The conversation was fairly light as they finished eating. Mostly they discussed how the homeschooling would work, and whether he thought they should set him up a separate area to work on the assignments – in case doing it in his room would be too much of a distraction, or wouldn't make him focus as he would if he was in actual classes. Peter didn't think it would really matter one way or the other, but he simply shrugged when they asked him, and listened as the two of them discussed the possibility of the boy going to the tower every morning with Pepper, doing his schoolwork in an office (or, maybe, her office – or Tony's, which wasn't used all that often, really) and working until lunch, before calling it a day and coming home.
"I could pick you up," he told Peter. "Or you could make a full day of it and you could stay the same hours as your school schedule and maybe hang out with Ned when he gets out of school some days."
"I'll send him an email and ask him."
"Good." Tony liked the idea of Peter going to the tower with Pepper. Not only would it return them to the habit of having their early morning drives, which gave them a chance to reconnect, but it also put Peter on a pattern. "We can set up any physical therapy sessions during off hours."
"But not on the weekends," Pepper clarified. "Those are free time."
"Right."
Pepper looked over at Peter, who smiled a silent thank you for the reminder. He was pleased about the idea of doing what needed to be done to keep up with his classmates, but didn't want to give up his weekends to do it if it could be avoided. She decided that he looked tired, but she was definitely pleased that he didn't look worried, just then.
"An easy night, tonight, guys," she told them. "I'm a bit tired, and I don't want to do anything too crazy."
But she did want to spend time with them.
"We could play Scrabble…" Tony suggested, looking at both of them to see what they thought of the idea.
Peter looked interested, and Pepper nodded, satisfied with the suggestion. That was exactly what she was hoping for. Something that was interesting, but incredibly low key. She'd hoped neither would suggest Monopoly, or Risk – which were both pretty competitive and could last hours. Scrabble could last as long as however many games they wanted to play.
"Get the board, son."
The boy smiled, and did as he was told.
OOOOOOO
They were still at the corner table when Natasha and Stephen joined them. The assassin moved to stand behind Peter; both as a way to get a hug from him, and to sneak a peek at the tiles in front of him. Since it was his turn, he was trying to find the perfect word, but he took a moment to look up at her, smiling when she put her arms around him and hugged him, pressing a kiss against his cheek.
"Who's winning?"
"Peter is, this game," Tony told her, feigning annoyance. Secretly he was always pleased when the boy showed them just how bright he was. "He's just getting lucky."
"How's the hand?" Romanoff asked, before Stephen could.
"It's okay. Only a little sore. How was dinner?"
"We went to a new place. It was good." Natasha let him go, brushing her hand against his shoulder. "If you're nice to me, I'll take you sometime."
"I'll keep that in mind." He played the word Zephyr and smirked at Tony's scowl.
"Lucky…" Tony repeated, adding up the score in his head while Pepper and Peter did the same.
Peter smirked, again, and even Strange smiled to see the boy so content.
"This is my last game," Peter told Natasha and Stephen. "If you want to play cards, or something."
"You sure?" Tony asked. "Mom still hasn't won, yet…"
The boy nodded.
"I'm tired. And I want to send Ned an email about school before I go to bed."
Since there weren't any other tiles in the bag, the game was close to being finished. Natasha sat next to Peter, while Stephen went to the bar to get them coffee. By the time he returned, the boy had won and was telling everyone goodnight.
"What did he mean about school?" Natasha asked as she took Peter's spot and the others shifted positions to be set up to play teams.
"We're working on getting him back up to speed for school," Tony explained. "Now that he's recovering from what happened."
Pepper explained what they had set up, and were still setting up, with the school administrators and both of them nodded their approval with the plan.
"He's accepted it?"
"Seems to be in agreement with the whole thing," Tony told them. He looked at Pepper. "I think sending him to the tower with you every morning is the way to go, really. We can set him up his own space in my office."
"Since you never use it?" Strange asked, wryly, as a deck of cards and a scorepad appeared in his hands.
"Something like that."
OOOOOOO
Before he could go to bed, Peter had to find his cat.
It wasn't too complicated; Nutmeg's collar was lowjacked, after all. He simply checked in with Karen, who directed him to the control room. The boy stopped in and pulled the kitten off the keyboard with an apologetic smile. He stopped long enough to watch the night crew who were overlooking the security cameras that were on the far perimeter of the compound. They'd asked him about his hand, and chatted for a minute but they were working and he was tired.
He stopped and checked on Ironpig, who was sleeping in his pen, and then headed to his quarters, but was suddenly feeling just a little tingly, and hesitated, looking around and trying to figure out why.
OOOOOOO
"It doesn't look right…" Rocket said, frowning.
"Because it isn't," Quill agreed.
They were standing under the Milano, looking up at the retro work they'd just completed on the driveline. The huge engine had definitely needed an upgrade, and being on Earth had given them the perfect opportunity to take the time to do it – and do it right.
The only problem was that it wasn't going exactly according to plan. The resources on the planet were plentiful, and they weren't having too much trouble finding what they needed, but there was a slow leak somewhere, and they had finally decided to send fuel through the entire system and see where it pooled. Which was normally a great idea – if they'd been doing it in space where the lack of atmosphere didn't cause a build up pressures.
On the planet, the air pressure was causing a clog rather than allowing the leak to escape, and after a few hours, there was a decided bulge in the line that Rocket, Quill and Gamora were all looking up at. Even Groot walked over to look up at the disfigurement that was showing so glaringly larger than life.
"What do we do about it?"
"We figure out where it's clogging before it blows us to hell," Rocket replied, looking over his shoulder, before looking back up. "And we turn off the power."
"Yeah."
Quill headed for the control panel in the front of the ship, but they all heard the alarm before he'd taken more than a couple of steps.