A/N: Okay! New story! This premise has been done a million times, I'm sure – although I admit I've never read it. (I have plenty of free time but with as much updating as I do, I don't have time to do a lot of reading of other fics) but it hasn't happened in my AU, so we get to play with it, too. I had a bit of help figuring out how I wanted to do this – some from my poor mother who isn't even an Avengers fan, she just is forced to listen to me prattle on about this storyline and the people involved. I think by now she actually does like it, a little, or she wouldn't engage with me about the stories – but she won't admit it. Also thank you to my friend Farah who allows me to bounce ideas off her – and comes up with some good ones, as well. Review and let me know what you think – or if you're shy, send a PM. That said, here we go!

OOOOOOO

WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT

The sanctum wasn't, technically, alive. Peter knew that. He'd been in it a number of times, and by then had explored it pretty much top to bottom – except for the room that held the Time stone. It always seemed to welcome him, though, with a humming in his mind that was similar to the one the Cloak of Levitation emitted when it was at it's most content. Only much more powerful, and never-ending.

Which was why he always seemed to feel warm when he visited.

It wasn't new, though, and the fever wasn't dangerous. It was just there and was a part of him that he accepted. Like the fact that anytime he went to the sanctum to visit, there was a fair chance he was going to be immediately engulfed by the cloak as soon as he crossed the threshold. It was always happy to see him, and was a willing companion to the boy whenever he walked around the place looking for anything new – or to find something that he might not have noticed in one of his previous visits.

Which happened all the time.

Wong was constantly bringing relics – old and new, earthly or alien – from the other sanctums to study, and occasionally for Peter to look at to see if he could discern anything new from them that centuries of study hadn't. He liked that, too.

He wasn't there for that today, though. He was just visiting after school to talk about Tony's upcoming bachelor party. It wasn't for a while, yet, but since Strange was a meticulous person who loved details, and Peter was going to be one of the few minors attending, the sorcerer supreme wanted to make sure he had some input from the boy. The party needed to be fun for all ages – even though he definitely intended for there to be adult refreshments – and perhaps some entertainment. Nothing too extreme, though, since not only would Pepper not approve, but neither would Natasha, and that wasn't a conversation that Stephen Strange wanted to have.

When Peter had arrived, both Strange and Wong were in the upstairs library. They were talking about a couple of new relics that Strange had brought in from the sanctum in China that Wong had been interested in studying. Not that the Chinese sanctum guardians didn't know how to study their own artifacts, but Wong was well respected – even among the other sorcerers – as a scholar, and they knew that the learning was more important than ego in most cases.

"We won't be long, Peter," Strange had told him when he'd arrived at the door, walking from the bus stop.

He could have teleported himself in, but he didn't mind taking the bus, since it was a good way to people watch, and Peter loved to people watch.

"No problem," he'd said, meaning it.

With the cloak wrapped around his shoulders and loving up on him, mentally as well as physically, he wandered to the far side of the library, looking at some of the display cases and some items that were simply on shelves. There were a few that he didn't recognize, even though this wasn't the area that the two men stored anything new, and he stopped to look at a chalice that glittered with a dull reflection of some lights from the lights in the library.

It made his spider senses tingle, gently, and he realized that some of the humming he was feeling in his mind wasn't the cloak or the sanctum, it might be coming from the chalice, as well. It wasn't evil, he knew, immediately, but he couldn't feel that it was really all that good, either. It just was. But it was alluring, as if the humming in his head was promising to give him everything that he could ever wish for.

Peter was able to ignore the subtle coaxing that he felt. For one thing, the cloak kept him somewhat distracted with its attentions and for another, as far as Peter was concerned, he had everything that he could wish for, really.

He turned his attention to a book that was next to the chalice. This one he knew – even though he'd never picked it up, since it pretty much exuded evil intent and malice and he had no desire to get too close. He did wonder at the animosity that seemed to be coming from both of the relics – and another that was stored on a lower shelf below them. Another evil-seeming item that was simply a pendant-shaped piece of what looked like onyx.

"Were these always here?" Peter asked the cloak, well aware that it knew pretty much everything that went on in the sanctum library.

It was its home, after all, and the thing probably didn't have a lot to do during the day when no one needed it for help or to cuddle.

The ancient cloak gave him a purely mental no, and what felt like concern – although it couldn't speak to him in actual words, even in his mind, so Peter wasn't sure what it was worried about. The build up from the three items so angry with each other and from being so close together was starting to really make Peter's head ache.

"Is this normal?"

Again a definite no from the cloak and a tug that told him they should probably move out of the vicinity – which Peter agreed with, completely. An angry roar filled his mind as he turned, and a corner of the cloak swung out to slap the book aside as the relic somehow threw itself at the two other objects, but came perilously close to hitting Peter.

There was an explosion – both mental and physical – as the four items; cloak, book, pendant and chalice all connected with each other. He felt the cloak wrap itself tightly around him, felt the Mind stone suddenly overwhelm him and then was thrown backward, cloak and all, and everything went black around him before he even hit the highly polished wooden floor.

OOOOO

"So where are you going to put these for now?" Strange asked Wong, looking at the items on the table and briefly glancing over the direction Peter had wandered, just checking on the boy – as he usually did.

Peter was smart enough not to touch anything without permission, and he had the cloak, of course, but when he was in the sanctum, the doctor liked to keep track of him. Just in case.

"I moved the book of Griben over to the back of the room and put the Vulcanized pendant on a shelf under it. That way I could leave these where I can have Peter take a look at them in the next lot of artifacts I want to have him try to figure out for me."

"That makes sense. We can have Tony-"

A blast – physical in nature but laced with a magical undertone that was so powerful both sorcerers felt it from the other side of the room suddenly shuddered the entire library, forcing Strange to grab the table to keep from falling.

Wong was already moving, well aware who was in that area.

"Peter!?"

Both men rushed over to the far corner of the library, and stopped at the sound of a sudden wail. A cry that was coming from something moving under the Cloak of Levitation, which was on the floor in the middle of an aisle made by several display cases – many of which now sported shattered glass. It was tightly wrapped up around something that was much too small to be Peter, but was moving and was definitely the source of the crying they both heard – unless the cloak had suddenly developed speech after untold millennia.

"What…?"

Strange stepped forward, while Wong moved his hands to form shields to protect both of them in case it was a trick. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

"What is it?" Wong asked, once he was sure he was ready.

"I don't-" the cloak suddenly moved, just a little, and Strange frowned. "What the hell?"

Sitting in the middle of the heavy cloth and a pile of clothing that was much too large to belong to him, screaming displeasure and fear, was a toddler.

"Oh, no…"