Peter didn't go to bed right away when he said goodnight to the others.
Instead, he gathered up Nutmeg and sat on the couch with his laptop, firing off emails to Ned, MJ and then Shuri, telling them about the play and who played what character – as well as the wrestling match at the end, and the swordfight with Clint that began the story. He didn't mention Bruce becoming the Hulk, since none of them knew Banner's alter-ego.
He immediately received a reply from Shuri – not surprisingly, since she was stuck in her bed, still – although she mentioned that the healers were telling her only another day or so before she would be released from their care and allowed to get out of bed. Texting was a lot easier than replying to emails and he received replies from MJ and Ned as he was returning Shuri's. Clearly his friends felt the same way, as he received a lot of rubbing about forcing them back into the dark ages of technology and making them use email.
Peter was smiling by the time MJ told them she was being told to get to bed, and Ned had signed off to finish up a science paper. Shuri didn't end her art of the email chatter as quickly, and she probably would have been willing to continue all night, but she knew that it was getting late where Peter was, and she told him to go to bed and she would talk to him the next day. He signed off and closed his laptop, and leaned back with Nutmeg on his chest, now, purring as Peter stroked his furry little body, examining him. He'd had the little guy for several months, now, but he was still pretty small.
Maybe flerkin grew slower? The boy booped the kitten on the nose, receiving a look of annoyance in exchange for the action and he smiled. He should go to bed, but the nap earlier, and the physical activity of wrestling made him a little antsy more than anything, and instead he picked up the remote and turned on the display in front of him. Rather than watch a movie, however, he pulled up the video that his parents had made – starring him as a baby – and watched it through, studying his dad, mostly, since there was only one segment where she was holding him instead.
He smiled, having no trouble recognizing the absolute love that he saw in his dad's eyes when the man looked at the child he was holding. Peter saw that same look every day when he talked to Tony. Even when he was annoyed with him for doing something crazy, or dangerous. Peter suddenly turned the display off, restless, and he set Nutmeg down on the sofa and headed for the door.
"Karen? Tell Friday that I'm not sleepwalking, and she doesn't need to wake anyone up."
"Done. Where are you going?"
"To the garage – but I'm not driving, or anything."
He walked through the compound on silent feet, well aware that whoever was in the control room would know he was out and about, but not worried about that. He didn't mind being tracked through the corridors, or even when he arrived in the garage and went to stand in front of the car that his father had left him. The car that he'd almost destroyed being rash and making stupid decisions. The car that Tony was pretty much rebuilding for him, even though he completely would have deserved to have been told that it was going to be left a crumpled mess to remind him how dumb he'd been.
"You okay?"
He'd felt him on the edge of his peripheral, but Tony was so familiar to him that Peter's spider senses didn't even do much more than register that he was there. Peter nodded, turning to see that Tony was walking up to stand beside him. His adoptive father was wearing lounge pants and an MIT t-shirt, with a pair of suede slippers to keep his feet warm. He didn't look worried, though, Peter saw.
"Yeah. I was just thinking."
"About what?" Tony asked, looking at the car and wondering if the boy was worried about how they were going to get the pieces back together.
"How lucky I am."
"Yeah?"
Peter nodded.
"Yeah. I lost mom and dad, and May stepped up and was there for me. Then, when I lost her, you and Pepper did the same thing, making sure that I know just how much you love me. I've got all the Avengers right there, willing to do something so crazy as read Shakespeare plays with me to help with my homework, and wrestle with me – even Bruce, now. No one else can say that. I'm probably the luckiest guy on the planet."
"Second luckiest, maybe," Tony told him, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. He smiled at Peter's questioning look. "I'm the luckiest."
"Yeah?"
"I was a real ass…" Stark reminded him. "Didn't get along that well with my folks, got along awful with the rest of the world. Made a lot of money, and treated the woman who was doing everything that she could to keep me from losing all of it like a piece of furniture – or a substitute teacher, maybe? Now look at me; I'm a superhero and get to play with gadgets that would make Area 51 drool – if I told them I had them. I'm married. And I have a kid to finish raising and share all of that with. It seems incredible, sometimes."
"Not all the time," Peter said, flushing with pleasure at being counted as something so amazing to the man. It was Tony Stark, after all. "Not when I do dumb stuff."
"Especially then." He smiled. "I did dumb stuff, right? So who better to understand you when it happens than me? The dumb stuff is supposed to happen."
"And the dangerous stuff?"
"That can be worrisome," Tony admitted. "But that's a learning opportunity, too, right? You do something dangerous; I yell at you and tell you not to do it, again, and hopefully you don't. One less dangerous thing I need to worry about you doing in the future. See how that works?"
"I guess."
The two stood side by side for a long moment, just being happy to be with the other. Tony squeezed his shoulder, then.
"Speaking of the dangerous stuff…"
Peter looked over at him.
"Yeah?"
"What do we do about the two remaining stones? Has the mind stone, or anything else given you any idea where they're supposed to go? Does Alec know?"
"We were talking about it, a little bit," Peter replied. "The soul stone has to go back to the planet that I found it on, but I don't know exactly how to get there – and I'm not sure what to do with it once we get it there."
"You can't just leave it on the ground, I suppose."
"Yeah. And I didn't see a fountain or something to toss it into, either. But if I can get there, I suppose the skull guy could give me an idea of how to return it – or maybe I'm supposed to just hand it to him."
"How do we get there? I don't like the idea of you trying to use the space stone, again – not now that we have your hand healed."
"Yeah, neither do I," Peter agreed. "Maybe the teleportation stone. It could get me there."
"And leave you flattened," Tony said, shaking his head. "Maybe too wiped out to get yourself home. That isn't going to happen."
Peter hesitated, and Tony realized from the distracted expression that he was almost certainly listening to Alec. Sure enough, the boy shrugged.
"Alec thinks that we might be able to get Stephen to help."
"He's never been there, though," the billionaire said. "He has to know where he's going."
"I've been there, though. If the mind stone shows him my memories like they're his own, it might be a good enough visualization to allow him to form a portal. Then it wouldn't be hard to get there, at all, and I wouldn't have to go alone."
He didn't want to face that dark place alone, again.
"We'll ask him," Tony agreed, thinking that it was a pretty good idea. "Tomorrow. After school."
"Yeah. Okay."
"And the power stone?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, we'll worry about that, later. If we get the soul stone out of our hair, we'll be down to just the one. That would make things a little less tense, right?"
"True."
"Good." He used the grip that he had on Peter's shoulder to turn the boy away from the car and toward the door. "Come on; it's late, and I know you're going to be getting up early. We don't want mom dealing with a grumpy teenager if we can avoid it."
"Okay."
"I love you. I've said that, right?"
Peter nodded.
"Today, even." He smiled, giving him a sly look. "Enough to unground me?"
"Enough that I might ground you for another year, just to keep you around."
Peter rolled his eyes.
"I'll pass."
Tony chuckled, hugged him and then pushed him toward the corridor that led to the boy's quarters.
"Go to bed, son."
"Goodnight, dad."
Tony waited until he vanished around a corner, and then he turned and headed for his rooms, too.