A nap had been a good idea. They'd taken down the rain shelter now that the sun was out and the day was warm, and then Strange and Stark had both settled into chairs with their feet propped up on the fire pit. The Cloak of Levitation had finally made an appearance as well, since the rain was done, and it was draped over Strange's shoulder. Stark had the same blanket that Peter had used earlier but he really didn't need it and both men had allowed the warm sun and the peacefulness of the area to lull them to sleep.

Strange woke first. Mainly because the cloak suddenly took off, the loss of the weight on his shoulder not enough to really disturb his sleep, but the fact that a corner of fabric slapped his cheek in its haste to go was more than enough. He opened his eyes, and turned the direction it had launched itself, and frowned.

The doctor's motion were enough to wake Tony, who really wasn't doing more than lightly dozing. He, too, opened his eyes. He looked at Strange, and then turned to look the direction that Stephen was looking.

"What's up?"

"They must be coming back," Strange said, shrugging. "Peter's the only one it really gets that excited about."

"Good. I hope they saw something interesting."

It'd be too bad if they left before Natasha had a chance to experience nature, after all. He yawned and debated continuing his nap, but Strange sat up, suddenly alert.

"Oh, my Lord."

Stark opened his eyes again and looked over, then stood up, suddenly worried. Peter and Natasha were coming out of the woods, and obviously something had happened. They were both muddy – Peter more than Natasha – and even more seriously, he was carrying her in his arms. Natasha had a few scratches on her cheek and was holding her wrist as if it ached. The cloak was hovering, but surprisingly, considering how much it liked both Peter and Natasha, it wasn't touching either of them as if uncertain it would hurt them if it did.

Both men started toward the two, but then the wind shifted and the odor that hit them almost leveled both of them.

"What the hell is that?" Strange asked, covering his mouth and nose instinctively.

Stark had reacted similarly, and they walked over to Peter, following him as he carried Natasha to the picnic table and set her down – not on one of the benches, but on the table itself.

"What happened?" Strange asked, his eyes watering at the odor that had to be coming from them.

"We found the deer," Natasha told him, reaching down and holding her left knee, wincing.

"Did they crap on you?" Tony asked. He and Stephen were trying very hard to ignore the smell coming from the two of them, but it was impossible, really.

"This is mud," Peter assured them, sitting down on the table beside Natasha and taking her hand, obviously trying to support her. "There was a skunk, and I don't know what happened, but one minute everything was okay and the next it was all really, really wrong."

"I slipped when we were trying to get away," Natasha told Strange, wincing again when she rolled up the leg of her jeans, looking for swelling and checking her range of motion. Stephen took her knee in gentle hands, feeling around the bone and watching her reaction all the while trying not to breathe.

"It chased you?" Stark asked, his own eyes watering, too. It was really hard to breathe.

"It sprayed us," Peter said, looking down at himself. "Right out of its…" he trailed off, looking at Natasha, who was pale from pain and looked miserable.

He felt miserable, too, and the smell hadn't faded at all the entire time they'd been walking back to the campsite.

Tony activated his suit.

"Friday, what do we do about the skunk smell?"

He found it was a lot easier to breathe with the mask on, and managed to take a couple of deep breaths while the AI accessed the information needed to deal with the problem.

"The odor is caused by thiols – Sulphur compounds – that are mixed in with an oil that skunks spray from their anal scent glands, which will stick to everything. Clothing, skin, and hair and can seriously injure or irritate if it gets into the eyes."

"How do we get rid of it?"

"Discard all clothing that has come in contact with the oils and wash all skin and hair subjected to them with a special solution. There are several commercial products that have proven effective to cut through the oil."

"Is it dangerous?"

"No. Just highly offensive. And it will spread to other surfaces so I would advise against touching them – or their clothes if you can"

Stark disengaged the suit and passed the information on to the others, including the commercial products that Friday had mentioned.

"We better get you two back to the compound."

"I'm not going back looking – or smelling – like this," Romanoff told him.

"What?"

"If all we need is a change of clothes and a shower, we can do that here, right?"

"It's not that simple, Natasha," Stephen protested. "Your knee-"

"Isn't broken. I managed to walk on it – it was just faster to have Peter carry me."

And a lot less painful.

"But."

"I mean it. You can take Peter – he shouldn't have to stay just because my pride won't allow Steve and Clint a chance to have fun at my expense – but I'm not going."

"I can stay, too," Peter said, not letting go of Natasha's hand. "I'm not injured."

Just smelly and muddy.

Strange looked at Tony, who shrugged. If it were a life-threatening issue, he wouldn't hesitate to override Romanoff on something that was just pride. Since it wasn't, he was diffident about going against her wishes – well aware that she could hold a grudge forever, and make his life hell.

