"What are you doing?"

Peter looked over his shoulder at the door to his bedroom and saw Tony standing in the entrance, his arms folded across his chest, looking a little perplexed.

"Nothing," the boy told him, turning his attention back to the floor of his bedroom, on the far side of his bed. "The same thing I did this morning. And all day yesterday."

Stark smiled at the petulance in Peter tone, understanding completely and not without sympathy – although he had to hide it. Peter had been fine – more or less – with his enforced activity the first day. Mainly because he'd slept throughout most of the day. The second day he was confined to his bed he'd spent the time working on his homework – and had finished everything there was to do. Including reading two books.

Now he was bored. Heartily bored and chagrined that none of them were willing to accept that he felt fine and his hip was hardly bothering him, and he could probably get out of bed without too much fuss. Strange kept monitoring the progress of the wound, and refused to even allow Peter to sit up in his bed to avoid any kind of pressure on the injury – and staunchly refused to allow him to even go to the sofa in his living area for at least another day or two.

Peter was limited to laying in his bed on his back, on his uninjured side, or on his belly.

And he wasn't very happy about it.

At the moment, he was on his belly. Steve had brought him a small blue rubber racquetball and he'd alternated between bouncing it against the ceiling that morning, the wall earlier that afternoon, and now the floor. He was hanging over the edge of the bed, and the steady thump of the ball hitting the carpet alternated between a quick staccato and a slow, measured dirge.

The TV was on, but the news program it was showing was proof that Peter wasn't watching it. Tony walked over to the far side of the bed and sat down beside Peter's lanky frame and watched him bounce the ball for a moment, wondering what he did when he missed and it went rolling away. As if to answer that very question, the ball hit a knot in the carpet and bounced erratically, heading toward Peter's dresser and out of reach of the boy's grab.

Without missing a beat, Peter's web shooter activated, and a quick jet of webbing caught the ball and brought it back to his hand.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine."

Of course, that was the word that he'd used every time anyone asked that particular question. Since he was only allowed out of the bed to go to the bathroom and back, his gait was monitored fairly carefully when he did get up, and his limp was still there.

"Pepper should be home in a while."

She'd taken the day before off, but since all evidence of the allergic reaction had cleared, she had decided it was probably safe to leave Peter long enough to get caught up on various meetings and conference calls. Not that she hadn't called Tony several times that day to check on the boy, but she wasn't hovering – even though Stark knew she would have if she'd been there.

"Okay."

Tony put his hand on Peter's back.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

Peter sighed and let the ball fall to the floor and roll to a stop against his dresser. He was bored, yes, and upset about being stuck in bed, but nothing meant more to him than what Tony was saying – and the fact that he was saying it so readily. He turned onto his side and put his head on Stark's leg. Not that he needed the comfort, but the leg was a convenient place to pillow his head, and his head ached a little – probably from staring at the walls in his room for what felt like years.

"I know. And I love you, too, Tony."

"Good."

"Do you have my adoption papers?"

Stark frowned.

"Pepper has them someplace for safe keeping. Why?"

"Because I want to look through them."

"Because…?"

"Because you signed a lot of spots that day, as I recall, and I'm sure somewhere in there the judge would have put something about not being allowed to force me to stay in bed…"

Stark smiled, realizing that Peter was teasing him – which was much better than having him sulk, or pout. At least he wasn't changing his mind about the whole adoption thing.

"I think I saw something in there... Oh, yeah, it's the part where I promised that I would do whatever it takes to make sure that you are healthy and safe."

Peter rolled his eyes, but Tony just rested his palm against the boy's cheek.

"I know it's boring. If all goes well, it'll only be for a few more days. Just hang in there."

"Okay."

"Want to watch a movie?"

He didn't, but he knew he was being a pain, and also that it wasn't Tony's fault that he was hurt and stuck in bed, so it wasn't fair to take it out on him. He nodded, and moved himself carefully back to the middle of his bed and onto his back.

"Yeah."

OOOOOOO

Stark was waiting in the garage when Pepper returned from the tower just before dinner. The billionaire was leaning against Peter's car and dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt with a sweatshirt over it. He smiled when she pulled to a stop, and when the engine was shut off he opened her door for her.

"How was the drive?"

"Uneventful," she replied, handing him her bag before getting out from behind the wheel and brushing a kiss against his cheek. "How's Peter?"

"Just this side of being rebellious," Tony told her, smiling to reassure her that it wasn't quite as bad as it might have been. "He's bored."

"He's used to being active," she reminded him. "I don't blame him."

"I don't, either."

"What's he doing now?"

"He fell asleep watching a movie and was still asleep when I left his room."

"I want to show you something," she told him. "Let's go to the lounge. Then we can wake him up for dinner and see about distracting him."

They went to the lounge and Tony let her situate herself at their table while he went to get them coffee. As he was walking back to the table, Strange walked into the lounge and headed for Pepper's table, as well. The doctor was alone – although Stark was fairly certain Natasha had been with him earlier. Pepper was pulling her laptop out of her bag when both men arrived at the table.

"Did you check on Peter?" Tony asked, setting a cup of coffee in front of Pepper.

"No. How is he?"

"Bored."

"He'll have company, by now."

"Oh?"

"The cloak came with me."

"He can use the distraction," Pepper said, approvingly. "Since you're here, Stephen, you might be interested in this…"

Both men watched as she turned on the laptop.

"What are we looking at?" Strange asked, curiously.

"I've been sorting through the memory cards from the cameras we used during the Montana trip," she told both of them. "I found this one in our luggage – and from the quality and the subjects, I'm assuming it's Elmer's. But look…"

She brought up a string of fourteen pictures. They were taken at night, from the deck of the cabin, in quick succession. They showed Peter standing next to Tony, who was in the Ironman suit and had his hand raised, obviously ready to use his repulser weapon. The really interesting – and terrifying – thing captured in the photos was that Peter had his arms up as well and in the distance was a literal mountain of snow suspended above the trees in the distance and in the next few pictures receding a bit, pushed back by a glow of orange. If it had been taken with one the cheaper cameras Pepper had handed out, the photos wouldn't have been so clear. Elmer's equipment, however, had managed to capture several frames that made it quite plain to those looking at them that the situation had been deadly.

"That's impressive," Strange said, looking at the photos on the laptop with his intense gaze.

"And scary," Pepper agreed. She looked at Tony. "Why didn't you mention how close it was?"

"Because there was no reason to," he told her. "It didn't come that close – and it was pushed back behind the tree line by the time Peter was done with it."

"How did you convince Elmer to give you the photos?" Stephen asked, curiously. "Even if they were suspected of being retouched, a photo like that would be worth a fortune."

Stark smirked.

"He thought we were going to kill him for finding out that Peter was an alien."

"You didn't tell him that," Pepper said, scandalized.

"No. He came to that conclusion himself. I told him he was wrong. But he gave me the memory card – just to be sure, I suppose."

"I'd like copies of those prints," the doctor said. "Wong would be interested in seeing them."

"Of course."

"Other than you, though, they probably shouldn't be distributed too much," Tony said.

"No. Definitely not."

Pepper nodded her agreement, as well.

"I'll leave them out of the slide show."

Strange smiled.

"I suppose we owe him one for saving our lives, though."

"Get him on his feet as soon as possible," Tony suggested. "That's all he'd want."

"Is he already bored?"

"That would be an understatement."

"I'll check on him before you feed him dinner," he promised.