The next morning when Stephen came down to the kitchen to start coffee, he found Peter sitting more or less upright at the dining room table teaching Pepper and Tony both how to play the 3-D chess game that Natasha had bought him for his birthday. Tony and Pepper both had coffee in front of them and Peter had a cup of hot chocolate. All three looked as if they'd been awake for a while, even though it was still early, and he realized that the coffee he'd smelled coming down hadn't been a figment of his imagination. Even better.
"Good morning," Strange told them, walking up behind Peter to put a hand on his forehead to check for fever while also looking at the board. "How do you feel?"
"A little sore," Peter admitted. "But glad to be up."
"No fever," the doctor said. "That's a good sign."
"Yeah. I don't feel hot."
He knew he felt like when he was fevered, after all.
"Let me get a cup of coffee into me and then I want to change the dressing and check your wound to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing."
Peter looked over at Pepper, who smiled because he'd blushed, and she knew why.
"I'd suggest the bedroom, since we don't know who might wake up and come downstairs at any minute – especially MJ."
Which made Peter redden even more.
"Thanks."
"I'll play nurse," Tony offered, moving one of the chess pieces from an upper tier to a lower one. "I want to see how it's doing."
He and Pepper finished the game under Peter's watchful eye while Stephen drank a cup of coffee and read the paper – which appeared on the table in front of him, and vanished as each section was read. It would be impossible to explain how a paper was delivered to a snowed in cabin, after all.
When the last section was gone and the last of the coffee finished, Strange and Tony got Peter to his feet but Stephen asked the boy to see if he could walk unaided to the master bedroom off the living room. He tried, but by the time he reached the sofa he was forced to hold onto it for support and to give his aching hip a rest. Tony was at his side, immediately, and Strange had never left it, hovering close at hand just in case.
"That wasn't too bad," the doctor told him, as they walked him into the bedroom and closed the door – just as MJ and Ned came stumping down the stairs. "You're going to hurt for a while – the muscle has a little damage and no one really realizes how many different muscles control our stride."
The two men helped him down onto the bed, and Tony watched as the needed medical equipment appeared one by one as Stephen pulled the old bandage off, cleaned the wound and then redressed it with a fresh one. This one was a little thicker, though, Stark noticed. And he had to ask why, figuring there was always a method behind Strange's madness.
"He's probably going to be moving around a little more today," Strange said. "We're definitely better off with a bit more padding – although I'd suggest wearing your pants a little lower on that side if you can without them falling off."
"Yeah."
They helped him get changed into clean sweats, which were a size bigger than normal for looseness, and then into a long sleeved t-shirt and thick, warm socks. Then they walked him back into the dining room table. During the time that they'd been in the bedroom, the table had been filled. Elmer Rupp had woken, MJ and Natasha were playing the 3-D chess set, Steve was feeding Jack – and both had been outside, Peter could tell – Clint and Bruce were playing WAR with a double deck of cards. Ned and Pepper were in the kitchen and they could all smell bacon cooking. Elmer was looking at his camera equipment, flicking through the pictures he'd taken the days before.
All of them smiled cheerfully when they saw Peter walking – with a bit of help – to the table, and Tony and Stephen settled him in the chair between Natasha and Clint. Then Stark went into the kitchen to find coffee and report to Pepper on Peter's progress.
"How do you feel, baby?" Natasha asked, reaching a hand to his forehead.
"I'm okay," he assured her with a smile. "Just a little stiff and sore."
"Ned and Pepper are making us breakfast, baby," Clint told him, teasing Natasha by mimicking her actions with Peter when he reached out and touched his forehead, too. "You are excused from dish duties thanks to Elmer, here, so Bruce and he are going to do them, instead."
"I could help."
"Not a chance," Strange said, settling himself in a chair between Elmer and MJ. "You're up, but you're not ready to do anything today."
"Can I go outside?"
"Not right now. After breakfast, you can go stand on the porch and look outside for a minute."
"That's it?"
