Stephen stepped into chaos when he portaled back to the tower after checking in on the Sanctum and Kamar-Taj. The trip to Nepal was to check on the apprentices progress, and the Sanctum to check on the master that constantly filled in for him now that he lived at the tower. He checked on all three Sanctums but New York was a favorite for obvious reasons.

Now he wanted to go back.

Particularly because Scott and Sam were tossing a football in the house. At least Peter seemed to be keeping Clint's kids occupied. The archer was watching the other two with envy but he was trying to make a good impression on his kids. Stephen's respect for the man grew a little.

With a sigh, Stephen sends Levi to intercept the football flying toward Scott, the cloak catches it, chucks it at Scott's head (getting a loud 'ow! Hey') in annoyance, then calmly takes its spot in the corner of the living room. It was kind of nice that the cloak responded to his thoughts. It made handling the team so much easier.

"Mama Bear's home. We have to behave now." Sam cackles from the other side of the room.

Cassie looks up and then leaves the other kids to approach Stephen, and tilts her head farther back to study him. "So you're Spiderman's mommy?"

The doctor ignores Scott's facepalm behind him and smiles. "In a sense."

"Daddy has a crush on you." Cassie smirks when her father shouts, "I told you that in confidence Peanut!"

Peter snorts as he gets up. "It's not a secret." He walks over to Stephen and hugs him tightly. "Welcome home. How are the magical monks?"

"Boring. I never thought I would prefer the noise that comes with living with these assholes. Where's Tony?"

"Down in the lab. He had some last minute things to do for Christmas gifts."

"That would explain the ball throwing."

As Stephen walked into the kitchen, he took the time to take in the Christmas decorations quite literally covering the family floor. When he left yesterday morning, not a single piece of tinsel was to be seen. Now? It looked like Frosty the Snowman barfed.

Yes, there was fake snow. Apparently whatever was covering New York outside wasn't enough. A few weeks ago, Stephen would have chalked it up to Tony wanting to somehow making it up to Peter since the boy had trouble thermoregulating, but the sorcerer solved the little issue of the teen not being able to go outside and enjoy it. He made Peter dress warmly then conjured a heating spell just warm enough that he could still get cold but it wouldn't be fatal.

His son thanked him by throwing a snowball at the back if his head.

Peter soon realized his error when Stephen turned and multiple copies of his arms appeared.

Tony sensibly avoided that disaster. Bucky on the other hand jumped in to help Peter. The rest of the Avengers eventually following, creating the world's most intense snowball fight. It actually made the news.

"I would ask how you get the others to behave, but I've seen your powers. Both mystical and motherly." Loki smiles at Stephen from the table and the sorcerer joins him with a freshly conjured cup of tea. "It's about time one of you showed your face."

"I agreed to parent Peter...not the rest of the Avengers." Stephen thinks for a moment. "Nothing was broken right?"

"No. Not yet at least." Loki confirms.

Although nothing was broken, the trickster spoke too soon. Some of the Avengers, including Peter, started horsing around again and a few minutes into the chaos, a collective gasp reaches Stephen's ears. He stands from the table with a tired sigh, and Loki follows him around the corner to the living room to the Avengers frozen in place and looking up at the sorcerer in horror. It didn't take the man very long to notice the missing member.

Scott's eyes widen when anger slowly crawls onto Stephen's face. "Wait! He's okay! Just...nobody move! You might step on him."

Oh, Strange was livid now. "YOU SHRUNK MY CUB?!"

Bruce waves his hands wildly and attempts to shush the raging man. "Stephen! Peter is smaller which means we're louder!"

Mama Bear quieted instantly. Peter going through sensory overload was a worrying possibility. The teen was not accustomed to changing size like Scott was, and even if he was, his spider senses would be going haywire. Those absolutely would not be okay with the sudden change. Poor Peter was probably curled up and miserable.

Stephen points at Scott. "Find him. Now."

Scott uses one of his discs to shrink himself (as he did not have his suit handy) and five minutes slowly pass in absolute silence. Of course, Tony chose that time to show his face but everyone was thankfully able to keep him quiet. Loki, being the closest to the billionaire, whispers for him not to move, and Tony stops halfway to their position. He was very obviously confused at the silence, something even Clint's youngest son wasn't breaking, but probably gathered it was important.

Both Peter and Scott finally grow back to their original sizes behind one of the couches a couple minutes later, and Stephen dashes to the boy's side at the sight of hands over his ears and the sound of pained sobs. Steve pulls the ex-criminal away from the teen before Stephen can manage to run him over, and the sorcerer pulls Peter's head to his neck when he drops to his knees in front of him.

