"So you already won?"
Peter shook his head, but it was Ned who answered Shuri's question.
"We just had the first round of competition," he told her, grinning at the display on Peter's tablet. They weren't at home, so when Shuri had called that morning, Peter hadn't been able to just put it up on the TV like he was used to doing. Ned had been lounging in the room, too, and had decided that a call in the middle of the morning wasn't something that had to be private, so he'd hung out near at hand and had said hello after Peter had. "We won, but it's just to get an idea of what teams are going to be the strongest."
"We beat France," Peter told her. "But they're pretty smart. We just got lucky with the questions."
"When do you go to the compound?" she asked. "Tomorrow?"
"Right."
"Are you coming?" Ned asked.
"No. There is much to be done, here, unfortunately. If I want to go to the finals of the competition, then I need to get everything done."
"We might not even make it to the finals," Ned pointed out.
"It is a risk I am going to have to take."
Peter nodded. It wasn't like she couldn't come to the compound any other day when she had less responsibilities, after all.
"It's not going to be that exciting," he assured her. "I mean, it will for the others, because they've never been there or spent time with the Avengers, but you wouldn't see anything new."
"Except this kid from Japan has something for Peter," Ned told her.
Shuri frowned.
"What it is?"
"No clue," Peter told her. He explained what Nico had told him the evening before. "He said it's a matter of his grandfather's honor, so I guess it could be anything, really."
"Maybe it's a sword," Ned said – again. He and Peter had already gone over the possibilities the night before when they'd finally said goodbye to everyone and had gone back to their room to go to bed. "A really cool samurai sword that his grandfather had commissioned for Peter's grandpa back-"
"Why would he want to give him a sword?" Shuri asked, interrupting with a smile. "And how would he get a sword through your customs?"
"You can get weapons through customs," Ned replied with a shrug. "People do it all the time."
"Not high school kids," Peter said, grinning.
"He is right," Shuri agreed. Her eyes were excited though. "Make sure you let me know as soon as you find out."
"I will," Peter promised. He knew that she was going to have to end the call soon so she could get her day finished. "I'll call you, later, okay?"
"Alright. Bye, Ned."
"Bye, Shuri."
The call ended and Ned shook his head.
"Too bad Shuri doesn't have a sister…"
Peter grinned.
"Come to the next tribal meeting," he told his friend. "There'll be all kinds of interesting girls for you to meet."
OOOOOOOOO
"What are they doing, now?"
"Free time until this evening. A chance for the kids from out of the country to relax and get ready for the real part of the competition."
"And to pester Peter with all kinds of questions about the compound," Bucky added, looking at Steve's image over Romanoff's shoulder.
Steve had called to check in with them, and Bucky had just happened to be talking to Natasha when he had.
"Are they?"
Romanoff shrugged.
"Some are. Peter's approachable, you know that. The ones who are less shy are asking what they can. He's being pretty good about it, really."
"Nat would have tossed them off a balcony by now," Clint told them.
"No, I wouldn't." She rolled her eyes, amused, and shrugged. "Maybe a couple of the lighter ones…"
Steve smirked.
"Are they pretty excited about coming out here?"
"What do you think? Did you find out anything interesting about this Nico kid and his grandfather?"
"No. I found a few interesting things about Peter's grandfather, though."
"Yeah?" Clint looked interested, but really, they all were. "What did you learn?"
"Did you know he was OSS in the war?"
This was directed at Natasha. Bucky looked impressed, but Clint and Romanoff both frowned.
"I don't even know what that is," Clint said.
"It's the Office of Strategic Services," Barnes said. He frowned, too. "They weren't allowed in the Pacific, though, right? McArthur wouldn't let them?"
Now it was Steve who shrugged.
"I found him there. Until '45. Then he went to the CIA," he added. "Then he vanished."
Romanoff frowned.
"He vanished?" she asked. "Or records of what he was doing vanished?"
They knew from the video Peter's parents had made for him that his grandfather had been around.
"Records of what he was doing," Steve told her with a slight grin. "Everything points to the guy being a spy. During the war and after."
"Wow…" Clint looked pleased. "No wonder Nat likes Peter so much. He has spy blood in his veins."
"Can you confirm that?" Natasha asked, ignoring the jibe.
"We're working on it."
"Do we tell Peter?"
"Eventually. But not yet. Maybe after the competition so there's no distraction."
"True."
"Does Tony know?"
"Not yet. Well, maybe," Steve amended. "I've been using his network, so his AI might have told him what we're learning."
"Anything else we need to know?" Natasha asked Steve.
Rogers smiled.
"Nick wants you to call Stephen and ask him if he wants to Flerkin sit. Something about not having Peter here to track down all of the things the Klepto-kitty is stealing and stashing."
She smirked in response.
"I don't need to call him to know that he'll tell us that is an Avenger problem since Nutmeg is an Avenger kitty. I'll give Peter a heads-up, though. When he comes home with the kids touring the compound, he can spend the time they're looking around the place and meeting avengers interrogating his cat."
"You do that. Need anything?"
This time he was asking all of them, but they understood he was pretty much asking Bucky.
They all shook their heads. Security wasn't that interesting a gig, sometimes, but this wasn't the worst assignment any of them had ever had, and it was enjoyable for them to watch Peter having a chance to spend time with his classmates away from the compound.
"We're good. We'll check in with you, later."
The call ended and she looked at the others.
"I'm going to go run a sweep."
Clint nodded.
"I'll come with you."
He wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing, after all. If something was out of the ordinary, he'd spot it. Bucky shrugged; he wasn't going to sweep anything.
"I'll go see what Peter's doing."
OOOOOOOOOO
The hotel was a nice one.
Not 4 star or first class, but definitely good enough to host a competition like the one they were having. Along with the nice rooms (and luxury suites) there were also plenty of amenities. A gym, free weights, spa, a restaurant and the deli, and also an indoor pool. They had also set up a room dedicated to games; board games, table games, card games, and even video games. Since the kids all had a free chunk of time in between their preliminary competition and the next official event – which was that evening – many of them opted to take advantage of the various things that were available.
"We should go swimming," Ned told Peter.
"So you can see if the French twins are wearing bikinis?" his friend asked him.
Ned allowed his eyes to grow wide and innocent.
"Whaaat? No, of course not. How else am I going to be able to show off my tattoo?" he asked, clearly thinking fast. "I mean, it's going to look weird if I walk into the deli without a shirt on, right? And I've never heard of a game of poker getting so tense I've needed to strip down for it. Much less Mario Cart. C'mon…"
"I thought I'd call in and check on Tony and Pepper…"
"Because they're going to be getting into trouble without you there hovering over them keeping them in line…?"
Peter shrugged.
"No. I was just going to make sure they weren't missing me, yet."
"They aren't missing you, yet," Ned assured him. "Call them, tonight, instead. That way you can give them a full rundown of everything we did, today," he suggested. "Beginning by telling them all about how cool the other kids thought your tattoo was."
Peter rolled his eyes, but he knew that Ned was right that Tony and Pepper weren't (probably) missing him, yet, and he also knew that his friend really wanted to show off the tattoo. How many of the other kids would have one, after all? Peter wasn't above showing his off, either, really. Not to impress girls, since he wasn't on the market, so to speak, but he had to admit that it was satisfying to see people's eyes get wide when they saw it, even if none of them knew the reason for it.
"Fine. We can go swimming."
