times and had been able to hack systems of all kinds of celebrities and get them locations and schedules that weren’t published for the public. Which had worked to get them in the right place and the right time to take some lucrative photos. “So where is he?”
“A place upstate called Wood leaf.” Rob pulled up the camp’s website – including a map of the area. “It’s a bit of a drive, but there’s a couple of hotels in the area so we’re not going to be in a rush to get back right away. It’ll give us a chance to get a look at what kind of security they have on him.”
“We need to be careful.”
“No shit, Paul. But there’s nothing illegal about going upstate and checking the place out.” He smirked. “And maybe making good use of our new drone.”
“Nice.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
After lunch the kids were dismissed to their cabins and told to meet down at the waterfront for afternoon activities. Jay held Peter back long enough to make sure he was feeling alright and then sent the boy off with his counselor and friends to their cabin.
“He’s alright?” the camp director asked his temporary camp doctor.
Strange nodded, not at all surprised by the question.
“He’s fine. I told his counselor to bring him by before bed just so I could make sure.”
The sorcerer supreme didn’t want to be the camp doctor, but he wasn’t going to do it half-assed, now that he was. And he was curious about Peter Stark – and grudgingly admitted that even kind of liked him.
“Good. Thank you.” Jay rubbed his hands. “We’re going to be running a camp wide relay race,” he told the doctor. “So we’ll have campers all over the place.”
The warning being given that with kids everywhere, there was always a chance of someone falling down and skinning their knee or something.
“I’ll make sure I’m visible.”
He’d hang out on his porch where anyone who needed him could find him.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“How’s Peter?”
Tony rolled his eyes, reaching over his shoulder to catch Pepper’s hand when she walked up behind him, where he was sitting on his desk. Of course, he had his tablet in front of him and was watching feed from one of the satellites that happened to be going over the northern part of the state. Close enough to be able to pick up on Wood Leaf summer camp’s grounds and powerful enough to pick out individuals as Tony toggled through the display with assistance from his AI. He pulled her hand down over his chest, automatically pressing her palm against his heart and looking up at her.
“He’s fine. Looks like the convict doctor has him up and at em again.”
Pepper smiled at the reference to Doctor Strange.
“Hardly a convict.”
“He’s serving time.”
“Community service isn’t twenty to life.”
“Same thing.”
She leaned over at pressed a kiss against his cheek, right above his neatly trimmed beard, looking at the screen on the tablet. She saw several children running – and they all had a watermelon in their hands.
“Do I even want to know what they’re doing?”
He snorted.
“It’s some kind of relay race…” he told her. “Instead of a baton, they’re using a watermelon.”
“What?”
“Yeah. They’ve been running all over the place; one kid from each team runs up to the corral and does something with the horses – I’m not sure what – and then back with the watermelon and hands it over to the next two kids, who rowed it across the lake and back. Now it’s running around the camp perimeter, presumably to be handed off to the next kid.”
“I assume Peter wasn’t the horse one?”
Tony snorted.
“He hasn’t gone, yet. I’m waiting to see what he ends up doing? Ned was one of the rowers.”
“Does Eric have this access?”
“Of course.” Tony wasn’t above using his tech to hijack satellites to keep up with what Peter was doing – especially since he could justify it with the wasp thing that had happened earlier – but he also wasn’t above letting Ned’s folks keep up with what their son was doing, either. “They don’t have all the passwords, obviously, but I gave them guest access for the week. JARVIS is keeping them in the loop.”
“You have a meeting in ten minutes.”
He scowled, but since she wasn’t looking at him, she didn’t notice – and wouldn’t have been surprised, at any rate.
“Is it important?”
“All meetings are important.”
Ugh.
“I’ll be there.”
Pepper pressed another kiss against his cheek, and then used her finger to force him to turn his head so she could kiss him full on the mouth.
“Thank you.”
Ugh.
“I love you.”
Her smile was warm, and she used her thumb to wipe lip gloss grom his bottom lip.
“I love you, too. If you lose track of time and miss my meeting you’re sleeping on the couch.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And I’ll tell JARVIS to cut you off from the satellite feeds.”
Ugh.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Peter was excited, jumping up and down with the rest of his cabinmates as they cheered for Brian, who was heading toward them at a run, the slightly beat up watermelon cradled in his arms as he ran.
“Go, Peter!” Ned yelled when the watermelon was handed to him.
Peter nodded and ran off as fast as he could, heading for their cabin. His role in the relay was to carry the watermelon up to the cabin and ‘dress’ it in a t-shirt and then bring it back to the big area near the dock that held all the picnic tables. He didn’t know what was going to happen, then, but he was eager to run as fast as he could to make a good showing of things.
Other kids were running near him. Not all of them were heading to their cabins, though. The relay had been changed up for different cabins. It had been explained that they didn’t want a dozen rowboats on the lake at one time and they didn’t want a dozen kids rushing up to the horses and maybe startling them into doing something uncharacteristically rough, so while some were rowing, others were dressing their watermelons, or running around the camp, or rowing. Peter liked the chaos of it all, really, and was having a ball watching it. Now that he was having his turn to participate, it was that much better.
With his cabin cheering him on, he ran up the hill, waving at Doctor Strange who was sitting in a chair on the doctor’s cabin porch, and toward his cabin, too distracted to even be bothered by the feeling that he was being followed. He opened the cabin door and rushed to his bunk, setting the watermelon on it and digging for a t-shirt. It didn’t have to be a clean one, luckily, and they hadn’t said it had to be any particular color, so he threw a Captain America one over the watermelon and headed back out the door as fast as he could. He’d made it about a hundred feet – right when the hill began and was suddenly distracted by something brushing against his ear. He turned his head, promptly tripping on a rough patch of rocks and exposed tree roots.
He could have caught himself but all he was thinking about was that he’d break the watermelon if he let go of it to catch himself. Instead, he held the watermelon closer and turned himself like Natasha and Steve had taught him, preparing to roll when he landed so he didn’t hurt himself too much (and hoping to keep the watermelon in one piece) and braced for the impact.
An impact that didn’t come.
Just like with the mad rush to escape the wasps stinging him, Peter felt something invisible grab hold of him, swooping him forward to offset his momentum and righting him before letting him go. The boy screeched – more in shock than actual fear – and managed to take a tumble, anyway. Only to have that same invisible whatever it was grab the watermelon to keep it from being smashed.
Peter looked up from where he’d landed on the gravel and grass mixture, already reaching for his skinned elbow, and saw the watermelon hovering above him. A motion to the left caught his eye and he saw Doctor Strange waving his hands weirdly, and then the watermelon landed on the grass next to him.