Lunch was a boisterous affair, and when it was over Tony and Rhodes went to get suited up while the others bundled Peter into another sweatshirt – and his jacket – and they went outside. Not to the awning, though, next to the field. Instead, they took him up onto the roof.

"Don't go anywhere near the edge, okay?" Natasha warned, as they huddled out of the wind and rain near a wall and were protected, somewhat, by an overhang.

"I won't," he agreed.

To prove that, he stepped closer to her side, until he was pressed up against her leg.

Before she could do more than nod approvingly, there was a sudden blast of a rocket close at hand, and Peter yelled in excitement when the Ironman suit soared into the air close enough to them to be seen. Almost close enough that it seemed he could have reached out and touched it. An instant later he was followed by War Machine, and the two hovered close enough to be seen.

"They're not really going to shoot at each other," Steve told Peter, forced to admit that the two of them looked pretty impressive. "There'll be a lot of fancy flying, and mock shooting. Bangs, but no real rounds."

"Wow."

Steve waved a hand at the hovering figures, and Peter took an excited step forward as they shot into the air, again, feeling Natasha's hand on the back of his jacket keeping him close. The chuckle he heard from behind him told him that she wasn't annoyed, though.

Through the gloom of the weather, he saw more flashes, and thrusters engaging, all followed by loud booms as the two angled in the air, trying to get a lock on the other.

"That's pretty fancy flying," Sam admitted.

"Yeah."

"I saw them at the expo," Peter said, his eyes never leaving the two flyers – and having no trouble keeping track of them. "It was really exciting. And scary."

"You were there?" Natasha asked, remembering easily just how much debris, glass and metal had been scattered that evening.

"Yeah. I almost got killed, but Ironman saved me. Blew a drone up right in front of me."

He sounded so excited about it that Romanoff rolled her eyes, making Clint smile. He was a little kid; they were supposed to be dumb like that.

"Was that before or after the trip to the lab?"

"Before."

Peter whooped again when Ironman did a flyby, followed by War Machine who was holding his hands out towards Tony, 'shooting' at him.

"Pew! Pew! Pew!" Peter yelled, jumping up and down. "Go get him!"

OOOOOOOO

It was a full half an hour before they were done, and Peter had watched every moment of it with tense excitement, forcing an overprotective Natasha Romanoff to keep a tight hold of the back of his jacket. Then, to make it even better, both Ironman and War Machine swooped in, checked the clearing and landed on the roof next to them.

The helmets detatched, and both men smiled down at Peter who looked up at them.

"What did you think?" Rhodes asked.

"It was great," Peter told them, hugging himself, tightly. "Who won?"

"Me, of course."

Tony rolled his eyes.

"Don't listen to him, Peter," he said. "We have to check the data, first. Then it'll probably be me that won."

"Wow."

Greatly daring, Peter reached out and touched the Ironman suit.

Tony smiled, but then realized that the boy and the others (and he and Rhodes) were all out in the weather, now, and he didn't want Peter getting any wetter than he already was.

"Go inside," he said, pulling Peter's hood back up over his head with one metal encased hand. "We'll meet you guys at the briefing room so you can see the telemetry data."

OOOOOOOOO

"Why are you making him sit through the telemetry stuff?" Rhodes asked as he and Tony moved through the compound corridors, clanking as they walked since both were still in their suits. "It's not even close to being as interesting as the live version."

"I want him to get the full experience," was the reply. "Besides, I don't know if he's going to find it interesting, or not. He's a funny little guy, and gets excited by things that others might not find so fascinating."

"Not the menace you initially thought he was?"

"He's eight," Tony reminded him. "He still has plenty of time to prove me right." Then he smiled, proving to his friend that he didn't really mean it. "But he's cute."

"And you like him."

"I don't dislike him."

Rhodes rolled his eyes.

"It's really that hard to say?"

"For me?" Tony shrugged, but the action was lost in the suit that he was wearing. "You know it is. I'm not made for anything serious."

"People change."

The billionaire shook his head, almost regretfully.

"Not me."

OOOOOOOOO

"Are you cold?" Natasha asked Peter as they came off the roof and down a side staircase.

"No." He grinned up at all of them, walking backwards, so he could see them as they walked. "Did you see that? Ironman was all "swoosh!" and the War Machine came up and was all "Bam! Bam! Bam!" and then Tony shot up into the air in front of him and turned around and he flew by and boom! he was behind him, then."

"That's exactly what I saw," Sam agreed. "They're good. Not as good as me, because I'm not in a bulky suit, but they're pretty good."

Peter laughed at that, turning and tripping over his own feet, but catching himself against a wall even as all of them reached to catch him.