"Focus on me. Heartbeat. Smell." He notices Peter is holding back from touching him and remembers the boy saying Levi helped with his touch sense. The cloak was soft. "Do you need the cloak?"

Peter nods and Levi immediately floats over to curl around the teen.

"FRIDAY. Overload Protocol in the living room please." Tony says quietly as the Avengers (and their respective families) very slowly and quietly sit down around the living room.

The lights dim, shades cover the windows, and everyone waits patiently with bated breath as Stephen helps Peter through his sensory attack. A half hour passed before the teen finally stopped his miserable sobs and wrapped his arms around Stephen's neck, silently letting the man know he was feeling better. The sorcerer then turns his attention onto Scott once he was convinced Peter was well enough.

"Lang-"

"It wasn't his fault." Peter interrupts. "He threw the disc but I reached out and caught it by reflex. He was aiming for the tree."

"You would get yourself into trouble because of a reflex." Tony says from the other side of the couch.

Scott risks approaching the teen and gently rubs his back. "Sorry about that shortstack. You okay?"

Peter sniffs and rubs his eyes. "Y-Yeah. I'm okay now."

And just like that, everyone returned to their Christmas activities. Most of them actually just turned on a Christmas movie, and others gathered around the coffee table to play card games. Peter squishes himself in between Rhodey and Tony on the couch with Levi still wrapped around him since the cloak was being a little overprotective. Nobody was quite sure if it was the cloak itself or if it was acting on Stephen's thoughts, and some just assumed it was a little of both.

Dinner was had, both in the kitchen and in the living room since the dining table couldn't fit everyone there, and then gifts were exchanged much to the kids pleasure. Anything not safe for small eyes were either opened slyly, or was put to the side to be opened later, with only one incident that had parents and nearby Avengers covering kids eyes. In Peter's case, Levi smothered his face to block the view of Thor's gag gift from Natasha. The teen was not amused and definitely knew Stephen was responsible for the cloak suffocating him.

"I'm sixteen! I'm pretty sure whatever it is, I've seen worse on the internet."

Stephen coughs. "Sorry...habit."

Even though Levi moved away from Peter's face, the gift was already shoved away out if sight so he turned his attention back to his unopened gift. He had been buried in gifts. Granted, half of them were from his parents but the other half were from the team, Pepper, and Happy. All except the one in his lap.

It was from Aunt May.

Tony said she willed specific things to him and this was one of them. It was also one of the things he was putting finishing touches to that morning.

Peter cried for the second time that day (happy tears this time) when he ripped colorful wrapping away and found a leather bound photo album. It was filled with pictures of his biological parents, his aunt and uncle, and Peter. Baby pictures, rare pictures of a couple of vacations, birthdays...everything. The album was large and the pictures only filled about a third of it, leaving plenty of space to fill with more memories.

The last two pictures were a group photo with the Avengers, and the other, a picture of Peter, Tony, and Stephen curled up on the couch and dozing. It must have been from one of their movie nights.

Tony grins from beside him. "Platypus had to help me put that together. I kept getting distracted."

Rhodey hums around his forkful of pie in confirmation. "He was blubbering like an idiot over your baby pictures."

"You said you wouldn't tell!"

Peter smiles. "This...this is great. Thanks for taking the time to finish putting it together."

Tony smiles softly and throws his arm around the teen to pull him close and kiss the top of his head. "Of course kid."

A few more minutes pass until the last of the gifts are passed around and Tony stands. He maneuvers his way over to the tree and claps his hands together.

"Okay! So there's one more gift I need to give...at least hopefully it's seen as a gift..." He gets a bit of a collective laugh at that statement. "I wasn't going to give this but I got yelled at by at least four people so to avoid their wrath, and because I want to..." Tony plucks a small box hidden in the branches of the tree and turns towards Stephen, who at one point during the gift exchange managed to find an empty spot on one of the couches. The sorcerer looks at him curiously, and then his eyes widen when Tony drops to one knee and opens the box to reveal a beautifully customized but simple ring. "What do you say Mama Bear? Want to make it official?"

Stephen opens and closes his mouth in stunned silence until Happy elbows his ribs sharply. He then sighs with exasperation. It wouldn't do to show how happy he really was.

"You idiot. I thought you would never ask."

"Is that a yes? Please tell me that's a yes."

"Of course it's a yes."

Tony smiles as he stands back up and leans down to kiss Stephen, as he was still sitting, and everyone bursts into cheers and wolf whistles. Peter was the one to voice everyone's thoughts though.

"Oh my god! Finally!"