"Why do you look like you're constipated…?"

Peter frowned at Ned.

"What?"

Ned rolled his eyes, good-naturedly.

"Are you alright? You look kind of sick."

His friend reached out and put his hand on Peter's forehead, similar to how Tony, or Pepper – or pretty much everyone else Peter knew would do it when they were asking him the same question. He smiled and moved his head away.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just my stomach, I think."

Ned hesitated.

"Think it was the eggs?" he asked, referring to the breakfast that they'd just finished eating in the hotel restaurant. He and Peter had ordered the same thing, after all, and if Peter was going to get food poisoning, then it was a sure bet Ned was going to get it, too. "They did look funny…"

"No. It's good."

Ned's expression changed, then, and his eyes widened, slightly, looking around even though they were in their room getting ready to meet up with the team in MJ's room to go to the convention center for the day's competition, and very much alone.

"Is it a Spider-Man thing?"

"No. Maybe just nerves about the competition."

They'd been doing very well, having only lost one round, so far, and were making a good showing of things. If they won every round that day, they would be in the finals.

"Don't worry about that," Ned told him, grinning. "We're doing great." He grabbed his backpack. "C'mon, let's get to MJ's room so we can see what she and Harriman want us to do, today."

With the questions being so random in each round, Peter had been utilized as a miscellaneous rover. He'd join rounds as needed, to compliment the rest of the team and could make up for Abe and Flash being a little poorer in the maths than Ned and could make up for Betty and MJ not being as good in the sciences – although they definitely had the literature and philosophies down pat.

"Yeah."

He followed his friend out the door, closing it behind them and looking around, automatically. Natasha wasn't anywhere in sight, but he didn't really expect her to be. He did see one of the SHIELD agents from the compound. A young guy who was fairly new and he wasn't dressed in the usual sharp suit; this guy was actually dressed casually in jeans and a polo and leaning idly against the wall near the elevator. Peter didn't look his way, knowing that the SHIELD people didn't like chatting him when they were working because they were supposed to be serious and aloof – and sometimes unnoticed.

They were greeted at MJ's room by the rest of the team and they all looked excited.

"Slight change of plans, today," Harriman was saying – although he looked at Peter and Ned when they arrived. "We're going to have a special lunch in the banquet room, today."

"A fancy one," Flash said, looking impressed – which was saying something when it came to him, since he was fairly used to having the best of everything. "As a reward for being so amazing."

Peter ignored the way Ned rolled his eyes at the other boy's smugness and smiled at how excited the rest of the team was. He looked at their teacher.

"How come?"

The adult shrugged.

"I'm not sure. It came from fairly high up. There's some kind of high end meeting somewhere else in the convention center and the powers that be must have decided that there's more food than they needed for it, and didn't want it to go to waste."

"That's awesome," Ned said, cheerfully. "When?"

"At noon." He was pleased that the kids were excited about it. "We were also told that because of the meeting, the coordinators of the competition are asking that we keep ourselves on the floor of the competition and don't take a chance of accidentally wandering into something that might cause any problems or embarrassment."

"We're on the top floor," Abe pointed out. "How would we get in the way?"

"They're going to be in the penthouse," came the reply.

"Swanky," Ned said, approvingly. "We should have had the penthouse."

"It isn't big enough for the competition," Abe said. "I looked at the convention center plans. We have the best floor for what we're doing."

"So we stay on our floor," Harriman said. "Got it?"

They all nodded.

It wasn't like there was all that much time in between rounds, anyway, and their upper floor had a few vending machines to keep them from needing to go find some munchies somewhere else.

"I wonder who it is," Flash said. "I didn't see anything in the lobby about any kind of fancy meeting this week…"

"We're not going to worry about that," Harriman said, firmly. He was clearly ready to change the subject, now that the schedule change had been announced. "Why don't we go over the teams that we're going to be up against, today…?"

That was met with assorted responses, but they all turned their attention away from the unknown meeting and to what was really important to them.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Well?"

Barnes shrugged, slightly, looking around the lobby. He had an earpiece in his ear so he could communicate with the others, but it was cloaked in SHIELD tech and no one would see it if they didn't know what to look for.

"Haven't seen anyone, yet."

Bucky was lead on the security team at the convention center, with Romanoff and Steve at the hotel with a large contingent of SHIELD agents for backup. They were laying low to avoid being seen by anyone who might wonder why SHIELLD was at the convention center and make them start looking deeper. Since Bucky wasn't officially with SHIELD – or the Avengers – and he was beyond skilled at making himself blend in, he was the perfect choice to keep an eye on things in the lobby of the convention center.

"The kids are heading your way, now," Romanoff told him in his ear. "The teams are sticking together and should be going straight to the elevators."

Barnes turned at a motion at the entrance and saw the group from England walking in, chatting excitedly.

"Yeah, I see them."

He watched silently without seeming to be watching them at all, and over the next half hour saw all of the teams show up and go to the elevators. At the same time, he was also noticing a small army of men arriving in dribs and drabs, looking around, carefully, and checking the people in the lobby, carefully, before also heading toward the elevator. These men were clearly the underlings of the mobsters, Bucky decided, and were the advanced people who were tasked with making sure nothing was a danger to their respective bosses.

"You have eyes on them?" Natasha's voice asked, just as the man who had approached him the day before walked into the lobby flanked by a couple of large men who were looking around, hands hovering over their suit jackets – where Barnes knew they were carrying weapons.

"Yes." The man – Zihov, Barnes knew, now – glanced at him and allowed his gaze to keep going as he looked around, as well. He said something to one of the men who separated and found a sofa to sit on that gave him a good view of the entrance to the lobby. The other two men headed for the elevator. "Looks like the mob is arriving."

"Yeah."