"So what did you wish for…?"

Peter smiled at Shuri, and shook his head, looking over her shoulder at Tony, who was talking to Steve, Carol, and Pepper, getting ready for the closing ceremonies of the Gathering – or whatever they called the last part spent by the campfire.

"If I tell you that, it won't come true," he told her. "Like making a wish on a birthday cake."

She rolled her eyes, amused and annoyed all at once.

"I do not understand that customer," she said. "Who wants to eat a cake that someone has spit all over?"

"It's added flavor," Peter told her, and he dodged her hand when she swatted it at him, grossed out.

"You're such a boy, Peter Parker," she complained.

He was in a good mood, though, despite the fact that the gathering was coming to a close, and he wouldn't be able to see her as much as when they were camping next door to each other. He'd woken warm and comfortable, although Natasha was gone, and the place where she'd been was cold, telling him that she'd been gone for a while. When he looked at his watch, he understood why. It was fairly late in the morning, and he'd definitely slept in.

Since Tony and Pepper weren't hovering close by, though, Peter had decided that they weren't too worried about him, which meant that he didn't have a fever, and hadn't looked miserable while sleeping. That could only be a good thing. So he'd crawled out of his bed, stretching and yawning, still, and had changed into clean clothes. (The last of his clean clothes – saved specifically for the last day so he wouldn't look like a bum when everyone else was wearing their finest.)

No one was waiting for him by his tent opening, either, he noticed – although he had seen Carol and Steve by the ashes of their bonfire, and he walked over to them.

"About time you woke up," Steve told him, smiling. "I was considering sending for Clint to come wake you up the hard way."

Peter had smiled, too, and shaken his head.

"Stephen wouldn't like that."

"True."

Carol gave him a somewhat intent look.

"How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," he'd replied. "Anything happening, this morning?"

"We're going to make sure the fire is out, and then we're going to bury the remnants of the bonfire and plant some brush over it," Rogers had replied. "To make sure there's no sign that we were here."

"Do you want help?"

"I'm not doing it, now," came the response. "When I do, though, I'll call you. Pepper and Tony are waiting to feed you breakfast so they can get started on packing all the unnecessary cooking stuff."

"We're still having lunch, though, right?"

"Sandwiches," Carol said. "If we're lucky."

"Eat a big breakfast."

Peter had nodded, and left them to what they were doing, heading into the main tent and finding all of the others there, sitting around the table, talking and drinking coffee. All of them looked up at his arrival, but he noticed none of them had looked too worried, or relieved.

Just happy to see him.

"Come eat," Stephen had ordered, getting up from the table to head for the 'kitchen'. "I hope you want a hodgepodge of foods, because we're eating all the leftovers."

"Yeah." Peter had been hungry, and wasn't picky at the best of times. "Anything is fine."

There wasn't any sensation of magic being used. Stephen – or Wong – either one could have just waggled their fingers and brought up a crazy complicated meal (Peter might have been able to, as well, if he'd been desperate enough to try) but there wasn't any reason to do so, really. It wasn't that hard to scramble some eggs and warm up sausages and put them on a plate and hand them over with a glass of milk.

"Eat up," Tony told him. "Lunch is going to be slim pickings."

As Peter ate and the adults finished their coffee, they discussed with him what they'd decided on the whole wish thing the night before.

"If you want to know," Strange had said. "We could run some tests on you when we get home. But for all we know, it's not something that will be instantly fixed, and it might take months, or years, and a negative test, today, might cause stress and worry that probably isn't warranted."

"You think it worked, then?" Peter asked, around a mouthful of breakfast.

"I'd be surprised if it didn't."

"It's just too perfect a solution," Wong had added. "The Collector isn't going to have a magical artifact that isn't magical. And he definitely isn't going to just bring it out unless something much more powerful than he is demands it. The power stones are going to know if the Ko is genuine, and they wouldn't make him bring it as a solution unless it was going to work."

It was obvious that the discussion had already happened at least once that morning, because the others – including Tony and Pepper – were nodding their agreement.

