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Once they manage to defeat Thanos and bring back everyone they lost, Peter finds himself clinging to Tony more than usual; Tony, similarly, can’t seem to stop finding reasons to hang out with Stephen Strange. One night, when he’s more sleep-deprived than usual, he mumbles something about ”stupid sorcerers with their stupid alive capes trading their stupid infinity stones for stupid lives that don’t matter”, but when asked about it later, he steadfastly denied it — and, mysteriously, all security footage from that night was erased from FRIDAY’s databanks. Regardless, it all amounted to Peter clinging to Tony who in turn was clinging to Stephen, and all together, they made some sort of weird quasi-family of broken people who needed someone to lean on.
For Peter, it started as soon as the dust cleared — no pun intended. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure what had happened, but he remembered the feeling of fading away, and the stricken look on Mr. Stark’s face as he begged for Tony to find a way to stop whatever was happening. So, part of why he clung to the man now was guilt; he made Tony look like that. He made Tony sad, and terrified, and broken. Peter had, until that moment, admittedly still felt that some small part of Tony felt burdened by his presence; like he was a nuisance to this man who could do so much better than spend his time looking out for some kid. But the other reason he kept “finding himself in the neighborhood” and “just deciding to swing up” was because the one thing he remembered about….wherever it was he was after he faded away, was that Aunt May and Tony weren’t there. He didn’t remember seeing anyone at all, but he especially felt the absence of them, and so half of his time after the Avengers set everything right was spent with Aunt May, and the other half with Tony.
Tony didn’t mind the kid hanging around so much; he would never admit — he was much too proud to — but he was glad Peter kept coming by. Tony could compare PTSD scars with the worst of them, but the one thing he had always — mercifully — managed to avoid was hallucination. So, whenever Peter came by, it was a living, breathing, technicolor piece of evidence that he succeeded. That they brought everyone back. That Thanos didn’t win. That, for once, Tony got to come home at the end of a battle and not think of all the ways things fell to pieces. Every time that kid came running out of the elevator, spinning some story about how he just “happened to be going by” when he decided to “swing up,” some part of Tony’s soul grew stronger.
Strange, Tony had no real explanation for; by all accounts, the two should not get along. Hell, if you looked at their interactions leading up to and during the first battle against Thanos, they didn’t. But then Strange had to go and do something Tony never saw coming — mostly because Strange had insisted it would never happen — and saved Tony’s life. And maybe part of Tony feels like he has to suck it up and be nice to the guy now because he literally wouldn’t be alive without him, but there’s also a part of Tony — that manages to slip out when Tony is so sleep-deprived he’d actually admit to being wrong about some of the stuff that went down with Steve — that knows he clings to Strange because the guy barely knew him, and still entrusted the fate of the world in his hands. Tony hasn’t had anyone put so much blind faith in him like that since Rhodey first came into his life — unless you counted Peter, which Tony didn’t, if only because the kid had perpetual stars in his eyes and didn’t see any of the darkness in Tony. Strange not only saw it, he had darkness to match, and once said he felt it made Tony understandable.
And as for Stephen….were he to be honest, he would admit that he mostly found it odd that Tony and Peter could stand to be around him so much. He wasn’t kind by any means, often saying whatever came to mind without thinking about how it might sound, or its potential to cause emotional hurt to anyone around him. He often said things about Tony or in reaction to Tony that he knew was hurtful, but Tony would just guffaw and clap his shoulder, or, on occasion, throw an arm around his shoulders and say something like, “Aw, I always knew I was your favorite, Doctor Wizard.”
Even Peter had completely warmed to Stephen somehow, taking to visiting him at the Sanctum, even on days when Tony wasn’t there as well, talking at Stephen at an approximate rate of a million words per minute. He didn’t even expect that Stephen should respond to him, took the vague “uh-huh” and “mhm” noises as confirmation that his stories were at least partially being heard, and kept going. Once, Stephen laughed at something Peter said about some kid named Flash, and Peter’s face looked like it was going to split in two from the force of his answering grin. After that, Peter came by more and more, and would even spend whole afternoons at Stephen’s side, not saying a word, just watching the Sorcerer Supreme work in silence.
And, so, an odd little family was formed. The other Avengers rarely said anything about it, save a few jokes here and there; Clint eventually joked that Stephen and Tony seemed to simultaneously have adopted Peter, and that was when things really got out of control. Thor, hearing the joke but not catching the fact that it was a joke, proceeded to order them a celebratory cake, congratulating them on the new addition to their family, though he admitted he, “did not know they had come together in such a way.” After that little event, everyone started referring to Peter as Tony and Stephen’s son, and the two even found themselves participating. When Peter complained about a test being difficult, Tony would shove him toward Strange and say, “Nope, he’s your son when he does bad in school. I never did bad in school.” Or, if Peter was messing with his web-shooters and managed to “accidentally” web up Bucky’s new arm, Stephen would point him to the labs and say, “You know the rules. You’re his when you break things.”
So, really, everyone should have seen it coming. Peter had been at the Tower all day studying for an exam, and kept emphasizing that the study guide he was filling out was worth a massive part of his grade, so they couldn’t let him stop until he was done. Naturally, this meant Peter left the study guide behind when he went home for the night. So, the next morning, Stephen is unsurprised when his phone rings at 8:05am, flashing Peter’s name and face.
He answers with a wry grin, saying, “Yes, oh troubled not-son of mine? What can I do for you on this fine Tuesday morning?”
Peter sighs, and Stephen could practically picture him rolling his eyes. “I forgot my study guide at the Tower last night. Can you bring it to me? I’d ask Mr. Stark but you’re so much faster with the sling-ring. I’m in the lecture hall in the science building, and it’s totally empty, so you don’t even have to worry about anyone seeing you, I swear.”
Stephen fakes a heavy sigh before responding. “Sure, Peter, I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks, ‘dad’,” Peter says with a laugh. “Don’t tell my other ‘dad’, but you’re secretly my favorite.”
Stephen picks up the paper, tucks it gently into his robes, and opens a portal to the lecture hall in Peter’s school….only to be greeted by raucous applause, and Peter yelling, “EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM OWES ME FIVE DOLLARS. I TOLD YOU MY DAD WAS A WIZ—”
Peter doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Stephen has opened another portal to Tony’s workshop in the Tower and has dragged him through. “— ard. Oh. What are…?”
Stephen just looks at Tony and gestures tiredly at Peter. “Tricked me into opening a portal into a classroom full of his peers. Your son. Yours. Take him.” And with that, Stephen opens another portal back to the Sanctum, leaving Peter with Tony.
“So…” Tony starts. “How much money did we make on the bet?”