"Are you guys done for the night?"
Peter nodded, smiling at Tony and ignoring Ned, who was tossing balled up socks at him, amusing himself watching Peter duck them without looking at them. Spider senses were entertaining that way, apparently.
"Yeah. We just got done at the pool." Since his hair was still damp it was obvious. "MJ didn't want us to stay out late, since we have finals starting, tomorrow."
"I always knew she was smart."
Peter shrugged.
"I don't disagree."
"Ask him about the dead person," Ned said, lobbing another sock.
"What dead person?" Tony asked.
"We saw a coroner's van at the hotel," Peter replied. "With a bunch of police cars and a lot of cops and stuff. Flash said they only send the corner if someone died."
"Ah." Peter's phone screen wasn't that big, but it was high quality and there was definitely a little uncertainty in his adopted father's expression, but he shrugged, apparently having already decided what to mention. "Yeah… FRIDAY mentioned that there was a call, earlier, from the penthouse of the hotel because someone had collapsed. Apparently they didn't make it."
"What happened?" Ned asked, shifting and coming to sit beside Peter on the edge of his bed. "What do you know?"
Tony turned his head, obviously looking at someone – most likely Pepper – and then turned back to the boys.
"This stays in your room," the billionaire told them. "No one else finds out."
"Was it someone I know?" Peter asked, suddenly worried that one of the SHIELD people had been hurt, somehow.
"No. Well, yes," he corrected. "But not someone you know well."
"It was one of the men who had been stuck in the elevator with you," Pepper said, leaning in, slightly, so the boys could see her, as well.
"Mr. King?"
"No," Tony shook his head. "Varsto. The older guy with the black suit and the maroon shirt."
"Oh." Tony had seen the elevator footage, and Peter knew he'd have decided that describing clothes was better than names. Especially since Peter hadn't actually been given all their names in introductions. He knew who they were because Alec had – and knew what they were because he'd recognized King. "What happened?"
"No idea, yet," the billionaire told him. "SHIELD had people up on the penthouse floor and there weren't any reports of gunshots or anything like that. The guy might have had a bad heart…"
"Or maybe someone killed him," Ned said. "Maybe he was going to tell the cops about his friends, or something… Turn state's evidence, or something like that."
Ned had seen all the cop shows and movies. And he knew that the people in the elevator with Peter had been mobsters, because Peter had quickly told him about them before they'd gone to the pool. After telling him that he couldn't tell anyone else.
"He's the head mafia guy," Peter said. "He's not going to call the police about himself."
"We don't know what happened, yet," Tony told them. "And I don't want you guys spending a lot of time speculating. Friday's going to keep an ear out and we'll know what happened, eventually. The takeaway for you is that the mob guys aren't leaving, tonight, like we were initially told – and they're in the hotel. Stay away from them. Got it?"
Peter knew that he was serious, and as much as he wanted to joke about becoming a mobster apprentice or something like that, he knew it wasn't really the time for it. Instead he nodded.
"Yeah, we're not going to go near them."
"We won't," Ned confirmed. He shrugged. "We wouldn't really have time, anyway," he pointed out. "The finals are tomorrow and the next day, and unless we lose, we're going to be too busy competing."
"True." Stark looked relieved – and definitely not as worried. "We get to come to the finals, right?"
"The last day one, yes," Peter confirmed. "I'm hoping Shuri can come, too. She's keeping track of how we're doing and will ask T'Challa if it looks like we get that far."
"Let me know if you need anything from us," Tony told him.
"We will. Thanks."
"Night, boys."
Both of them smiled.
"Night, Tony."
Pepper blew them a cheerful kiss and then the call ended.
Ned looked at his friend.
"What do you think killed the mafia guy?"
"How should I know?"
"Well, you were in the elevator with him. Did he set off your stomach? Something to tell you what was going to happen?"
Peter heard a snort of amusement in the back of his mind, even as he rolled his eyes.
"I'm not a death detector."
"You know what I mean. I wonder if someone poisoned him, to make room for themselves at the top. Maybe they were going to but then they got stuck in the elevator and had to wait…"
"Or maybe he just had too much bacon for breakfast…"
Now it was Ned who rolled his eyes.
"Aren't you curious?"
"No. I have better things to worry about – and so do you. Or do you want to lose this competition and have MJ scowling at us for the rest of our lives?"
"We're not going to lose."
Peter agreed, silently, but refused to agree aloud, so he didn't jinx them.
"Jinxing things isn't real," Alec pointed out. "Saying something out loud doesn't make it happen… or not happen."
"I'm not taking any chances," he told the ancient sorcerer, silently. Aloud, he simply tossed Ned's socks back at him, hitting his friend between the eyes, perfectly, three times in a row before Ned could duck and cover, laughing. "Let's see what we have in the fridge."
"Yeah."
Mob guys forgotten, for the moment, the boys turned to the mini fridge their hotel room had in the corner – and the snacks they knew they'd find in it.
OOOOOOOOO
There was a small conference going on in one of the rooms that SHIELD had rented for the duration of the competition. Natasha, Steve, and Bucky were there with three SHIELD leads, and on the TV display, Tony Stark and Nick Fury shared a split screen. Behind Tony, the others could see Pepper, who wasn't really a part of the meeting, but was listening in in case she heard something that she needed to hear – or to comment on.
"What have we learned?"
"The ME is calling it a brain aneurism," Tony told the others. "Apparently, there were several of them, all silently waiting for a chance to kill the guy. It was just his bad luck that it happened, tonight. His report said that he might have had it since he was a kid."
None of them asked Tony how he managed to get a copy of the report.
"It wasn't because of the elevator?" Steve asked.
"Elevators don't kill people," Barnes said. He frowned, though. "Usually a brain aneurism doesn't, either…"
"They can," Tony disagreed. "If it's been undetected and it ruptures." He'd done some research as soon as he'd read the report that Friday had pilfered for him and Pepper. "Varsto would have had some kind of headache symptoms, or something, but maybe he ignored them."
"What are the mob guys going to do?" Nick asked Romanoff.
She shrugged.
"We'll have to wait and see. Tony's already told Peter and Ned what happened – not the details, but enough for them to know the mob people are going to be in the hotel and that they need to stay away from then. Obviously."
"Obviously."
"Has the report been released to them, yet?"
"Varsto's cousin is next of kin," Tony replied. "He'll have it first thing in the morning."
"Then they should be leaving," Romanoff said. "They're here at Varsto's request, and since he's dead – and without the appearance of foul play – they should be leaving."
"True."
Tony nodded. It wouldn't be soon enough for his and Pepper's relief.
"Finals start tomorrow," he reminded them. "Pep and I will be there for the last part, but let me know if I can do anything before then."
"We will, Tony."