Peter felt a little surge of cheerfulness at that. If Wong and Stephen both thought the thing was legit, and he, himself, hadn't felt anything that might have made him think that he was being given false hope, then that meant that his wish really had come true. He looked at the man that he called his father, and found Tony looking over at him, as well.

The billionaire looked pretty pleased, too.

"Then it probably did."

Tony smiled.

"No testing it, though," he told the boy – making the others smile and Peter blush, slightly. "We want grandkids, someday, but we do not want them any time soon."

"I won't," Peter assured him – and Pepper. There was plenty of time, right? Besides, kids were a lot of responsibility, and Peter already had a Flerkin kitten to raise. "What time are we going back?"

He realized that he was missing Nutmeg – and those Avengers and SHIELD folk who hadn't come to the gathering with them.

"I imagine the attendance will be better, next time," Alec said. "Now that they know what to expect."

"We're going to pack everything up except what we need to make lunch," Pepper said. "Then we'll eat, and have a final ceremony at the River tribe camp. Them thanking us for coming, and us – and the other tribes – thanking them for hosting. After that we say goodbye, and hitch a ride back to the capitol with T'Challa's people and go home from there."

Peter had nodded.

"It was a pretty good time, wasn't it?"

"It was a great time," Tony had agreed. "The Wakandans are pretty smart." He grinned at his son. "Finish your breakfast, and then go get your things packed. I imagine you'll want to spend some time with Azoru and the others before they all leave."

Shuri, of course, would be close by for the ride back to the capitol city, but Azoru and the new friends that peter had made would be going the opposite directions. Peter did want a chance to say goodbye.

"Do you need any help with any of this?" he'd asked, gesturing to the communal tent.

"No." Stephen smirked, looking smug. "We're going to cheat, a bit."

The boy had grinned, and then turned his attention to his meal. After he'd eaten, he'd packed, and had then gone back to the river for what would be the second to the last ride on the ferry, as it carried him over to the other side, where he sought out the Jabari campsite. Azoru and his parents greeted him (as did Natasha – Azoru's pup) and they offered him refreshments, but he politely declined, pointing out that he'd just had breakfast.

He and Azoru had spent some time walking around and chatting, making the usual promises to visit when they could, and Peter had smiled when his friend invited him and Ned to come to the Jabari city when they had a break from school. He'd tentatively accepted, and the boys had then been interrupted by the arrival of Shuri, who had come looking for Peter, but also had wanted to say her own goodbyes to Azoru, as well.

"My brother told me what happened, last night," she said, softly as they walked back toward the river. Lunch was coming up, and despite the earlier meal, Peter was already getting hungry. "Is it true that this relic was brought to you from space?"

Peter had wondered how much she'd been told – and how much T'Challa even knew, really.

"Not as much as you think," Alec assured him. "Only that there are wishes involved. She doesn't really believe that it's a magical device. She thinks it's alien technology."

"Yeah, I guess it was," Peter hedged. "The Collector brought it for me to use. To make a wish, he said."

The rest of the walk back to the camp – and the ride across the river – had been Shuri trying to guess what Peter had wished for – and she hadn't even come close.

"You did not wish for a love potion?" she asked as they sat on the remains of the tree that had served as a bench for those listening at the Avengers bonfire. It was still there because it had been naturally felled in a storm, or by the river flooding, and as such, it wasn't going to be a remnant of the camp. "Or for many girlfriends…?"

This last had been said more teasingly than with any concern, and Peter smiled, and shrugged.

"I'd rather have someone love me because of who I am than because they ran afoul of a love potion," he told her, seriously. And then he squeezed her hand. "And I already have the best girlfriend. Why would I need more?"

She smiled at that, blushing with pleasure at his attempt to be gallant.

"You have spent too much time around Tony," she accused him, happily.

He was cheerful, too.

"Yeah. Probably." Before they could say anything else, his watch chimed. Rather than walk over and interrupt what might be a private conversation, Tony had decided to simply send a message. Peter let her hand go, and stood up. "We're going to have lunch," he said. "Want to join us?"

"Of course."