A/N: Lol, no cameras in Peter's rooms; Tony promised Peter that when he first installed Karen there in the first place. And it isn't the end of the teleporting stone; Nutmeg can bring it up anytime, like Goose did the tesseract.

OOOOOO

The sun was bright in the sky by the time Peter woke. He did it slowly, too, savoring the warmth that he was surrounded in, just then, and the fact that he could feel that he was bracketed on both sides. He wasn't completely certain who it was at the moment, but it didn't really matter. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, then, rubbing it, lightly.

"Awake?"

That was Tony. Peter nodded but wasn't quite ready to open his eyes. He buried his face into the warm, soft body that he now knew was Pepper. More awake, he could smell the shampoo that she preferred.

"M-hmm."

"How do you feel?"

"Why does he sound more concerned today than he did, yesterday?" Peter asked, curiously.

"Oh, that's a story I'll leave for them to tell," Alec replied, sounding amused enough that Peter was curious, but wasn't worried that something terrible had happened overnight. "Answer him before he starts to worry."

"Sleepy."

"Too sleepy to eat?" Pepper asked, her fingers brushing Peter's cheek, making him open his eyes, finally.

She was watching him, intently, and Peter wondered if she looked worried, too. She was pretty good at hiding it behind loving looks, and that was what she was giving him at the moment.

"Soon…"

He needed to wake up a bit more, first.

Tony looked over at Pepper, and both of them looked at Nutmeg, who was asleep on the pillow near Peter's head, near Pepper's shoulder. That had taken some doing, really, because all three of them – Tony, Pepper and Stephen – had seen the kitten suddenly become some kind of insane tentacle thing that was obviously not a kitten, after all. Something much more dangerous looking in the form of a tiny kitten.

"What is he?" Tony had asked, aghast.

"No clue…" Stephen had replied, reaching for the kitten, cautiously. Nutmeg ignored him, continuing to scrub his paw, and then using the now clean digit to wash his ear. "Tell me you got that on video?"

"No cameras in Peter's quarters," Pepper replied before Tony could. "It was the first rule we made when Tony integrated Karen in here. To assure him that we weren't spying on him."

"Damn." He shrugged, though, running a hand along the kitten's back, and then – when he didn't get any adverse reaction from him – he slid it under the furry belly, palpating Nutmeg's stomach. "I don't feel anything out of the ordinary," the doctor told them.

"How is that possible?" Tony asked, still shocked at what they'd seen. "The thing had huge tentacles – or…" He shrugged. "Tentacles. That's what they looked like."

"That's what I saw," Pepper agreed.

Stephen picked Nutmeg up, easily, and looked the kitten over, and then he shrugged, too.

"All I see is Nutmeg. Same kitten I saw yesterday – and the same kitten that Peter brought in out of the rain months ago."

"But he's a monster," Pepper said. "You saw what he did. Are you sure he wasn't in the sanctum all along, and Peter only thought that it had been out in the rain? Maybe he's some kind of alien."

"He said he brought him in from outside. Besides, the cloak was the one that actually heard him, first."

"He can't sleep with Peter," she'd said, looking from the kitten to the boy in the bed. "What if he hurts him? Or eats him?"

"He's been alone with Peter a million times since we brought him here, Pep," Tony pointed out – although he glanced at Strange to see what he thought. "If he was going to hurt Peter, he would have had a lot of chances to do it."

"Still…"

"Still…" Tony said, watching as Nutmeg took matters into his own hands (paws) and walked up Peter's sleeping form and tucked himself into the space beside his cheek. Peter's hand came to the fuzzy little body and they could all hear the kitten begin to purr, loudly, in approval. "We'll discuss that later. When he's a little less incapacitated."

"You're going to tell him?" Stephen asked.

Stark shrugged.

"Maybe? You don't think we should?"

"I'm not sure he'd believe us. I wouldn't."

"We all saw it."

"True. I still wish that you had cameras in here."

"Do you have cameras in your bedroom?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Point taken. Do you need me?"

"No. We're going to bed. Thank you for the help."

"You're welcome." He looked at Pepper. "You're alright?"

"Yes, thank you." Seen one kitten spewing tentacles, seen them all, right? Besides, now that she was over the initial shock all she could think was that there was really never a dull moment around the Avenger's compound. Why had they ever thought the tower would be the place to live to finish raising Peter? "Good night, Stephen," she said with a grateful smile. "We'll see you in the morning."

