"Friday? Where are the boys?"

The AI was connected to Peter's Pontiac through Karen, but she didn't need to do more than check the satellite feeds to get her response.

"They are at the gas station."

Natasha smiled.

"I hope they don't forget my corndog."

Tony rolled his eyes, making her and Pepper both smile.

"Do you have any idea what is in those things…?"

"No, and if you tell me, I'll be forced to eliminate you."

Pepper snorted, amused, and the billionaire rolled his eyes at his wife.

"Don't encourage her, Pep. Besides, it's an empty threat."

"How so?"

"She loves Peter, and he loves me. So, vicariously, she loves me."

Now it was Pepper's turn to roll her eyes, but she was still amused.

"Have Friday tell Karen to remind the boys that Natasha wants a corndog."

The AI spoke up before Tony could.

"Taken care of."

"And remind them to use the identity tech," Natasha added.

They were young, after all, and it wasn't impossible that they could forget in their enthusiasm.

"Will do."

"I'd eat a corndog," Steve said, pointedly, looking up from his cards.

"Hear that, Friday?"

"I'll pass it along." There was a slight pause. "Peter wants to know if anyone else want anything?"

Tony looked at everyone around the table, but there were headshakes all around.

"We're good. Tell the boys we're in the lounge."

OOOOOOOOOO

Wong was sitting at the main table in the library when there was the slightest change in the pressure in the room. He looked up, surprised, when Stephen Strange walked into the room.

"That was quick."

He was checking the other man for any indication of distress or injury but didn't find either. The cloak detached from Strange's collar and swept into the room, and even it seemed to be relaxed. Peter would have been able to tell, directly, but Wong had to go with his gut feeling.

"Surprisingly so," Stephen agreed.

"How did it go?"

The quick return could mean that the whole plan was a wash, and he was more inclined to look at the dark side, but this was one of those times that he wanted to be optimistic.

"The place is immense."

"You found it, then? Is it a pocket dimension? Truly?"

"Looks like something a little more than that, but I'm not really sure." The sorcerer supreme seated himself at the table and a cup of coffee appeared in front of him. "I found the marble, immediately – and then almost got eaten for my troubles."

"Really?"

"No rotting creatures there, for a reason." He took a grateful sip of his coffee. "There's something there. An ethereal creature that came at me almost immediately. My guess is, it's what keeps the place from looking and smelling like a slaughterhouse."

Wong looked impressed.

"Do you think it was swallowed whole by some Flerkin in the past and manages to survive on everything else that comes its way? Or do you think it's a feature of the dimension?"

"I can't imagine a Flerkin could eat it," Strange replied. "This thing was corporeal – the fangs that came at me were quite physical – but when I started to retaliate, it vanished in a puff of smoke. It might be stuck there, but how it got there your guess is as good as mine."

"No idea what it was?"

"I didn't get a good look at it, unfortunately."

"Well… we'll have another chance, right?"

"Yes."

"When do we go?"

"I'm going to go talk to Tony and the others, now, and then we'll go tomorrow if we have the spell ready to go."

"It'll be ready."

He finished his coffee and stood up.

"Need my help with anything?"

"No. Go ahead and stay for cards, if you want. There isn't anything you can help me with, here, and it'll make Natasha feel better about tomorrow if you're relaxed."

"I appreciate that." He looked at the cloak. "I'm going back to the compound. Are you coming?"

The ancient relic swept back to his shoulder, and a moment later Strange was gone.

Wong magicked himself up a cup of fresh coffee and went back to the spell that he was working on.

OOOOOOOOOO

It was common for Stephen Strange to appear in Peter's quarters, usually. With two of them, however, he opted to materialize out in the field where he knew there wouldn't be anyone at that time of evening. Sure enough, it was empty, and he turned to walk to the closest door, knowing full well that the security in the compound was going to be alerted to his presence by then and someone would be in the lounge. Most likely Natasha if she were still in the area and not called away for some kind of Avenger or SHIELD thing.

