"Have you ever started a fire before?" Strange asked, watching Tony gather small pieces of wood and some fluff.

"Sure. Barbeques count right?"

"I'd think so."

It wasn't like Stark was using matches to try to start the fire, after all. Once he had the wood and kindling positioned how he wanted it, he pulled out a lighter and started the tinder. The little stuff caught exactly as he'd planned, and soon a fine blaze was burning in the fire pit. There was a grate that went over half of the fire pit, presumably to put a frying pan or kettle on for cooking, but none of them were ready to eat just yet.

They just hadn't wanted to try their luck with making a fire in the dark.

Peter came out of the tent, zipping it behind him, and walked over to stand beside Strange. Tony looked up at him from where he was kneeling beside the pit and gave him a triumphant grin, gesturing toward the blaze.

"I have made fire."

The boy grinned, and Strange rolled his eyes, amused.

"Can I go look around?"

"Yeah. But don't go far."

"I won't."

With the cloak still wrapped around his shoulders, Peter walked toward the woods, his camera in hand in case he found something interesting to snap a picture of for Pepper. Both men watched him go.

"This is going to be fun," Stark said, getting to his feet and waving the smoke away that seemed determined to follow his progress. "We'll get some quality time in with him, make sure life is going how it should be and consort with nature."

"We could have done all of that back at the compound."

"This is better. Where's your sense of adventure?"

Strange slapped a mosquito.

"Somewhere at home, eating a perfectly cooked steak."

OOOOOOOO

The woods were fairly quiet. A bird chirping in the trees overhead and something rustling around in the undergrowth nearby, but no cars honking, or people shouting or any of the plethora of noises that Peter had grown up with and was used to. Amazed by the absolute difference, he wandered fairly aimlessly, not in any hurry, and not looking for anything in particular. He had the vague feeling that he was being watched, but assumed it was an animal – or a bunch of animals, since nothing was setting off his spider senses that something was going to happen.

He found a little stream and stopped at the edge, crouching down to see if he could see any fish in it, too. What he saw wasn't fish, but some kind of bug that seemed to be skittering across the top of the water, doing whatever it was that a bug running on the surface of the water did. Which to Peter seemed to be just getting some cardio in.

His spider sense and the cloak both warned him suddenly at the same time and the boy looked to his left and saw a fuzzy black creature walking along the bank of the stream toward him.

He thought it might be a raccoon but the white stripe along the creature's back gave him the warning he needed to get up slowly and back up, leaving the bank to the skunk. It waddled by, ignoring him and well aware that he posed little or no danger to it. He snapped a picture of it, and frowned as it walked by. He didn't smell anything, and wondered why people said skunks were so bad. Shrugging, he jumped the stream and continued his walk, but now he was heading somewhat back toward the campsite and the lake. It wasn't all that late, but it did seem to be getting dark and he didn't want the others to get worried and come looking for him.

OOOOOOOO

There were three lawn chairs set up around the fire pit when Peter returned to the campsite. Two were occupied by Strange and Stark. Tony had brought out a pocket knife and had found a block of wood to carve up, and Strange was reading a book. They both looked up when he sat in the empty chair, but the cloak moved, because it didn't like the smoke that was coming off the fire toward that chair and retreated to Strange's shoulder, instead.

"Anything interesting?" Tony asked.

"There's a stream," Peter reported. "And I saw a skunk."

"Really?"

Peter nodded and held up his camera, silently telling them that he'd taken a picture of it.

"What are you doing?"

"Whittling," Stark told him. "It's another word for carving."

"What are you making?" the boy asked, curiously.

"A smaller piece of wood," Strange told him with a wink, proving he wasn't actually paying that much attention to the book he had in his hand.

"Funny."

Peter had to laugh. He thought it was funny.

"Are you guys hungry, yet?" the doctor asked, setting his book aside.

Well aware of the disaster they'd created in the kitchen in the sanctum, Strange was not willing to trust his dinner to either one of them and had agreed to be the full time cook during their camping trip. He'd opted for a fairly simple menu, though, and his first night's culinary offering was proof of that.

They roasted hotdogs on metal skewers while Strange pulled out macaroni salad from the coolers in the tent and cold drinks. He also brought out the makings of s'mores, even though he'd never had one and wasn't a hundred percent sure he really wanted to try what looked like a sticky, sweet mess.

After all three had eaten their fill, and Peter gorged himself on enough marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate to ensure he wasn't going to sleep for a decade, they sat around the fire and watched as the sun set over the lake and the sky turned dark, bringing out all kinds of nocturnal sounds and small animals moving around at the edge of the clearing – kept back by the smell of fire. They still had to wash what few dishes they'd used, but since Strange was cooking Peter and Stark had agreed to be the dishwashers and cook's helpers.

They lit a battery operated lantern and filled a dishtub with water they'd heated in the kettle over the fire. Peter washed the plates and roasting skewers, and Tony set them in the rack to dry, pointing out that actually drying them would be a waste of time since nature would do it for him.

"I'm going to bed," Strange told them, standing up and slapping yet another mosquito. He'd had enough smoke inhalation and bugs for the night, and even watching Tony Stark do dishes wasn't entertaining enough to keep him out in the great outdoors, when he could be in a tent. "Try not to trip over me when you come into the tent."

"He'll come around," Stark told Peter, confidently, when Strange had zipped the tent up behind him. "The first day is just to acclimate to camping. Tomorrow we'll go canoeing and he'll be hooked."

"I'm having fun," Peter assured him, handing him the last dish, and then drying his hands on his jeans.

"Good."

That was the whole point, after all.

They finished clearing the area and then sat by the fire, talking well into the night. Peter unable to go to sleep any time soon because of the sugar coursing through his system and the odd noises in the night keeping him awake – and maybe a little jumpy – and Tony enjoying the company he was keeping enough that he would have stayed up all night just to spend time with the boy.

When the fire died down to coals, they finally did call it a night. Peter crawled into his sleeping bag, accidentally elbowing Strange who hadn't been sleeping very well, anyway, and then settling in with one of them on either side of him and the cloak of levitation draping itself over him. Sleeping on the ground wasn't that comfortable, but he didn't really feel any of that compared to how it felt to be where he was and with the people he was with. He went to sleep almost immediately.

Stark zipped the tent closed and also wriggled himself into his sleeping bag, forced to roll around just a bit until he managed to find a comfortable position. In the morning, he decided, he was going to move the tent and clear some rocks.

"Go to sleep, Tony," Strange murmured from the other side of Peter, who was already out. "You're keeping me awake."

Or maybe it was the jagged rock that seemed to be trying to saw his shoulder in two.

"I'm working on it."

"Missing magic, yet?"

"No."

Yes. A little.