"You won't want to be out longer than that," he assured him.
"I want to go sledding, though."
"Nope." Before Peter could protest, Strange raised a hand to stop him. "Wait until you go outside," he said. "You'll understand. I can pretty much guarantee that you're not going to want to sled today."
Peter looked just a little rebellious, but the doctor certainly looked like he was sure of what he was saying, and Peter wasn't up to forcing a challenge just then, anyway.
"Want to play WAR with us, Peter?" Bruce offered.
"He's just asking because he's losing," Clint said.
"He's only saying that because it's true," Banner admitted.
"Peter doesn't win many card games," MJ explained to Elmer. "He's not very good at cards."
"Except Spoons," Steve said. "He's pretty good at Spoons."
Peter smiled at that, and shook his head, declining the invitation to play with Bruce and Clint. But then he looked at Elmer.
"Can I see the pictures you took?"
"Of course." The man slid the whole camera over to him, across the table. "Just hit the little right arrow to go through them. I was looking at the ones I took the day you and Tony found me, but if you go through them, you'll find some from yesterday, too."
Peter was surprised by how heavy the camera was, and hesitated, assuming it was pretty expensive – especially compared to the lower quality ones that all of them were using for their photos. He saw that there were several different lenses in the case that Elmer had opened and decided that they must all fit the camera he was holding, since he didn't see any other cameras. Which also gave the impression that it wasn't a cheap set up.
The small display on the back of the camera was big enough to give Peter a good idea of how each picture had turned out, and while he didn't know anything about photography, he had to admit that the pictures were good. There were a lot of winter shots. The mountains, trees covered in fresh blankets of pristine snow and even a cabin that wasn't the one they were staying in that Peter decided was probably where he'd been staying.
Then he saw some wildlife shots. Elk – males with huge racks of antlers like they'd seen when they'd been out snowshoeing the first time, and females who looked just as big, bison covered in snow and seemingly looking right at the camera, and a few of a bald eagle on a tree that was so close that Peter could make out individual feathers and the raptor's wicked beak and talons.
"Wow, these are good," Peter said.
Elmer smiled, and shrugged.
"It's a fun hobby. The lense is good enough that I don't have to get too close to the animals, so it's not very dangerous."
"Did Ned show you the pictures he took of the wolves?" MJ asked, curiously.
"No. I'd like to see them."
"Maybe after you eat," Peter said. "They were eating a deer."
"It's pretty gross," MJ agreed.
"How did you get that shot?" Elmer asked. "I've seen glimpses, and some tracks, but they're good at hiding."
"Dumb luck," Tony answered, coming out of the kitchen carrying a stack of plates that he set down in front of Bruce. "The same way they managed to get out of the area without being seen and turned into dessert."
Peter wasn't the only one to smile at that. He slid the camera carefully back to Rupp, who put it in the case while Bruce and Clint ended their card game and started setting the table, and Tony went back into the kitchen to get cutlery and glasses. MJ and Natasha ended their chess game as well and put the pieces back into the box before removing it from the table to make room for breakfast.
"I'll have Ned show it to you later," Peter promised. "You should see if Pepper has the one that Dr. Strange took at the lake where we were camping, too. It's good."
Good enough that Pepper had a print of it hanging in her office at the tower and Peter had one in his room.
Tony and Ned appeared from the kitchen, then, and brought pitchers of orange juice, milk and a pot of coffee and set them on the table before vanishing once more, only to return with a stack of bowls and a pot of oatmeal, a platter that held bacon and toast and a bowl of scrambled eggs. Pepper followed, brushed a hand along Peter's shoulder as she walked around the table to find a spot next to Tony, and everyone fell to eating with hearty appetites.
"The snow was packing when I took Jack out," Steve reported to MJ and Ned, especially. "Might be able to build that igloo you're wanting to try."
Peter looked out the closest window and saw that it was still snowing.
"Maybe I can help."
"You can supervise," Pepper told him, firmly.
He sighed.