"I can rig up a shower," Strange said. "That won't be a problem. Clean clothes – again, not an issue – but I can't bring any of that commercial solution if I don't know what it is. It'd probably be easier for me to make my own if you get your AI to tell you what's in it and what the ratios are."

"I'll work on it," Tony said. "At the other table. You get the shower ready and I'll have your ingredients list by the time they're ready to get cleaned up."

Strange agreed, and Stark went to the table that had been in the rain shelter, but was now simply near the fire pit and Stephen looked at Natasha, his expression concerned.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I'll set up a camp-type shower for you two – except we'll make sure the water supply is continuous and as warm as you can handle so we won't need to use buckets. Get out of the top layer of clothing and don't touch anything you don't need to touch."

"Okay."

Two blankets appeared on the table between Peter and Natasha, and both of them stripped down to their underwear, tossing their soiled and incredibly smelly clothes in a pile near the truck, Peter blushing furiously, even though he kept telling himself that she'd seen him in swim trunks and boxers were no different, really.

Then they huddled under blankets while they waited for everything to be set up. The cloak was told in no uncertain terms to stay as far away as possible unless it wanted to be washed as thoroughly as Peter and Natasha were going to be, so the relic was actually hanging out with Stark, who was writing ingredients down as he got the recipe for the solution from Friday.

"How's your knee?" Peter asked.

"It's fine," she told him. "I should have listened when you said we needed to go. I'm sorry."

He shrugged.

"It's not really an exact science," he said. "I didn't know why we needed to leave – or where we should have gone, so we might have made it even worse if we'd left. Stepped on it or something."

Natasha smiled; touched by his ready willingness to try and make her feel better about the whole situation.

"I'll need one last favor from you, though," she said, hesitating, rubbing her wrist and realizing that she was going to need a little more assistance.

"Anything," Peter told her.

She smiled.

"Better hear what it is, first."

OOOOOOOO

Thanks to prodigious use of magic, the shower that Strange rigged up was as good as anything that would have been found at the Avenger facility. The only real difference was that the walls were a dark blue to afford a little privacy and it was bigger than usual. The skunk oil solution he made from Tony's recipe was in a large bucket and there were several scrubbers, wash cloths and sponges to use.

It was a brilliant red Peter Parker that helped Natasha wash her hair with the solution since she couldn't do it by herself. Strange had been concerned that her injured knee might precipitate a fall in the shower, and while he was willing to help her himself, she'd pointed out that there was no sense in him exposing himself to the awful smell when Peter was already skunky and had already agreed to help out.

She wasn't naked – and he'd seen her in the pool the same as he'd convinced himself that she'd seen him in trunks – but he averted his eyes the entire time, and had only washed the parts of her that she absolutely needed help with – which was really just her hair. Natasha had been amused, reminding him that next time he should ask what the favor was, first, but well aware that he would still have said yes, even if he'd known.

When she was as cleaned and odor free as one thirty minute shower with constant scrubbing could make her, Peter steadied her as far as the shower door, where Strange was waiting. He didn't bother with a towel to dry her, he just made a very slight gesture and she was dried and dressed in sweats and a sweatshirt. Then he swung her into his arms and carried her to a chair by the fire so he could safely check her knee and wrist and generally fuss over her now that it was safe to touch her.

"You okay?" Tony asked Peter, now that Romanoff had been taken care of.

"Yeah."

He had to work around the bandages, but luckily the skunk oil hadn't permeated through all the layers he'd been wearing, so his skin didn't need to be scrubbed in either area that the bear had injured. All he really had to worry about was face, hands and hair – same as Natasha. He washed his hair several times, and his hands and face, took the towel Stark handed him and wrapped it around his waist and walked barefoot over to the fire.

By then, Romanoff was bundled in another blanket, her knee had a brace on it under the sweats she was wearing and there was an ace bandage on her wrist. Several icepacks had been packed around her knee for the moment and it was elevated to help the swelling. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and seemed to be much better than she had been.

She smiled when Peter walked over and stood by the fire, towel held around his skinny frame with one hand and the other pressed lightly against the four rows of stitches in his side. Stark was hovering close at hand, constantly checking both of them for any sign of discomfort.

"You still smell, you know?" she said, when Stephen walked over with a new bandage for the boy's side.

"But not as bad."

"Do we go home, now?" Stark asked, watching as Strange put new bandages on Peter's wounds and then with an unneeded gesture had him dressed in sweats and a sweatshirt, too.

"We're leaving tomorrow anyway," Natasha reminded him. "If we go tonight we'd still have to come back for all the gear – and both cars. I can tough it out until tomorrow."

"Peter?"

"Yeah. I'm okay."

It would give him another day to try to lose the remaining skunk smell before he had to face May.