"That was incredible…"

Peter smiled, accepting Shuri's hug, cheerfully.

"Yeah."

"Has there ever been a tie in an international competition before?" she asked, releasing Peter in order to hug Ned, who had finished greeting his mother and was now ready to celebrate with everyone else.

Even Peter's exotic girlfriend.

"We've never done an international competition, before," Peter reminded her, smiling when Pepper hugged him, too. "But the local competitions have had draws, before. Never a championship, though. It's a new thing."

"I think it's great," Pepper told him, and Ned's mom nodded her agreement. "No one loses, this way."

Peter nodded, too, looking over at the Japanese team, who were celebrating just as happily as his own teammates.

"True."

"Now there is a party?" Shuri asked.

"They have a reception planned," Ned said, shrugging. "I don't know that it's really a party, but they hand out the trophy –"

"Which will apparently need to be split down the middle and half given to each team," Tony added, amused, taking a chance to ruffle his son's hair rather than hug him.

Pepper wasn't the only one to smile at that.

"Or we can suggest that the Japanese team take this trophy home and another is made for the trophy case at MidTown."

Peter shrugged, but it seemed like a pretty good idea to him.

"When does the party start?" Tony asked his wife.

She'd know the schedule better than he did.

"No set time," she replied. "Since the round could have gone long – or it could have been shorter. They most likely have it set up."

Even as she spoke, one of the moderators made the announcement for the gathering, inviting everyone in attendance to go have a good time in the main ballroom on the same floor they were on, then. There were murmurs of interest and the occupants of the room headed toward the door at differing paces.

They started turning that direction, as well, but Tony settled his hand on Peter's shoulder, keeping him from joining the rest.

"Hang back," Tony told him, looking over at the Wakandan security folk and the SHIELD agents who were standing near at hand, keeping an eye on things. Then he smiled at Pepper and Shuri. "We'll meet you in the reception."

She nodded and led the others out of the room, while Tony and Peter simply waited for the room to empty. Then Tony looked at Peter.

"Are you alright?"

He, of course, knew that Peter had gone out. And by then, Friday had even managed to get the police and fire chatter about the incident – and some cell phone videos that had already been posted by a few of those passengers who had been on the train at the time the crane had fallen. One had even managed to video Spider-Man swinging away – although it was a little haphazard and blurry.

"Yeah. It wasn't even really all that bad."

"But it could have been…"

"Yeah. I suppose."

It was a crane and a subway train, after all.

Tony nodded, slapping his shoulder.

"Good job."

Which made the boy smile, cheerfully.

"Thanks."

OOOOOOOOO

With the stress of the competition now behind them all, the kids – and their chaperones and coaches – could have a chance to relax even more with the others at the reception. For some, it was even more fun than the day they'd gone to the compound and had met the Avengers. Now that there wasn't the potential competitiveness between them all, they were all cheerful.

Especially the two teams that had tied. That was a win for both and no one had to be a good winner, and no one needed to try and be happy for winning while at the same time trying to empathize with the losing team.

Not surprisingly, Tony was sought after almost as soon as he walked into the room for all kinds of casual conversation and also any photos that he was willing to allow those who were leaving as early as the next day. Willingly, he did take plenty of photos with people and chatted amicably with them, but pretty much always with Pepper beside him, both of them keeping an eye on Peter who was also finding plenty of people (mostly the kids on the other teams) coming up to talk to him and be introduced to Shuri.

Also not surprising, since the kids had already heard about Peter's girlfriend from Ned and other (mostly the boys) kids on his team and they'd been looking forward to seeing her for themselves. Under the watchful eye of her guards, Tony, SHIELD, and Peter who stayed beside her the entire time, Shuri met all of the kids from the other teams – and several of the chaperones who were more interested in the country that she was from rather than her.

She was gracious and friendly to all of them (she was a princess, after all) and very much used to being the center of attention, even if the night was a celebration of the competitors and not their ability to find someone exotic to date. Not surprisingly, she was almost as popular as Tony was, that evening, although she declined any pictures with anyone and those who tried to take a surreptitious of her would find, later, that their media had somehow been deleted or damaged.

No pictures were going to be taken of Wakanda's princess that night, as far as Friday and Tony were concerned.

"This was fun," she told Peter, when they finally had to call it a night. "Thank you for inviting me."

Ned smirked.

"You mean… thank you for getting to the finals so I could come… right?"

She smiled.

"That, too."

Obviously, if Peter's team had been eliminated in the first round, T'Challa wouldn't have seen a need for her to come to the finals, now, would he?

"Are you staying the night?" Ned asked.

Shuri shook her head.

"I cannot. There is much to be done, at home, unfortunately."

Not to mention T'Challa didn't like the idea of her being away from home overnight unless it was at the compound where she was under constant security.

"Too bad." Ned was thoroughly enjoying the way the kids would come up to her – even the cocky ones – and would immediately begin looking like they were overwhelmed. She was pretty and smart and came from a country none of them had heard of – and they were smart kids who knew where pretty much everywhere was. "I like having you around."

"Thank you, Ned."

"Stephen's ready to send her home," Natasha said, walking up in time to hear the last comment. Romanoff hadn't been hanging around the reception. She didn't need to be there, and truthfully, she didn't want to be there. This evening was about Peter and his friends celebrating their intelligence and the new friends that they were making. It wasn't about her being social to the new friends. Tony had to do that because he was Peter's dad. Natasha didn't have that problem. She smiled at Shuri. "Say your goodbyes, princess."

The girl smiled, too.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"So you guys are flying home, tomorrow?"

Nico shook his head.

"We are being allowed one extra day for sight-seeing," he replied. "Many of us aren't guaranteed to ever have another chance to come to America, and we want to be tourists."

"That makes sense," Peter said, nodding. The competition was done, and a couple of the kids on his team had actually left, going home with their parents when they'd left after the reception, but he and Ned (and Flash, MJ, and Abe) were going to be spending the last night at the hotel. Tony and Pepper had said goodbye, reminding Peter that they were still going to be at the tower and that they expected a call from him before he went to bed – just to check in. "Where are you going to go?"

Nico's eyes were excited.

"Everywhere. But I can't wait to ride the subway."

"Yeah?" Peter frowned at someone being so eager to do something that he'd done so many times. "Why?"

"Because it's iconic," Nico told him – and Ned. "Something you see in all the movies. That and the Phantom of the Opera were the two things we voted to see."

Ned rolled his eyes, good-naturedly.

"You guys need to get out, more."