"Call me when he wakes. I want to check his bandages."

The sorcerer vanished and Tony looked at his wife.

"Have I mentioned how amazing you are?"

Which made her smile.

"Yes. But you can say it, again."

"You're amazing," he told her, pulling her into his arms for a moment. "But such a potty mouth. What if Peter had heard? He'd be scandalized. And his ears would probably have caught on-"

"It had tentacles," she interrupted, amused as he almost certainly intended. "And you weren't holding him, I was."

"Maybe we just figured out what happened to the creature that crashed through Peter's door…?" Tony had asked, kissing her soundly and the guiding her to the left side of the bed so she could be the one that their son cuddled up against. He was aware that she definitely needed the reassurance that the touch would bring – even though it put her on the same side as Nutmeg. "Natasha will be glad to hear it. Or not…"

"She's pragmatic," Pepper had said, scooting close to Peter and running her fingers lightly along his cheek for a moment when he reacted to her presence by reaching for her. "She'll say it's just one more way to keep him safe."

Tony snorted, following that train of thought. He got into the bed, too, and made sure they were all covered before he had Karen turn out the lights.

"Imagine someone coming at him with Nutmeg standing beside him? Gobble gobble, no more bad guy…"

"Ugh. Go to sleep, Tony."

He'd done as he was told, but he didn't sleep for a while, and knew that she hadn't, either.

"Stephen is going to want to look at the bandages," Pepper told Peter after a few minutes of the three of them just being still and spending time together. "Then we'll go have breakfast and you can see everyone else – to reassure them that you're getting better."

"Okay."

He didn't tell Pepper, but he thought maybe he would see if Stephen would just use magic and bring breakfast to him; he didn't feel like getting out of bed. He didn't feel like doing anything socially with the others. He was remembering some weird dreams from the night before and felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of just how badly he'd treated his biological parents.

"You didn't treat them badly," Alec assured him. "They'd want you alive and happy. Better that than dead and with them. You know that. You are happy with Tony and Pepper, right?"

"Of course, I am. I love them. But-"

"There isn't any room for a but in this conversation, Peter. You know they loved you. They showed it in the videos they recorded for you and if you need it to, I imagine we can talk the mind stone into showing you a million memories from your childhood that you're too young to remember. They loved you and wanted you. But they didn't love you so much that they would rather you were dead so that they could have you to themselves. You know that, too. Stop doing this to yourself. You're not going to accomplish anything by it. You've spoken with the dead. Now it's time to pull your head out of your rear and rejoin the living."

Peter scowled; his face still buried in Pepper's side, so the two adults didn't see it. Alec retreated in his mind, as he sometimes did, but Peter knew he was still there; he was just giving him a chance to think about what he'd said. Or to get over being annoyed by what he said so that then he could think about it.

"We need to discuss a couple of other things, too…" Tony told him, his hand on Peter's shoulder resting easily and his body language telling the boy that it wasn't something awful. "But they can wait a while."

"Like what we're getting mom for her birthday?" he asked. Then he frowned, again, and looked up at her. "I didn't miss it, did I?"

How long had he been sleeping? How many days had he been hurt?

She smiled, shaking her head.

"No, sweetheart. You didn't miss it. We're still a week away."

"Oh."

Good.

"I'm going to call Stephen," Tony told him, pushing the blankets back, having decided that Peter was awake enough, now, to be able to hold a conversation. "Then we'll go eat something. I'm starving."

"Yeah." He was, too. Maybe he'd go eat in the lounge, after all. "Shuri's still here?"

Had he missed her leaving?

"She is," Pepper told him, smiling over at Tony, who smirked. "Probably curious to see how your hand is doing."

"So am I."

Tony heard his watch beep.

"Stephen's on his way. We'll take a look."

Peter sat up, reaching for Nutmeg and easily tipping him onto his back in his lap – even one-handed – so he could start rubbing his fuzzy belly. Focused on the kitten, he didn't notice the way Tony and Pepper both looked alarmed for a moment, but then relaxed as Nutmeg started purring, clearly approving of the manhandling.

"Who's a cute little guy?" Peter asked his kitten.

Nutmeg just closed his eye in bliss. He already knew the answer to that.