"Okay, um...Mister Doctor? Strange man?"
The words were the first thing that greeted Stephen as he stepped through his portal back to the Avengers Compound with Dr. Banner, Stark, Loki, and now Dr. Jane Foster in tow.
Stephen Strange took a slow breath, just barely resisting the urge to rub his temples. It really wasn't even worth trying to correct the boy on his name at this point...
"Yes, Mister Parker?" he asked, motioning for the others to wait for him in the adjoining room.
"I have the list. The one with the people," Peter specified when Stephen raised a brow in question. "The ones who went missing…?"
Oh, that list.
"Good work. Let me see it."
The kid handed him a neat stack of assorted things, and Strange could feel his eyebrow inching towards his hairline once again as he thumbed through two napkins, an old receipt, some type of alien takeout menu, and a spiral notebook that was literally just the cover pages with nothing in between, all of them covered in writing.
"I, um...I didn't have my backpack, and nobody else had paper, so we kind of had to use what we had around. I...I hope that's okay."
"It's fine. You asked the space group before they headed out as well?"
"Yeah. The er-...racoon... just mentioned someone named Pirate Angel, but they have everyone else still. Their bug lady found the paper for me to write on."
"I see," Stephen murmured, rotating a napkin to see the names that had been scribbled upside down in what must have been Banner's handwriting.
Only a doctor could possibly have handwriting that illegible - he should know.
As he had suspected, it was a good half of their fighting force. Unfortunately, it was also most of their heavy hitters.
The Maximoff girl and the Vision, who Stephen was presuming dead at this point, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, Thor, King T'Challa…
They were truly down to a skeleton crew at this point.
This was looking worse every minute.
And from the boy's count, it appeared that their backup from Shield - namely Director Fury and a handful of agents whose names Stephen didn't recognize - were unaccounted for as well.
A small note in Banner's handwriting pointed out that it had been complete radio silence from HQ since their retreat.
And that couldn't possibly be good.
"Um...sooo…" the boy started, leaning a little to catch his attention, and Strange lowered the list of names with a sigh.
"Yes, Mr. Parker?"
"Were you able to find her? The magic girl?"
"Miss Maximoff? Not exactly. We know where she went, but not how to follow her. We are working on that now."
"Oh. Okay," the boy murmured, slight disappointment in his tone as he looked aside."Do...do you think that will take very long to figure out?"
Strange paused at that, turning his attention more fully to the child. He was rubbing at his arm, looking away with an almost nervous tension, like he was in a rush.
"I presume you have a family that you need to get back to?" Strange asked him gently.
"Yeah," the boy admitted, looking down as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I was supposed to be back from my 'internship' a day and a half ago, and I never called. My aunt's gonna be worried sick…"
"Where do you live?" Strange asked him.
"Queens, New York."
"Do you have a ride?"
"N-no...not really…but I don't want to go back home if I'm needed here!" he said quickly, putting his hands up. "With that many people missing, you can't really afford to lose anyone else right now, right?"
Dr. Strange let out a breath.
The boy shouldn't have been here.
He would admit that the child could certainly hit hard, and he seemed to have quite a bit of natural talent for combat, but dragging him into this kind of situation and putting the responsibility of the fate of the world on his shoulders wasn't fair to him.
Especially if his guardian didn't even know where he was.
Stephen needed to get this child home.
Unfortunately, however, Parker wasn't going to go if he thought that he was needed here.
This would need to be handled tactfully.
"I'm going to give you a very important task, Mr. Parker," Strange said gently, leaning a little to meet the boy's gaze head on.
"Yes, sir?"
"I need you to go back to Queens."
"Queens?" the boy frowned, looking like he was about to protest, but Stephen beat him to it.
"Yes. I need you to go there as a representative from the Avengers - as Spiderman - and to help keep everyone calm. There are aliens invading the planet, and people are frightened. They don't know what's going on, and the local law enforcement will have their hands full. I need you to go back there and keep the peace," he explained gently. "Reassure everyone that the Avengers are handling it, and that they need to be brave and remain calm. And don't let people take advantage of the situation to prey on others while the police are busy. I need you to go back and be a leader for them. Can you do that for me?"
Peter looked uncertain for a few long seconds, rubbing at the back of his neck as he thought Strange's words over, but when he met his gaze again his expression was resolute.
"Yes, Sir. I can do that."
"Good," Stephen smiled. "Find me a pen so we can exchange phone numbers, and I'll get you a portal ready."
Strange watched as the boy scrambled off to find something to write with, trying to keep a worried frown off of his face.
As much as he hated to be down a fighter, this child should not have been here, and he could not in good conscience keep him on the front lines with the others.
The boy needed to be home with his family.
The rest of them would simply have to make due without him.