The cloak slapped his shoulder and disconnected from his collar, sweeping off ahead of him as soon as he had the door open, and the sorcerer assumed it meant that Peter was back from his drive with Pete. That proved to be true when he walked into the lounge and found the relic swarming over Peter, wrapped around him a couple of times and rubbing his cheek. Peter was there, also, holding Nutmeg and loving up on the kitten, while Tony, Pepper, Natasha, and Steve were at the table beside the one the boys were occupying.

He rolled his eyes when he saw that there was a large pile of junk food on both tables, and several corndogs – with ketchup and mustard packets everywhere.

"Seriously?" he asked, shaking his head at the largess. "You just had dinner."

"Hours ago," Natasha said, cheerfully munching on a corndog while waiting for Tony to make his play in their card game. "You're back? Already?"

"I hope that doesn't mean your experiment failed," Tony added.

"No. I found what I was looking for."

"You found that statue?" Pete asked, sitting up a little more, juggling the kitten and the twinkie that he was eating.

"No. I'm sorry, I misspoke. I found the marble, though," he told them. "And the pocket dimension."

"What was there?" Peter asked, curiously.

The magician sat down at the table with the boys, but in a place where he could face the others, as well.

"Remember during Tony and Pepper's honeymoon? When you forced Wong and me to watch Harry Potter?"

Peter grinned at the memory. He'd done some fast talking to get the two men to sit through the movies, and had then enjoyed all of the eye rolls and annoyed noises during each film as they magicians watched back to back to back movies about wizards.

"Yeah."

"The place I saw reminded me of that room of requirements. Everything you can imagine, and a billion things that even I've never seen before."

"Did you see that creature Nutmeg ate?" Natasha asked, curiously.

"No. But I saw what I think probably ate it. And anything else organic that was swallowed by any other Flerkin."

"What was it?" Peter asked, looking excited.

"Some kind of smoke or fog creature. It attacked me only moments after I arrived, and then vanished."

"How could it eat anything if it's made of smoke?" Steve asked, curiously.

"When it attacked me it wasn't ethereal. It was very much solid, and a threat. It didn't turn to smoke until I drove it away."

"Sounds horrifying," Pepper said with a slight shudder.

"It wasn't fun," Stephen agreed, smiling slightly to assure her that he was fine. "But it kept me from coming in to a pile of dead things, so I'm not going to complain too loudly."

"What's the next step, then?" Tony asked, curiously. "You're going to have to go back, right?"

"Yes." Stephen couldn't resist reaching out and picking up a bag of chips. "Wong is working out a spell, though, to make it easier to locate the figurine that we need."

"Needle in a haystack kind of thing?" Tony asked.

"More like needle in a huge pile of needles," the sorcerer supreme retorted. "But that's what the spell is for."

"When do you go back?" Peter asked him.

"As early as tomorrow. It depends on Wong."

"And now that you've been there, and you've seen what you're up against – both with the fog monster and with the amount of things that are there – are you still planning on going alone?" Tony asked, pointedly.

He hadn't actually thought about changing his initial plan, but Tony's question made him hesitate.

"Let me think about it."

"Think about it over cards," Steve suggested. "I'm ready to go to bed, so you can take my place."

He was ready for bed, and wasn't concerned about not being around for the conversation about the final plan. They already knew that they could count on him to do whatever was needed, and he knew that if they had something he needed to do, they'd let him know in the morning. If the conversation wasn't about magic and smoke creatures, he might have stuck around to give his input, but that was a bit out of his bailiwick and he knew it.

"We'll let you know what comes up," Tony told him, understanding why he was absenting himself.

"I could go with you," Pete said when Steve had left and Stephen had taken his place at the table. "I know what the figurine looks like, after all."

"No." That was Tony. Pete wasn't his adopted son, but that didn't keep him from instantly going dad mode on him. "You're going to stay as far from that thing as we can keep you until we're sure that it can get you home and not to some other reality." He looked at Peter. "And don't even think about volunteering, either."

Peter rolled his eyes, making Natasha and Pepper both smile at seeing him do something that was such a teenager thing.

"I wasn't."

But he would have, of course.

"Good." He gathered the cards. "Tell us more about this place, Stephen."