"What happens with the telemetry data?" he asked, curiously. "I know the words, but not the context."

"We get to see things from their point of view," Natasha told him, reaching out to offer him a hand, deciding that it would be the best way to keep him from bouncing himself right out of the hallway. "And see where they were aiming."

"And," Steve added. "If they were actually shooting at each other, you'll be able to see where it would hit."

Peter hesitated.

"It's not gross, though, right?"

"It's not real bullets," Steve assured him, understanding the question. "They'll just show as lights on the screen. You'll see."

OOOOOOOO

Peter watched the entire dogfight telemetry twice. The first time the others watched it with him, but when he asked Tony if he could watch it again – all thirty-eight minutes of it – Tony said yes and Avengers started pulling out phones, and tablets and other alternate things of interest.

Tony didn't, though, remembering what Peter had mentioned the evening before about starting a movie with him and then wandering off. While Peter watched the display, though, Tony watched him, catching the times when the little body tensed more than other times, and realizing it was when he could hear JARVIS making reports to him.

"So, JARVIS controls your suit, pretty much?" the boy finally asked, when it was over.

"He controls the systems and helps me process all of the data coming at me," Tony confirmed.

"That's a lot of data, though," Peter pointed out, looking at the screen and all of the items in the HUD. "That's amazing."

"Because I am an amazing guy," Tony replied, making Romanoff roll her eyes and Rhodes put his face into his palm, shaking his head.

Peter nodded, though.

"It takes a lot of focus."

"Yes, it does."

The boy smiled.

"Thank you for showing me."

"You're welcome." He looked at his watch. "It's getting late, and I want you to eat before I take you home."

Peter's smile faltered, but he nodded.

"Okay."

"But I'm going to see you tomorrow," Tony reminded him. "Right after school. Right?"

"Yes."

"Come on Cheese Pizza," Rhodey said, scooping the boy up and hanging him upside down, because he already knew Peter liked that kind of play. "Let's go see what they're making, and save everyone a spot."

Peter laughed, distracted, and nodded.

"Okay."

Still holding him by an ankle, upside down, Rhodes left, with Sam walking with them, reminding Peter – again – that it took a lot of hand/eye coordination to fly the Falcon suit, too.

"Do you have to take him back?" Romanoff asked. "It's raining pretty hard. Maybe we could keep him another day. We could point out that your car isn't really designed for driving in a storm and it was safer to keep him here."

"He has school tomorrow, guys," Tony said. "And you guys are doing whatever Avenger things you have scheduled, and I have Monday meetings – probably all day…"

"And you love the thought of rushing home to make those meetings?" Natasha asked, sarcastically.

"We can't keep him, guys. I know he's cute, and all, but he isn't ours."

Romanoff shrugged, not arguing – although she didn't even look convinced about that.

"I'm not talking about keeping him," she said. "But something is going on with your little friend, and we haven't had a chance to get to the bottom of it. Now that he's more comfortable with us, maybe we can use tonight and tomorrow to figure it out."

"Besides, it really is raining, hard," Clint added. "Better safe than sorry – especially the way you drive."

"What's going on with Peter?" Tony asked, ignoring that last comment. "Did he tell you?"

"He did," she confirmed. "But only after we promised to keep it to ourselves."

Stark frowned.

"I should know what-"

"However," Natasha said before he could complain. "We have some interesting security footage from earlier." She pulled up a video from the corridor that led outside, and a moment later he saw Peter running down the hall on his little legs, crashing into the door and going through without stopping. "He broke the door."

"He hit it pretty hard," Stark pointed out.

"You know force and mass and resistance better than we do," Clint said. "But he doesn't weigh that much, and it's a pretty sturdy door. It'd take more momentum than he had built up to do the damage that he did."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing," Natasha said. "I promised I wouldn't say anything. But I want to keep him another night and run some tests with him."

"You can't experiment on him."

"With him," she reiterated. "And nothing crazy. We're not going to draw blood, or anything. Just manual tests."

"And you can watch on video," Clint added. "And maybe get an idea of what's going on, too."

Tony frowned, again, but this time it wasn't annoyed. He looked at Steve.

"Do you know what this is all about?"

"No." He looked at the others. "But I did see the door, and it's wrecked. I noticed your workroom door was damaged, as well."

"He couldn't have done that, though," Tony replied. "That one is reinforced."

"One of the things we want to look into," Romanoff said, mysteriously.

The billionaire scowled again. He hated secrets. Hated the idea that they knew something that he didn't, but this time understood that he'd had his chance for Peter to tell him what was going on and had blown it.

"Fine. I'll call and ask if we can keep him another night."

"Good."

"But only because I don't feel like driving in the rain."

"Whatever you say."