"Wow…"
"Don't touch it," Strange reminded the boy. Something he did all of the time, since Peter tended to be a hands on kind of guy. "Just get an idea of what it does."
"If you can," Wong added.
Both men were in the library on the third floor and Peter was with them. The boy was looking at a deceptively simple-looking statue of a woman sitting cross-legged. Nothing unusual about that, except that it looked like she had faces all around her head.
"What do the faces mean?" Peter asked, curiously, as he sat down in front of it.
The sorcerer supreme was the one who answered.
"Good question. We think that it has to do with the duality of man."
"Or it could be multiple seasons," Wong said, shrugging. "Even if it didn't originate on Earth – and it probably didn't – we know other worlds have seasons, too."
"Or it could be a self portrait," Strange shrugged. "Maybe she's different ages as an homage to her life and the various stages."
The figurine was worn with age, so it wasn't easy to tell.
Peter felt just a little edgy when he looked at it, but he didn't think it was the statue. The thing was practically radiating neutrality and a lawful alignment to him.
"It's not evil," he said, shortly. "Not lawful good, or anything, but nothing about it screams at me that I need to stay away from it."
"Well, that's a start," Wong replied. "We have a couple more relics," he reminded Peter, gesturing. "But I think that we're going to want to study this one more closely, just to get an idea of what it might be."
He put a special glove on before he reached out and picked it up, carefully, and Peter felt more uncomfortable. That inner warning that told him that he needed to be cautious because something was going to happen. Uncomfortable enough that he stood up, suddenly – just as a loud screech from one of the other relics on the table startled all three of them. Wong was too steady a person – and too familiar with the intricacies of handling ancient relics to actually drop the thing, but he did stumble, slightly, into Peter.
The boy reached out, automatically to steady him, and hit the sorcerer's hand. The one holding the relic, of course. Now it did fall, because Peter exerted more strength than was needed, and he pretty much knocked it out of Wong's hand – and automatically reached for it to keep it from hitting the table.
"Careful, Pe-"
Strange didn't get anything else out before there was a brilliant flash of light, and then the artifact crashed onto the table, heavily, and Peter vanished with a startled cry.
Both sorcerers stared, and the cloak of levitation swooped from Strange's collar to the empty space that had only moments before held the boy it was so fond of.
"Where is he?" Strange asked, looking at Wong, hoping for an answer, but knowing it wasn't going to be that easy.
"No clue."
They immediately headed for the door, intending to look through the sanctum, first, in case the thing had simply transported Peter to another room – or another floor.
"We need to find him," Strange muttered, gesturing for the cloak to lead the way out of the library. It was able to home in on Peter better than anyone. "May is going to kill us both."
"I told you we need to figure out a way to low jack him."
OOOOOOOOOO
Tony, Pepper, and Natasha were playing cards when Peter walked back into the lounge about half an hour later. He grinned, sitting down between Natasha and Tony and reached for a handful of the popcorn they'd been snacking on while waiting for Peter – and dinner.
"Did you get Nutmeg's hoard back to the rightful owners?" Tony asked, glancing at the cat tree where the kitten was cleaning his face with careful swipes of his paw and looking innocent of all wrongdoings.
"Yeah. Clint said he's still missing a few arrowheads," Peter said. "So I'll have to have Karen check backdated footage."
"I'm missing a bottle of that lotion you picked up from the farmer's market," Romanoff told the boy. "You might ask her to look for that, too."
"Shouldn't leave your things laying around," Stephen told her, winking at Peter but acting just as innocent as Nutmeg when Natasha turned to look at him. "You know that Flerkin is a klepto."
Tony smirked, always enjoying a chance to mess with the normally calm and cool (and deadly) assassin.
"I suppose we could get Shuri to make you a little cage for your valuables," he suggested. "Like Peter does for his doll."
"I just do that because it's fragile," Peter said, quickly. And because the toddler that lurked inside him was quick to make himself known whenever Nutmeg was caught dragging the doll away."
Pepper smiled. She thoroughly enjoyed dinner time. Now, anyway. It was incredibly challenging being the adoptive mother of a fledgling superhero that had so many other issues in his young life – not to mention the wife of another superhero – but there were so many good times (like this one) that it made her wonder what she'd ever done to deserve such a good life. Of course, she'd put up with Tony Stark during his all about me years, so maybe it was a reward.
"Are you ready to eat?"
"Yeah."
She looked at Tony.
"Of course, Pep."
He'd just been waiting for Peter.
"Stephen? Are you joining us?"
"Of course."
"I'll go get it," Peter offered, already standing up, again.
"I'll help you, son."
OOOOOOOOOOO
Wong was in the kitchen when it happened.
Attuned to the magic in the sanctum as he was, he was still distracted enough with the tablet in front of him and the skillet that he had on the stove that he missed the slight surge of power that coursed through all the levels of the building. He scowled at the display, and the woman who was casually tossing the scallops into the pan, and looked at his own – which was smoking.
"The hell…? Did I use butter? Or olive oil?"
He couldn't remember if he'd used either – and the fact that he'd magicked them up, used it, and then sent it away kept him from checking.
He started to turn the stovetop down when the cloak of levitation came swooping into the room, bee-lined right to him and started slapping his shoulder in an unmistakable panic.
"What?"
He didn't really expect an answer, and he didn't wait for one. The skillet came off the stove and he stopped only long enough to make sure the burner was off before he ran out of the room following the ancient relic across the main room and up the stairs two at a time. The cloak swooped away from the second floor landing and went straight up to the next floor, and Wong followed concern overcoming the relief that he felt that the place was only four floors high.
The cloak didn't go for the next staircase, instead soaring down the hallway and Wong came to a stop when the door to the third-floor library opened. The sorcerer brought his hands up, instantly, and Peter made a slight noise and brought his up, as well.
"Wong! It's me."
He dropped his hands and shook his head – although he was confused. Did the boy sleepwalk in the early afternoon? And why was the cloak so freaked out? Peter looked fine.
"Peter… what are you doing here?"
The boy looked confused, too.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "I was looking at that artifact Jorgan loaned you and Doctor Strange. Where did you guys go?"
"What?"
"I was-"
The cloak slapped Wong's shoulder – hard. Whatever had it so frantic, it was still happening.
"Wait. What did you say? Who?"
"Doctor Strange."
"No. Who gave us the artifact?"
Peter frowned.
"Jorgan."
OOOOOOOOO
"Are you alright?"
Peter looked up from his meal, suddenly realizing that he wasn't eating it and had been simply pushing his pasta around, and that Tony must have noticed.
"What? Oh. Yeah. Sorry."
"Something bothering you?" Pepper asked.
"No. I mean, I feel fine." Tony's hand inevitably found his forehead. He smiled at that. "I'm okay. I just felt weird for a second."
"Really? Spiderman weird?" Natasha asked.
"No. Just-"
Stephen's phone rang, interrupting, and the magician glanced at it, briefly, intending to send the call to voicemail, but answered when he saw who it was that was calling.
"Wong needs me at the sanctum," he said, apologetically. He looked at Peter, and then at Tony. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Peter wasn't fevered, and he didn't look like was in pain. "Call if you need us," he added.
"I will." The sorcerer supreme stood up, and was gone in a heartbeat.
Tony looked at Peter.
"Is it a Spiderman thing?" he asked.
Peter shook his head, feeling slightly foolish.
"No. I don't know what it was. I'm okay, though," he added. He looked at the empty space where Stephen had been. "I wonder what's going on at the sanctum…"
Stark shrugged, another quick check of Peter's forehead before he leaned back in his chair.
"If it's anything interesting, Stephen will tell us."
"True."