Stephen had been gone from the Tower for a few days to help Wong deal with a being from another dimension, but as soon as he stepped through his portal into his shared bedroom, he immediately felt tension in the air. It wasn't angry or thick enough to cut with a knife, but it was definitely annoyed.

The origin of the annoyance, Tony Stark, slumps into the room with an exasperated and defeated look until he spots Stephen and grimaces.

"He's your son now." Tony flops onto their bed as Stephen changes out of his robes.

"What is it this time?"

"He has gone on strike. Against sleep. He's been awake for three days Stephanie! Peter's driving me crazy!"

Stephen furrows a brow. "Why exactly is he refusing to sleep?"

"Who the hell knows with that kid? Yes I did ask," The doctor closes his mouth. "He went off on some tangent about hallucinations and I kind of clocked out halfway through his babbling. He was already awake for two days at that point and wasn't making much sense anyway."

"I'm guessing you want me to try to get him to sleep."

"Oh would you? I'm going to take a nap."

The sorcerer smirks. "If Peter has you taking a nap then it must be bad."

Tony flips him off over his shoulder as Stephen leaves their room, and the doctor soon finds Peter standing in the kitchen with a mug half full of coffee. If he watched the teen close enough, he could see him practically vibrating in his skin.

Stephen quietly approaches Peter and prys what is left of the cold coffee from the boy's hands, dumps it in the sink, and leads him to a chair at the table before sitting across from him. He watches dull eyes suddenly brighten in recognition and Peter grins.

"You're home!"

"Peter." Stephen starts slowly and the boy tilts his head. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I'm on a super secret mission!"

The sorcerer bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing. Just how far gone was this kid? He was obviously already zoning in and out of awareness if how he found the teen was anything to go by. Dark bags were forming under his eyes and his eyelids were drooping, so Stephen had to go about this carefully.

"Spiderling. What's two times two?"

Peter gives him a look like he had grown another head. "Its not nice to ask hard questions."

Very gone. "Okay. You're going to bed."

Peter jumps to his feet when Stephen stands and stumbles momentarily. "No! I have to know how long it takes!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The fairies!"

His cub had officially gone insane.

Well shit...Natasha was rubbing off on him if he was considering Peter his cub. He really needed to nip that in the bud before he actually said it out loud. If he did, he would never hear the end of it. It was bad enough they were all calling him Mom.

"There are no fairies Peter. I should know."

"They only appear when you're sleep deprived because then they think you can't see them."

"Your logic astounds me. Bed. Now."

Peter jumps up to the ceiling when Stephen reaches out toward him and the sorcerer sighs loudly. He had not signed up for this. He was tired and really hoping that the vigilante would see reason and listen to him, but the boy was too far gone in his exhaustion.

So the sorcerer tried whatever he could think of to get the boy to agree to bed. Cuddles?

Nope, Peter knew that would lead to him passing out.

Sleep aids?

Peter would metabolize those faster than they could take effect.

Movies?

He was barely sitting still long enough to listen to Mama Bear's offers. He was acting like a six year old instead of-

Oh.

"I know why you aren't seeing the fairies yet."

Peter freezes and looks down at him skeptically. "Why?"

"Have you drank any warm milk?"

"No."

"There's your problem. They only show themselves to someone who drinks warm milk. It shows them they can trust you not to hurt them." Stephen felt ridiculous but he would try anything at this point. "Why don't you go sit on the couch? I'll bring you some."

Peter nods excitedly and crawls across the ceiling into the living room and the sorcerer makes true to his promise of warm milk. Of all the weird things he's had to deal with, whether it be beings from another dimension or even Tony and Peter themselves, this was definitely in his top ten. If a yeti broke through a window, he wouldn't even bat an eye. A sleep deprived, fairy believing sixteen year old boy was weirder.

He never thought he would say that.

Stephen carries the warm milk into the living room and hands it to the vibrating teen and sits down tiredly. Peter chugs his drink and places the empty mug on the coffee table, and Stephen waits with apprehension.

It took less than three minutes.

Peter drools on the throw pillow under his head and Stephen motions toward Levi.

"Take him to bed."

The Cloak wraps around the deeply sleeping teen and carries him off to his room and the doctor returns to his and Tony's room. With a flop, much like the one Tony made earlier, Stephen lands on the bed and buries his face into his pillow with a satisfied groan.

The engineer beside him grunts at the disturbance. "He asleep?"

"After two hours of trying to peel him off the ceiling."

"How did you do it?"

"Warm milk."

Tony guffaws. "God, he's such a kid."

"Only because I convinced him it would bring the fairies."

"Fairies? No...no...I don't want to know."

Stephen laughs. "He was so far gone I'm sure he won't even remember."

"Little shit."

"Understatement of the year."