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Stephen opens a portal to the hallway outside the lab. Experience has taught him never to portal directly into the lab. Not when Peter and Tony are in there together.
Tony isn’t actually as reckless in the lab as most might think. Not when they aren’t in the middle of a crisis. After all, if he destroys something, he’s only making more work for himself. And Peter does actually take lab safety lectures to heart, most of the time. It’s just that when you put them together, they feed each other’s excitement until they both forget about being careful.
FRIDAY hadn’t called him to cancel his date with Tony, which is promising, but certainly not a guarantee that today’s lab session has avoided disaster. Readying himself to conjure a shield, Stephen carefully approaches the glass doors. They open as normal, and there’s no fire or shrapnel, but something still feels off. For one thing, it’s too quiet.
Stephen looks around, but doesn’t see either Tony or Peter. He frowns. Then the Cloak taps him on the shoulder and gestures toward the ceiling with one corner. Stephen looks up.
“Hey, Doctor Strange,” Peter says sheepishly, waving at him. He’s sitting on the ceiling almost normally, except for the massive glob of web fluid that’s encasing his right hand, sticking it firmly to the ceiling.
“Peter,” Stephen says, a little relieved. “Testing out a new formula?”
“Yeah. Longer lasting stickiness. The solvent is over there.” Peter points at one of the lab benches.
“Next time maybe keep it on you,” Stephen says dryly. He looks around, eventually spotting Tony, in the armor, wedged between a couple of support beams. He looks like the webfluid was misted over him, and it’s gummed him up between the beams quite thoroughly. “You couldn’t blast your way out?”
“Why do structural damage when it’s going to dissolve on its own?” Tony says philosophically.
Stephen shakes his head and retrieves the solvent, tossing it up to Peter since his hands are free. “I know you’re tempted to wait and see how long it holds you both,” Stephen says, then turns his attention to Tony, “but we have a date tonight.”
“I didn’t forget!” Tony protests quickly.
Stephen smiles. Of course he forgot. Tony loses track of everything when he’s deep in the engineering zone. That’s why Stephen comes to pick him up on these days. But all he says is, “You’ve got half an hour to get free and get ready.”
As unusual as it is, this has become very much part of their routine.
Stephen kind of loves it.